For SGA and Andrew Nembhard, NBA Finals isn't about ‘making friends' — or keeping them

New York Times

4 hours ago

OKLAHOMA CITY — The zen of Shai Gilgeous-Alexander felt authentic as he revisited the squandering of his Thunder's NBA Finals debut. A missed opportunity punctuated by the easy money he left on the table with his final shot.
But SGA had some 38 hours to sit with it, filter it through his processor. He emerged for interviews Saturday with his on-brand serenity and ready to give answers. Calmly and clearly.
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'Yeah, they are easy to put away now,' he said after Oklahoma City's practice at Paycom Center. 'There was a time in my career where it wasn't, and you grow and learn through that. I've just grown to learn, like, you control what you can control. I shot the ball, I missed it. It's written in history. There's nothing I can do now. That is a missed shot, and all I can do is try to be better the next shot. That's what I focus on. That's my mindset. At this point, it's like second nature.'
Yet another second nature of Gilgeous-Alexander also exists. It is just as on-brand as his macro perspective.
A nature that embraces friction of competition. A nature that heightens focus to course correct after losses or subpar games. A nature that absolutely hated getting cooked in crunchtime of the NBA Finals by his lil bro.
SGA didn't put away that part.
Andrew Nembhard defended the NBA MVP with his chest out and laced his countryman with a 'tween-cross-'tween-cross into a stepback 3. A clutch basket worthy of a Filayyy recap on Instagram.
'Yeah, he's a competitor,' Gilgeous-Alexander said. 'He's a winner. Plays the game the right way on both ends of the floor. Really good player. Yeah, he's a winner for sure. No doubt.'
Nope. Not falling for the banana in the tailpipe.
The overwhelming expectation for Game 2 is a Gilgeous-Alexander retort. Not that he played poorly. But he needed 30 shots to get 38 points and missed the potential game-clincher that opened the door for Tyrese Haliburton's heroics in Game 1. That alone is perhaps enough to provoke the NBA MVP to raise his level. Be more efficient. More clutch.
And Nembhard is extra motivation.
Because no one knows better than SGA how relentless a competitor Nembhard is, and how much better his game is when his confidence is peaking. And during the Pacers' late rally, Nembhard walked with the sway of the coldest villain.
Minutes before he put Gilgeous-Alexander in a mixer, Nembhard aggressively bodied his Canadian National Team cohort. On the way to the ref, to dispute the foul, Nembhard walked through the shoulder of SGA, uninterested in avoiding contact. SGA replied with a light shove, pushing the Pacers guard off him. Then, with SGA at the free-throw line, Nembhard walked conspicuously close, dishing another glancing nudge as he walked past.
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'Nothing more than two guys wanting to win,' Gilgeous-Alexander said. 'No malicious intent behind it, just wanting to win.'
The similar paths of these two young men make for a heart-warming tale of storge love. Gilgeous-Alexander grew up in Hamilton, Ontario. Nembhard was raised in Vaughan, about 45 minutes away. They developed their games well enough to finish high school in the United States. Both played for major programs in college — SGA one year at Kentucky and Nembhard two years at Florida before two years at Gonzaga. Both won a bronze medal for Canada together. Both are making their first NBA Finals simultaneously. They've pushed each other to get here.
'I'm not too worried about making friends out there,' Nembhard said Saturday. 'So whatever happens, happens in that sense.'
The storge love is on hold.
Because Nembhard is coming.
'This is the ultimate challenge, a guy like him who is the MVP,' Pacers coach Rick Carlisle said of SGA. 'He's just so skilled, so quick, bigger than you think. Everybody talks about the lethal midrange, but he makes 3s easily, too. He lives at the free-throw line. So there's no breaks. There's no breaks. But Drew is one of these guys that he has an equal focus on the defensive end as the offensive end, and that's — it's a bit rare with today's players.'
This is how Nembhard is wired. He wants to win, and he'll go through anybody in pursuit. Even his boy. Especially his boy. His friendship with SGA only makes him more qualified to be a nemesis.
Nembhard, 18 months younger, has been chasing SGA for the better part of a decade. When they were coming up, SGA was the prodigy, the touted talent expected to make it. They first teamed up with Canada's Junior Academy. SGA was top-ranked, and Nembhard wasn't all. His name didn't join the likes of Gilgeous-Alexander and RJ Barrett.
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Nembhard is here because of the chip on his shoulder. He establishes his name by taking on giants. He was a rookie when he went into Steph Curry's house and showed up the legend. In last year's first-round series in Milwaukee, Nembhard stood up to Bobby Portis, who once broke his teammate's jaw. Nembhard issued the first shove.
Now he's got the MVP and the big, bad Thunder in his sights. He loves this. He's too smart to say it out loud. But his swagger on the court, the look in his eyes when he talks, his reputation, it betrays an unbothered approach.
'I'm not really too worried about the individual battle,' Nembhard said. 'I'm not focusing on it. It's a team job to stop him. And we know that. … There's a name on every team in this league. … Third-string guys in the NBA can give you 25 on any night if you're relaxed and not being ready to play.'
Yeah. OK, Drew. Just another foe. Got it.
Gilgeous-Alexander knows better. Because he knows well. He understands as much as anybody who he's dealing with in this series. He'll require the poise of a champion to maintain the calming perspective he shared, to not make this about getting his lick back or devolve into some one-on-one battle. He's too good to bite on the bait.
Indiana is varying the coverages on him. The Pacers appear to be conceding outside shots, prompting Gilgeous-Alexander to drive into the set defense. They've also picked him up out high on the pick-and-roll, giving space for the defense to recover after the screen.
Indiana is not yet taking the ball out of his hands with aggressive traps and blitzes. Though a box-and-1 isn't above Carlisle, the results from Game 1 seemed to justify the Pacers' approach. High-volume Gilgeous-Alexander seems to limit his teammates' rhythm.
But down the stretch, when the game was close, the Pacers were more than fine throwing Nembhard on SGA and letting him handle it. Nembhard is fine with it, too.
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And we know Gilgeous-Alexander. We've seen enough. His second nature is also to embrace the competition. He inhales the smoke, as they say. He just talks trash with minimal words and maybe a cryptic social media post. He just declares his supremacy through brilliance and a tangible, if unspoken, bravado.
And so far in these playoffs, defeats have prompted a response from SGA.
In the Thunder's first loss of the postseason, Game 1 in the second round against the Denver Nuggets, he had 33 points on 26 shots. In Game 2, he had 34 points on 11-for-13 shooting. He had 18 in the Game 3 loss to Denver and 25 in the Game 4 win. He followed his 32 in the Game 6 loss with 35 in Game 7. Against the Minnesota Timberwolves in the Western Conference finals, SGA was 4-for-13 in a blowout loss in Game 3. But in Game 4, he dropped 40.
Now, he's on the biggest stage of his life, coming off a loss that reverberated around the globe. His team is facing a relative must-win game. And his brother from another, who's driven to prove himself, took Round 1.
'I always try to be aggressive and I never, like, predetermine it,' SGA said. 'I always, like, just let the game tell me what to do. So I guess last game, I felt more often than not, I had a shot or a play that I could attack on more than in the past, and that's just the way it went. So the same thing will happen in Game 2. I will read the defense, and I will play off my feeling and my instincts, and if it's calling for me to shoot or if it's calling me to pass, is what I will decide to do.'
Round 2 on deck.
(Photo of Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Andrew Nembhard: Matthew Stockman / Getty Images)