NEW YORK — The New York Knicks survived a winner-take-all Game Seven at Madison Square Garden Friday night, defeating the Indiana Pacers 108-101 to secure an Eastern Conference Finals matchup against the Boston Celtics that will tip Sunday afternoon at TD Garden and complete a conference-final bracket the league had not seen in this configuration in nearly a decade.

The game, which was effectively decided over the final three minutes of regulation after Indiana had pulled within two points with under five minutes to play, was characterized by the kind of half-court defensive intensity that has defined the entire series. Jalen Brunson finished with 32 points, eight assists, and four rebounds, including a stretch of three consecutive made jump shots in the final two minutes that effectively closed the door on Indiana’s comeback bid.

OG Anunoby, whose defensive performance on Tyrese Haliburton in the second half had been a focal point of pre-game coverage, delivered exactly the kind of defensive game the Knicks had needed. Anunoby finished with eighteen points, eleven rebounds, and three steals, and held Haliburton to four-of-twelve shooting in the second half after the Pacers’ point guard had scored fourteen points in the first half.

“We knew it was going to come down to the last four minutes,” Brunson said in the post-game press availability, his voice rough from the intensity of the close. “Every Game Seven I have played in has come down to the last four minutes. Tonight was no different. We made the plays we needed to make.”

Coach Tom Thibodeau, in his post-game remarks, characterized the game as “a clinic in defensive will” and singled out Anunoby’s second-half work on Haliburton as the decisive matchup of the series. Thibodeau also credited the Garden crowd, which he said had been “the loudest single building I have coached in” through the fourth quarter.

For the Pacers, the loss closed a series in which Indiana had multiple opportunities to advance and which several of the team’s veterans characterized after the game as the most difficult playoff defeat of their careers. Haliburton, who finished with eighteen points, twelve assists, and seven rebounds across thirty-eight minutes, said in his post-game press availability that the team had “left it all on the floor” and that the series result reflected “what New York is, when New York is what New York is.”

Coach Rick Carlisle, in his post-game remarks, said the team’s preparation had been “exactly what we wanted it to be” but that the Knicks had simply executed at a higher level over the closing minutes of the deciding game. Carlisle said the team would carry the series experience into next season and that the Pacers’ core was “going to be back, and they are going to be hungry.”

The Eastern Conference Finals will tip Sunday afternoon at 3:30 p.m. Eastern at TD Garden, with the Celtics having had six full days of rest since their May 11 closeout of Cleveland. ABC will carry the broadcast, with the conference-final series structured to allow for a two-day rest before Game Two in Boston on Tuesday evening.

The Knicks-Celtics series will be the third playoff meeting between the two franchises in five years, with Boston having won the previous two series in five and six games respectively. Coach Joe Mazzulla, in remarks delivered late Friday night from Boston, said the team had “been preparing for both possibilities for the past week” and that the Knicks’ Game Seven win required no fundamental change to the Celtics’ approach.

The Western Conference Finals tipped Sunday night at Paycom Center in Oklahoma City, with the Thunder hosting the Timberwolves for a matchup the league office characterized as “one of the most anticipated of the modern playoff era.” Oklahoma City, which had survived its own Game Seven against the Nuggets on May 10, was led to that result by Shai Gilgeous-Alexander’s 44-point performance and entered the conference-final round with both legs of its postseason path having required maximum-length series.

The NBA Finals are tentatively scheduled to begin on May 30, with the league’s schedulers maintaining flexibility around the conference-final series’ timeline. League officials said Saturday morning that the Finals schedule would be confirmed by the close of next week, depending on the pace at which the Eastern and Western Conference Finals progress.

The Knicks’ return to the Eastern Conference Finals is their first since the 1999-2000 season, when the franchise was eliminated by Reggie Miller’s Pacers in six games. Multiple New York sports columnists characterized Friday’s win as a “generational moment” for the franchise and noted the symmetry of the Knicks’ return to the conference final coming against the same Pacers franchise that had eliminated them a quarter-century ago.

Friday night’s attendance was announced at 19,812, the building’s standing-room capacity. The Garden’s broadcast camera repeatedly cut throughout the second half to celebrity attendees including Spike Lee, Tracy Morgan, and Knicks alumni Patrick Ewing and John Starks. The post-game Madison Square Garden network broadcast extended for an additional ninety minutes beyond its scheduled window to accommodate locker-room reaction, fan interviews, and team-historical retrospective segments.