Tyrese Haliburton said "that's why we brought him here" after Pascal Siakam's star showing for the Indiana Pacers against the New York Knicks.

Siakam poured in a playoff career-high 39 points on Friday, as the Pacers beat the Knicks 114-109 at Madison Square Garden.

Friday's victory propelled the Pacers into a 2-0 lead in the Eastern Conference finals series.

Siakam scored the Pacers' first 11 points and plundered 17 of his 39 points in the opening quarter.

"That's why we brought him here," Haliburton said of Siakam, who won an NBA championship with the Toronto Raptors in 2019.

"That's what he's here to do. He can get a bucket in so many different ways.

"We just kept feeding him, and I thought he did a great job of making big shot after big shot after big shot. Killing momentum.

"When you're in an environment like this, the crowd's getting into it, a lot of those shots can be backbreakers.

"What's really special about our group right now is we just have so many different people contributing. So many people doing special things."

Pascal Siakam had a playoff career-high 39 points and the Pacers held on late to beat the Knicks and go up 2-0 in the series heading back to Indianapolis. pic.twitter.com/XvHwvd62ef

— Opta Analyst US (@OptaAnalystUS) May 24, 2025

Pacers coach Rick Carlisle labelled Siakam's performance as "phenomenal".

Carlisle said: "He was the guy that got us going and got us through some difficult stretches.

"It's hard to score that number of points in a game like this where you always have a physical matchup defensively and there's a guy crashing and flying at the basket. But he did a phenomenal job.

"It's a quiet 39 points. It really was."

Despite the Pacers holding a 2-0 lead, Siakam warned his teammates against getting ahead of themselves.

"You can't ride a wave," he said.

"Can't get too high with the highs, can't get too low with the lows. I just appreciate the opportunity that I have here to have a bunch of guys that they want to hear my voice."