Аарон Несмит: Бэртэл үл харгалзан талбайд гарна

INDIANAPOLIS — This time of year, everybody’s got something.

Busted fingers, balky backs, banged-up elbows. It’s the cost of admission to May and June basketball, which is the only basketball that should matter. I get that “Ringz Culture” is derided in our more advanced age of thinking. But we do this every year to find out who the best team is. It’s not volunteer/charity hoops. If you’re not hurting after damn near 100 games, including the regular season and playoffs, you probably don’t deserve to be playing for a championship.

That’s why no one here was all that surprised when Indiana Pacers forward Aaron Nesmith strapped up his sprained ankle and suited up for Game 4 against the New York Knicks.

Not just because the 25-year-old Nesmith is a tough cuss. Not just because physical therapy for injuries has never been more detailed or administered by more people on a team’s medical and therapy staff than ever. But because the playoffs require you, if you’re not dead or you don’t have a shredded ligament in your lower extremities, to give it a go. You won’t always win, and you won’t always play well. But you have to play.

“When I got hurt, they came up to me, and they were like, ‘We want to see how you feel,’” Nesmith said after scoring 16 points in the Pacers’ 130-121 victory Tuesday, leaving Indiana one win shy of the NBA Finals.

“I was like, I don’t care how I feel. I’m playing,” he said. “This is what we all live for. This is (what) we’ve been preparing for all year long, our entire lifetimes. These moments, I can’t miss these moments.”

Tyrese Haliburton was the undisputed star Tuesday night, setting an NBA record for efficiency in a playoff game. But the Pacers are so close to their second-ever finals because of the spirit of their collective group. They’re still young in places. Haliburton just turned 25 in February; he’s a year younger than Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. Pascal Siakam is a sturdy vet with a championship ring from Toronto, but he’s only been here a year-plus. They are figuring this all out in real time. That requires sacrifice, and playing when you’re not at your best, against a fierce and hungry team looking to settle its own histories.

And if any franchise knows about postseason injuries and overcoming them, it’s the Knicks. Just Google Willis Reed. Even Sunday, Karl-Anthony Towns went down hard after banging knees with Pacers center Myles Turner. He clutched his knee in agony as Knicks training staffers ran onto the floor. A minute later, Towns was up on his feet. He limped back onto the court. He did what he could.

Nesmith went down midway through the third quarter of Game 3 on Sunday. There was correlation, if not causation, between his absence and the Knicks’ roaring comeback win that gave them life. Even though Nesmith returned to Sunday’s game, he didn’t have much lift and certainly didn’t have the spring that helped him splash 10 3s in the first two games of the series, including an NBA playoff-record six in the fourth quarter of Indiana’s own ridiculous comeback in Game 1. With just two days between Game 3 and Game 4, there was legit concern about his ability to play at a high level.

Thirty-two minutes and 26 seconds later, the concerns had been abated.

Nesmith hit two 3-pointers in the first three minutes of play Tuesday. Knicks guard Jalen Brunson only really got going in the first half when Nesmith sat, and second-year guard Ben Sheppard came in to replace him.

Nesmith had a fast-break dunk in the second quarter, flying past Knicks guard Josh Hart. And, most importantly, he took a monster charge from New York’s OG Anunoby with 2:30 left, with Indiana clinging to a 7-point lead, looking like it was about to fritter away yet another big lead, like it did in Game 3. He finished 5-of-9 from the floor and was a plus-20 in his time on the court.

Pacers coach Rick Carlisle said he was “really concerned” after Sunday’s game about how effective Nesmith could be Tuesday.

“He got a lot of treatment (Monday). Fortunately, we didn’t have to travel,” Carlisle said. “You get on a plane with an ankle (injury), and it has a tendency to blow up.”

But Nesmith never wavered in his belief he’d be ready.

“Right after the game, treatment started,” Nesmith said. “Red light therapy, Game Readys, (electronic) stim machines, hyperbaric chamber, anything you can think of, I was doing it pretty much from the buzzer of the last game to tipoff. And we’ll continue to do that and be ready again for Game 5 (Thursday). It was a long 24, 36 hours. I couldn’t wait for tipoff. That’s all I was waiting for.”

The playoffs are about attrition as much as talent. The least injured team tends to be the one that can hold up over two months of increasingly difficult, physical play and win the championship. So if you have a pulse, your teammates have, let’s say, an expectation that you’re going to give it a go.

If there aren’t literal limping ghosts, there are constant, YouTube-ready reminders about what people play through this time of year.

Ask Isiah Thomas about his right ankle. Or ask Scottie Pippen about his back during the 1998 finals. Ask Kevin McHale about his feet and ankles in the spring of 1987.

Ask Jayson Tatum how hurt you have to be to stop playing this time of year. It’s likely still too raw to expect he could provide a coherent answer. Joel Embiid has been laid low by so many breaks and tears this time of year, it feels unfair. (Dude had Bell’s Palsy during the playoffs last year!)

In 1996, Hall of Famer John Stockton hurt his elbow during the Utah Jazz’s Western Conference finals series with the then-Seattle SuperSonics. I was working for a four-letter television network at the time that demanded I find out how badly Stockton was hurting.

I went into the locker room before Game 4. I walked up to Stockton’s locker. I believe I got out the words, “John, how bad is your …”

To which Stockton replied with several words. Some were multisyllabic. Many were colorful. The gist of his response was, “Ask me again about my elbow and I’ll break yours.”

The Jazz ultimately lost that series. The Pacers are one win away from winning theirs. It will not be easy to finish New York. A different bounce here or there and it could easily be the Knicks who were up 3-1. But Nesmith will indeed get on a plane Wednesday with his teammates and head east. His ankle might swell up on the flight. He’ll almost certainly be in uniform again Thursday night, with whatever he can provide to help close the show.

“At this point, everyone’s got something going on,” Siakam said. “It doesn’t really matter at that point. Everybody just wants to win. You just go out there, put your body on the line for your teammates. Shout out to Double A, just coming in, playing the way he did. He was questionable or whatever. But he’s a warrior, for sure.”

(Photo: Nathaniel S. Butler / NBAE via Getty Images)