2024 NBA playoffs - New York, Indiana players focused on present - ESPN

The memories of the 1990s playoff battles between the New York Knicks and Indiana Pacers have been at the edges of the current Eastern Conference semifinal series for the past two weeks. Literally.

At Madison Square Garden, former Knicks John Starks and Patrick Ewing are courtside regulars, and their highlights in those epic seven-game series have been played on the videoboard at each game to maximize nostalgia. Former Pacers Dale Davis and Antonio Davis have waved to the crowd from their courtside seats in Indianapolis to remind fans of their victories in that era.

Reggie Miller was specifically brought in to call Game 2 for TNT, and legendary Knicks fan Spike Lee brought framed tabloid back pages from their famous interactions from those days.

It's all great fodder for fans and former players of a certain age.

In back-to-back seasons, 1994 and 1995, the Pacers and Knicks met in the playoffs, with both series going the full seven games. Each side won one. In 1994, the Knicks prevailed in the conference finals to advance to the NBA Finals for the first time in 21 years.

And in 2000, the Pacers beat New York in six games in the conference finals to make their lone Finals appearance.

But the current players? They're more interested in their own history than the grainy, pre-HD footage.

Only six active players on the Knicks and Pacers — Alec Burks, Josh Hart, James Johnson, Doug McDermott, T.J. McConnell and Pascal Siakam — were alive in 1995. None of them remembers Miller's eight points in nine seconds late in Game 1 of that series.

This year's Knicks and Pacers are much more focused on the opportunity at hand now, even if someday it might be them sitting courtside looking at highlights of the long past 2024 series that