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Early in Game 2 of their first-round series against the Cleveland Cavaliers on Tuesday, the Indiana Pacers were reeling. It was the complete opposite of their strong start in the opener. They missed jumpers, coughed up the ball and couldn't keep Cleveland out of the paint.

The Cavaliers, down two All-Stars (Evan Mobley and Darius Garland) and a key reserve (De'Andre Hunter), had spent the past couple of days talking about physicality and energy. It wasn't exactly a surprise that they were playing with hair-on-fire intensity, but the Pacers appeared to have no answers for it. When Cavs forward Dean Wade cashed a 3 early in the second quarter, the crowd sounded euphoric. They were on a 24-4 run.

"Cleveland hit us with a hellacious punch early in the game," Indiana coach Rick Carlisle said. "It was difficult to get the ball over halfcourt, let alone score."

Donovan Mitchell, in particular, would not be denied. In the first quarter, he rejected a screen and attacked the basket, hitting Ben Sheppard with a stepback, a crossover, a spin and a pump fake before drawing a foul and getting a bucket. In the second quarter, he came off a ball screen at halfcourt, exploded past Tyrese Haliburton and then soared over Pascal Siakam for one of the nastiest dunks of his career.

It was not just Mitchell, though. Jarrett Allen controlled the paint, Dean Wade gobbled up loose balls and Max Strus and Sam Merrill knocked down 3s. Craig Porter Jr., getting his first non-garbage-time minutes of the playoffs, came up with a block, two deflections and a transition dunk just about as soon as he checked in.

"If a team is playing with that level of force and connectivity and physicality and the crowd is behind them the way they were, they're going to kick your ass," Carlisle said. "And they were kicking our ass for a long time."

In the first half, the Pacers turned the ball over on 27% of their offensive possessions. 

"I mean, swimming upstream isn't even the word," Carlisle said. "We were trying to go into a hurricane that was coming at us." 

Given how poorly things were going at the beginning, they were lucky to be down by only 14 points going into the fourth quarter.

In the fourth, though, the script started to flip. With Mitchell on the bench, Cleveland missed its first six shots of the quarter, then called a timeout. Mitchell came back in, only to immediately throw a pass out of bounds and miss a layup on a fast break.

Down the stretch, the Cavs were the team that had difficulty even getting into their offense. Mitchell still found ways to get downhill, but they became increasingly reliant on his shot creation, to the point where their most reliable source of points was him barreling his way to the basket and getting to the line. Twice, Cavs coach Kenny Atkinson had to use a timeout because they were struggling to inbound the ball.

"We couldn't get the separation," Atkinson said. "Every possession, [the Pacers] just upped their physicality. Again, grabbing, holding. We couldn't move."

Mitchell finished with 48 points on 15-for-30 shooting. He shot 17 for 21 from the free-throw line, grabbed five rebounds and dished nine assists, including one to Strus when Indiana was double-teaming him in crunch time. Strus' 3 put the Cavaliers up 117-110 with 66 seconds left in the game. It could have been the dagger, if not for the insanity that ensued afterward.

The Pacers' Aaron Nesmith threw down a putback dunk off a missed free throw. Mitchell inadvertently elbowed Nesmith in the head in the backcourt, resulting in an offensive foul. Siakam attacked a closeout and made a layup. Strus turned it over on an inbounds pass. Haliburton got to the rim, drew a foul, split a pair of free throws, rebounded the miss, isolated against Ty Jerome and made a an absolute stunner of a stepback 3 for the 120-119 win.

Indiana was delirious, Cleveland devastated. It would be a once-in-a-lifetime turn of events for anybody else, but Haliburton and the Pacers did essentially the same thing a week ago in Milwaukee.  

"We just keep executing, we keep playing," Carlisle said. "Did a really good job situationally at the end. And obviously had to get lucky. But Tyrese hit another amazing shot to win the game. You don't see this very often. Let alone twice in one week. And so we're very fortunate."

After his offensive foul with 45 seconds left, Mitchell checked out for the possession that followed. Atkinson said he asked out "because he was cramping." Mitchell played through a calf issue, and Atkinson said the team collectively "ran out of gas" near the end. He also said he loved how the Cavs competed.

"We outplayed 'em," Atkinson said. "With fatigue comes [poor] decision-making, right? We had some poor decision-making plays at the rim. Turnovers. A couple bad decisions, I felt like. That was part of the collapse."

Cavaliers vs. Pacers: The six mistakes Cavs made that opened the door for Tyrese Haliburton's Game 2 heroics
Sam Quinn
Cavaliers vs. Pacers: The six mistakes Cavs made that opened the door for Tyrese Haliburton's Game 2 heroics

Atkinson said his only regret was not playing the reserves more minutes. He said that Mitchell "singlehandedly" kept Cleveland in the lead until it wasn't anymore.

"I don't know what more he could do," Atkinson said.

The Pacers "wore them down some," Carlisle said. "And Mitchell had a heroic game. But right now we're deeper than them. And even when we weren't playing well, we were playing fresh guys."

Had Haliburton missed the final shot, Game 2 could have been a testament to Mitchell's relentlessness and the Cavs' depth. Instead, it is a potentially monumental missed opportunity for the team that finished the regular season 64-18 and No. 1 in the East.

"We felt like we were doing everything right to win this game," Allen said. "And just a couple moments led to our downfall."

Losing in such heartbreaking fashion is a "tough blow," Atkinson said, understating it immensely. If nothing else, though, Cleveland spent most of the game showing how scary it can be when it's clicking.  

"We were able to find out a way to go up 20 at one point," Allen said. "And we did let the lead get away from us, but we found the blueprint."

And after a few days off, maybe Mobley, Garland and Hunter (or at least one or two of them) will be back in the lineup for Game 3 on Friday. Down 2-0 and going to Indianapolis, Mitchell and the Cavs can use all the help they can get.