INDIANAPOLIS — Victor Oladipo took matters into his own hands after a sluggish first half Wednesday night.

He drove to the basket, made shots and wound up scoring 16 of his 22 points in the final 24 minutes to lead the Indiana Pacers past the New York Knicks 121-107 on opening night.

“He wanted to be assertive in that second half,” new coach Nate Bjorkgren said after collecting his first career win. “I thought he was very aggressive, attacking the basket more, looking to shoot it more. I liked his aggressive mentality on both ends of the floor.”

Domantas Sabonis finished with a career-high 32 points, along with 13 rebounds and five assists to help Indiana win its fourth opener in five years.

RJ Barrett finished with 26 points and Alec Burks had 22 for New York, which lost on opening night for the fourth time in five years and the first time in coach Tom Thibodeau's tenure.

And after a strong start, Thibodeau certainly expected a stronger finishing punch from his team.

“The way we played in the first half is the way we need to continue to play,” he said. “We probably played 24 minutes of good basketball and to win on the road, you have to do more than that.”

It wasn't pretty and with only a few dozen people in the Bankers Life Fieldhouse stands, the energy was lacking, too.

But Oladipo's opening outburst in the second half changed everything.

The two-time All-Star scored the Pacers' first 11 points in the third quarter then found T.J. Warren for a breakaway layup to give the Pacers a 78-77 lead with 5:50 left in the quarter. Indiana never trailed again.

The Pacers extended the margin to 83-77 after three, made it a double-digit game early in the fourth and pulled away midway through the fourth.

“I'm just going to go out there and be assertive, be aggressive,” Oladipo said. “Everything else will take care of itself.”