Pascal Siakam praises Karl-Anthony Towns after Pacers win Game 4 to take commanding 3-1 lead over Knicks in East Finals.

Tyrese Haliburton had a triple-double, Pascal Siakam scored 30 points and Bennedict Mathurin chipped in 20 points off the bench.

Pascal Siakam is one of the best playoff performers in NBA history that no one really talks about as such.His consistent excellence is a big part of the reason the Indiana Pacers are a game away from the NBA Finals.

Siakam's career-high 39 points gave the Pacers a 114-109 win and a 2-0 series lead coming home. Here's what we learned.

Another 30-point performance

Less than three weeks later, the Pacers acquired fellow forward Pascal Siakam from Toronto for a return that included three first-round picks. Siakam gave the ascendant Pacers an established scorer with championship pedigree, having served as the second option on the 2019 Raptors team that won the NBA Finals.

Call it the Pascal Siakam game. He delivered one of the best performances of his career in the Knicks’ 114-108 Game 2 loss to the Pacers on Friday night at Madison Square Garden. He finished with 39 points on 15-for-23 shooting from the field — by far his best scoring night of not just the postseason. but the entire season.

Siakam is a champion, helping the Toronto Raptors win their first and only NBA title in 2019, and he seems poised to achieve the same feat with the Pacers. Indiana was immediately dubbed the winner of the trade, but his sustained excellence just drives that point home.