Who's Most to Blame for Knicks 3-1 Hole vs. Indiana Pacers in NBA Playoffs?

After a pair of six-game wins in the first and second rounds, the New York Knicks find themselves facing elimination and down 3-1 after losing to the Indiana Pacers on Tuesday, 130-121.

The series is headed back to Madison Square Garden for Game 5, but there's obviously an uphill climb ahead for New York.

Winning three straight, even with two at home, is far from likely. And as we await their first chance to narrow the gap, it's time to examine how the Knicks got here.

Who's most to blame for this 3-1 deficit? Scroll below to find out.

5. Jalen Brunson

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It might seem silly to shovel any amount of blame on the superstar point guard who just won Clutch Player of the Year and is averaging 29.9 points in the playoffs, but four games into the conference finals, the numbers are starting to tell a pretty interesting story.

New York is now down 11 in the aggregate, but Jalen Brunson is individually a minus-26. In other words, the Knicks have actually won the non-Brunson minutes by 15 in this series.

And while individual plus-minus can be awfully clunky, especially over a sample as tight as four games, there may be lessons in the numbers against Indiana.

Brunson is undoubtedly one of the best individual players in the NBA, but his tendency to pound the ball can rob the offense of rhythm and makes it harder for teammates to remain engaged when they're not touching the ball. When his blatant attempts to draw a foul go unrewarded, possessions can be stopped in their tracks.

On the other end, his lack of size, particularly against a team as long as Indiana, is giving the Pacers' attack an easy target.

Of course, none of this is to suggest that New York would be better off without Brunson or even playing him a little less. That's absurd, but he may need to adjust his approach a bit to survive this series. Be more willing to get off the ball. Trust that it will find its way back.

He can't suddenly grow three inches and become less of a liability on defense, but he can add a little variety on the more glamorous end.

4. New York's Wing Duo

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Mikal Bridges and OG Anunoby haven't necessarily been bad in this series.

Bridges is averaging 17.0 points and shooting 40.0 percent from deep. Anunoby is at 17.5 points.

But neither is doing much in the ancillary categories (like rebounds and assists) and both are on the team as the result of deals that suggest they're stars.

New York traded a whopping five first-round picks, one first-round pick swap and one second-round swap for Bridges. Anunoby is the 32nd-highest paid player in the NBA this season.

Committing that amount of money and draft capital to a forward duo now combining for 8.0 rebounds, 4.0 assists and 3.8 turnovers in the conference finals is a letdown.

And while Brunson's ball dominance certainly has something to do with the muted output from Bridges and Anunoby, both could still impose their wills on these games a bit more than they have.

3. Aaron Nesmith

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After an ankle injury knocked him out of a portion of the second half of Game 3, Aaron Nesmith was questionable to play on Tuesday.

Unfortunately for the Knicks, he played a full minutes load, and his impact was huge again.

Nesmith was a team-high plus-20 in Game 4. In the Game 2 victory he was 2-of-3 from deep and plus-12. And in Game 1, his late barrage helped him total 30 points and completely flipped the series opener.

The three-point shooting Nesmith provides is perhaps the most obvious benefit of having him on the floor, but his on-ball defense on Brunson has arguably been even more important.

He makes possessions for the undersized guard, to put it mildly, chore-like, even if Brunson ends up scoring on them.

And as long as we're hading out "blame" for New York's troubles, the Pacer leading the way in plus-minus deserves plenty of it.

2. Tom Thibodeau

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One of the themes of this postseason has been depth. The two teams up 3-1 in the conference finals, the Pacers and the Oklahoma City Thunder, boast plenty of it. Some of the teams left in their wake, like the Denver Nuggets and perhaps soon the Knicks, don't.

And while front offices deserve plenty of blame for that, coaches (and their coaching and developmental staffs) have a six-month long season to craft rotations fit for the playoffs and get individual players up to speed.

Tom Thibodeau, as he's famously done for much of his career, leaned as heavily on his starters as any coach in the league. Bridges, Josh Hart, Anunoby, Karl-Anthony Towns and Brunson were first, second, ninth, 27th and 39th, respectively, in total minutes this season. And Brunson missed 17 games to injury.

All that time given to the regulars helped New York win 51 games, but it may have also cost some of the younger players experience that could be helping now.

Those five, Mitchell Robinson and Miles McBride are the only Knicks who can be trusted to play meaningful minutes in this series, and that may simply not be enough against a team as deep, fast and relentless as the Pacers.

1. Tyrese Haliburton

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Ultimately, though, there may not be much Thibodeau or any other Knick can do to slow down the buzzsaw led by Tyrese Haliburton, who's on a full-blown superstar trajectory in this posteason.

On Tuesday, just over a month after an anonymous player survey named him the league's most overrated player, Haliburton had 32 points, 15 assists, 12 rebounds and four steals. No one in league history had matched or exceeded all four thresholds in a single playoff game before.

And for the entire postseason, he's now putting up 19.4 points, 9.8 assists and 2.6 threes. Indiana is dominating his minutes. And he has his Pacers on the verge of the NBA Finals.

Yes, the Knicks deserve plenty of blame for the current state of this series, but no one is more responsible for the 3-1 deficit than Haliburton.