Thunder power past Pacers to level NBA Finals
Gilgeous-Alexander of the Oklahoma City Thunder attempts a layup against the Indiana Pacers (William Purnell)
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander scored 34 points as the Oklahoma City Thunder bounced back to secure a series-levelling 123-107 victory over the Indiana Pacers in game two of the NBA Finals on Sunday.
No.1 seeds Oklahoma City, who suffered an agonising last-second loss to Indiana in game one on Thursday, roared back to life with a dominant performance on their home court to square the best-of-seven series at 1-1.
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NBA Most Valuable Player Gilgeous-Alexander, who finished with 38 points in game one, once again led the way for Oklahoma City, who saw five players finish in double figures.
Alex Caruso backed Gilgeous-Alexander with 20 points from the bench, including four three-pointers, with Aaron Wiggins bagging 18 after draining five-of-eight from outside the arc.
Indiana star Tyrese Haliburton had a frustrating outing, giving up five turnovers in the face of an improved Oklahoma City defensive performance, while being restricted to 17 points.
Gilgeous-Alexander said the Thunder's resurgent defensive effort had laid the foundations for the win.
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"We just know with them, that's where it starts -- they're a high-powered offense," the Canadian star said.
"They play fast, score a bunch of points and if you don't get stops, you're running all the game and they can beat you that way," added Gilgeous-Alexander.
Gilgeous-Alexander said Oklahoma City had quickly reset after the disappointment of defeat in game one.
"Basketball is a game of ups and downs, the season is full of ups and downs," he said. "The series is full of ups and downs and it's about the team that can stay level-headed and get better throughout the experiences that are going to come out on top."
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Advertisement 'I think tonight was a better representation of how we play,' said Thunder reserve Alex Caruso, who scored 20 points on 6-of-11 shooting in 27 characteristically hyperactive minutes off the bench. It was, in virtually every capacity. After combining for 23 points on 28 shots in Game 1, Jalen Williams and Chet Holmgren combined for 34 on 25 in Game 2. Holmgren also provided strong rim protection and held his own on multiple possessions when switched out onto the perimeter, while Williams drew praise from Daigneault for an attacking approach that saw him draw seven fouls and dish five assists. 'He didn't get off to a great start in his first stint, but he really settled into the game,' Daigneault said of Williams. 'He's huge for us. All the things he brings to the game — defensively, size, versatility, physicality, offensive, on-ball, off-ball … that floor is really high. We really need him every single night.' Advertisement The uptick from Williams and Holmgren was emblematic of the overall bounce-back for Oklahoma City, which scored a scorching 128.1 points per 100 possessions against an overwhelmed Pacers defense. After going just 28-for-68 (41.2%) inside the 3-point arc in Game 1, Oklahoma City shot 26-for-46 (56.5%) on 2-pointers in Game 2, a dramatic improvement finishing on the interior. After notching a season-low 13 assists in Game 1, the Thunder nearly doubled their dimes, dishing 25 against 13 turnovers. They got to the line more often: 20-for-24 in Game 1, 29-for-33 in Game 2. They created and made more 3-pointers: 11-for-30 in Game 1, 14-for-36 in Game 2. After decisively losing the rebounding battle in Game 1 — though, as both Daigneault and Pacers head coach Rick Carlisle noted, that was partly a function of there being fewer defensive rebounds for OKC to get, considering how often they turned Indiana over in the first half — the Thunder earned a 43-35 edge on the glass. After giving up 12 buckets at the rim in Game 1, they allowed just five in Game 2, doing a better job of forcing the Pacers into contested midrange looks. While they allowed 40 3-point attempts, those looks more often felt harried and off-rhythm, launched over crisp and hellacious Thunder closeouts. Advertisement They smothered Tyrese Haliburton, holding him to just five points on seven shots with four assists against three turnovers through three quarters. They better matched the physicality of Pascal Siakam, Myles Turner, Andrew Nembhard and Aaron Nesmith, refusing to concede space and clean shots to the Pacers' other starters, short-circuiting Indiana's offensive ecosystem in the process. 'I thought the guys did a really good job of keeping the foot on the gas, especially defensively,' Daigneault said after Oklahoma City held Indiana to just 104.4 points per 100 possessions — a worst-in-the-league-caliber offensive performance — through the four-minute mark of the fourth quarter, when Carlisle waved the white flag and pulled his starters. 'I thought we really amped it up on that end of the floor.' The Thunder rolled on the offensive end, too, with the NBA's Most Valuable Player continuing his assault on both the Pacers defense and the record books. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander scored a game-high 34 points in Game 2, giving him a total of 72 in the series — a new high-water mark for any player in his first two career NBA Finals games, surpassing the 71 that Allen Iverson poured in back in 2001. But unlike in Game 1, where the Pacers were able to (somewhat) limit the MVP's damage to tough self-created buckets, Gilgeous-Alexander needed just 21 field-goal attempts to crack 30 on Sunday — and also added eight assists to six different teammates, breaking down the defense and drawing help before kicking it out to create 22 more Thunder points through his passing. Advertisement 'The way I see it, I have no choice,' Gilgeous-Alexander said of relying on his teammates. 'No one-man show achieves what I'm trying to achieve with this game. All the stats and the numbers, they're fun. I don't play in space as much as I do without having them out there. I don't get open as much as I do without having the screeners out there … those guys are the reason why we're as good of a team as we are. I just add to it.' The Thunder are hard enough to beat when Gilgeous-Alexander's going off by himself. But when he's got help — to the tune of four other Thunderers scoring 15 or more points, the first time five teammates have done that in a Finals game since the Raptors did it against the Warriors in 2019 — they're damn near impossible to deal with. Caruso drilled four 3-pointers off the bench. Aaron Wiggins, relegated to just nine minutes in Game 1, came out firing in the second quarter, scoring eight points in eight minutes as part of a trademark 19-2 Thunder run that turned a two-possession game into a 23-point boatrace. (Indiana promptly ripped off 10 points, if only to remind Oklahoma City that, as Jalen Williams said before Game 1, 'They're never too far behind, and we've always got to keep that in the back of our mind.') Advertisement 'I think we just kind of found a rhythm on both ends of the court,' said Wiggins, who finished with 18 points on 6-for-11 shooting, including a 5-for-8 mark from long range, in 21 minutes. 'We were able to get stops, get out in transition, hit a couple shots. Once we kind of got going, you could kind of just feel the energy playing a factor in that.' And, crucially, that energy never really waned. When the Pacers started drawing fouls early in the third quarter, getting into the bonus early and giving themselves a chance to march to the free-throw line to get their offense unstuck, the Thunder remained poised, took care of the ball and continued to generate good looks for themselves, scoring 34 points on just 23 possessions in the frame to keep them at bay. When Indiana had a shot to cut the deficit to 16 in the closing seconds of the third — an opportunity to maybe grab a sliver of momentum, some steady footing from which to mount one last furious charge — Cason Wallace swatted the hell out of it: The Thunder never eased up. Not when they once again started small, with Wallace in place of Isaiah Hartenstein. Not when Hartenstein checked in for Holmgren midway through the first quarter — or when Holmgren checked back in for Luguentz Dort with 3:51 to go in the first, as Daigneault went double-big against Indiana's reserve frontcourt of Obi Toppin and Thomas Bryant, kicking off a 9-0 Thunder run to end the quarter. Not when they turned to Wiggins and rock-solid small-ball 4 (and sometimes 5) Kenrich Williams to better match Indiana's size on the perimeter. ('I don't know if there was any lineup that they used that wasn't impactful for them,' Carlisle said.) Advertisement Not when the Pacers made a couple of runs to cut the deficit to 13 — the moments where things got wobbly in Game 1. The Thunder never wobbled on Sunday. They stood tall, firm, sovereign. The 68-win juggernaut we watched all season showed up in Game 2, giving the Pacers plenty to think about as they board the plane to head back home. 'Another bad first half,' Carlisle said. 'Obviously, it was a big problem, and we just played poorly. A little bit better in the second half, but you can't be a team that's reactive and expect to be successful or have consistency. So we're going to have to be a lot better on Wednesday.' Advertisement As will Oklahoma City. Daigneault said that the Thunder try to use the early games of a series 'to learn what our options are, and what our trade-offs are, and … just get a little bit more information.' 'Now we have it,' he said. 'We'll apply that as we move forward in the series.' Gilgeous-Alexander highlighted one specific thing they learned the hard way in Game 1 and applied in Game 2 — and, in the process, looked a hell of a lot more like the Thunder team that dominated the league this season. 'You can't just throw the first punch,' he said. 'You've got to try to throw all the punches, all night. Yeah, that's what we did: We threw enough punches tonight to go get a W.'
