Shai Gilgeous-Alexander takes control as Thunder roll past Pacers to even NBA Finals at a game apiece

Hamilton Spectator

4 hours ago

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander
says he figures out what he must do on a game-to-game basis and he's never sure what it's going to be.
Lots of shots? OK. Plenty of assists? Then that'll be it. Some steals? Sure.
He had no preordained idea going into Game 2 of the
NBA Finals
, and ended up ding a lot of everything.
Thirty-four points. Eight assists. Four steals. Five rebounds. A blocked shot. Total control from start to finish. And more than enough for Gilgeous-Alexander and the Oklahoma City Thunder to subdue the Indiana Pacers 123-107 Sunday night and even the series at 1-1 heading into Wednesday's third game,
Gilgeous-Alexander saw what was needed and made it happen.
'I always try to be aggressive and I never, like, predetermine it,' Gilgeous-Alexander said leading up to the game. '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 defence and I will play off my feeling and my instincts.'
According to the NBA, Gilgeous-Alexander's 72 points in his first Finals are the most in the first two games by any player.
'Shai, you can mark down 34 points before they even get on the plane tomorrow for the next game,' Indiana coach Rick Carlisle said after the game. 'The guy's going to score. We've got to find ways to make it as tough as possible on him. (Jalen) Williams played really well tonight. All their guys played well. And so we're going to have to do a lot of things better.'
OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — For the Indiana Pacers, a chance at being perfect in Games 1 and 2 of these
The Thunder are long used to seeing Gilgeous-Alexander up to such hijinks.
'Unsurprising at this point,' Oklahoma City coach Mark Daigneault said. 'It's just kind of what he does. He just continues to progress and improve and rise to every occasion that he puts himself in and that we put ourselves in.
'I thought his floor game tonight was really, really in a great rhythm. I thought everyone played better individually, and I thought we played better collectively. I think that was a byproduct.'
The Thunder were never really threatened. They took an 11-point lead with about eight minutes left in the first half and the Pacers never got closer.
Oklahoma City forced 15 turnovers that led to 14 points, and grabbed 11 offensive rebounds and turned them into nine second-chance points. There was not a stretch of the game where it looked like Indiana was truly comfortable.
'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.'
Gilgeous-Alexander's night was made a bit easier by major contributions from Chet Holmgren (15 points), Jalen Williams (19) and Alex Caruso (20). They all played better than they had in Game 1, allowing the Thunder to thrive with their multi-faceted offence.
OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — You are Tyrese Haliburton.
Tyrese Haliburton,
whose bucket with less than a second remaining won Game 1
, had a pedestrian night for the Pacers. He finished with 17 points but was far too passive for too long as the game got out of sight. He had just five shots and six points through the first three quarters.
Aurora's
Andrew Nembhard
had 11 points for Indiana and
Pascal Siakam
chipped in with 15.
'People shouldn't just look at (Haliburton's) points and assists and judge how he played, or judge how any of our guys played just on that,' Carlisle said. 'That's just not … that's not how our team is built. I mean, we are an ecosystem that has to function together, and … we've got to score enough points to win the game but who gets them and how they get them (is) not important.'
If there is one thing the Pacers wanted to avoid, it was to dwell on their unlikely comeback in Game 2.
'I'm not interested in talking about the past,' Carlisle had said before the game. 'Each day, as you are on a playoff run, is like a new day. I find that looking back is a dangerous thing. We've got to keep our eye firmly where it needs to be, which is on now and the next thing.'
The focus now will be on Wednesday's Game 3 in Indianapolis and what challenges it will present. And what happens next won't be predicated on what happened before.
'Each game in this series is going to look different,' Carlisle said. 'I mean, every game in every other series we've played, a playoff series is a series of seven chapters, and each one takes on a different personality.'
With a first-quarter basket, Gilgeous-Alexander became the 12th player in NBA history to crack the 3,000-point plateau (regular season and playoffs combined) in one season.
Michael Jordan did it 10 times, Wilt Chamberlain did it five times and 10 others — Gilgeous-Alexander, Bob McAdoo, Elgin Baylor, James Harden, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Kevin Durant, Kobe Bryant, Luka Doncic, Rick Barry and Shaquille O'Neal — have each done it once.