Pacers vs. Thunder NBA Finals: Yep, this is the OKC team that is trying to put a bow on a historic season
OKLAHOMA CITY — After blowing a fourth-quarter lead in Game 1 of the NBA Finals, the Oklahoma City Thunder spent every waking hour since Thursday night hearing about it.
About how they galaxy-brained themselves with their starting lineup switch. About how blinking first and going away from playing two-big lineups cost them not just a game, but home-court advantage. About the myriad tactical adjustments they desperately needed to make to stem the tide of the rampaging, team-of-destiny Indiana Pacers. About everything.
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So Thunder head coach Mark Daigneault got in the lab, pored over the film and came up with the most brilliant adjustment that any coach can make:
Hey, everyone: play better.
'I think we were just a little bit better in a lot of different areas — of execution, of pace, organization, decision-making in the paint, aggressiveness at the basket, gathering the ball,' Daigneault said Sunday, after Oklahoma City returned serve in a dominant 123-107 win to level the 2025 NBA Finals at one game apiece. 'We just were a tick forward in all those areas … I thought everyone played better individually, and I thought we played better collectively.'
Masterful gambit, Coach.
Oklahoma City Thunder guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander was tough to stop in Game 2 of the NBA Finals on Sunday, June 8, 2025, in Oklahoma City. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
The Thunder did on Sunday what they've done after losses all season: punch back. Hard. They're now 17-2 after a defeat this season, including 5-0 in the playoffs, with those five wins coming by an average of 19.6 points — right in line with their 20.5-point average margin of victory following a regular-season L.
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'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.'
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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.
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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.
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'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.')
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'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.)
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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.'
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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.'
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New York Times
37 minutes ago
- New York Times
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander won't try to ‘reinvent the wheel' but he's rewriting NBA Finals history
OKLAHOMA CITY — Go ahead and join in on the silly chant if you so please. 'Freee-throoow merrrchaaant …' the Indiana Pacers faithful will likely boom at Oklahoma City Thunder star Shai Gilgeous-Alexander when these NBA Finals relocate for Game 3 on Wednesday. Or, if history repeats itself, keep engaging in those silly online discussions about how the reigning MVP just isn't aesthetically pleasing enough to watch to warrant all the hype that surrounds him. Advertisement Those are fool's errands, to be sure. But for the vast majority of this season, in which the 26-year-old has been playing his way into the NBA annals, dazzling with his smooth style and misdirection magic while carrying this Thunder team that evened the finals with a 123-107 win in Game 2 on Sunday night, they've been happening nonetheless. Maybe the basketball-loving folks in the Hoosier State will surprise us all and break this disrespectful trend. As SGA's 34-point, eight-assist, five-rebound outing in the Thunder's revenge game reminded the masses, there's a drumbeat quality to his game that often undercuts the public's ability, or willingness, perhaps, to appreciate what he does. He gets to his spots, reads (and confuses) the defense, then makes the proper choice on whether to score or dish with an accuracy that is remarkable and unspectacular all at once. He doesn't soar through the air like Ja Morant or Anthony Edwards for the viral dunk or fill up the box score in quite the same fashion as the magnificent Nikola Jokić, but he has managed to end all of their seasons during this seven-week playoff stretch that is quietly on pace to be one of the best of all time. Not that his legion of haters has bothered to notice. Let's start with the micro. By scoring a combined 72 points in his first two NBA Finals games, Gilgeous-Alexander surpassed the great Allen Iverson (71 points) as the leader in that niche category. It's worth noting because there was some revealing criticism of his Game 1 performance, when he scored 38 points in the Thunder's jaw-dropping loss but had just three assists (while shooting 14 of 30 from the field). Everyone is fair game to scrutinize after a loss of that magnitude, and the fact that he missed his last two shots in the final 66 seconds was an understandable part of that discussion, but it's still mildly hilarious that any player could be deemed not good enough with a borderline 40-burger. Advertisement Now for the macro. Through 18 games, Gilgeous-Alexander is averaging 30.8 points, 6.8 assists, 5.6 rebounds and 1.8 steals in these playoffs. You know how many guys have ever had a postseason like that, hitting those marks (30-6-5-1.8) during a playoff run in which they played at least 16 games? TWO. And you're probably familiar with their names. Michael Jordan (four times) and LeBron James (twice). That's the list — for now. That comes, of course, after Gilgeous-Alexander led the league in scoring during the regular season while leading the Thunder to a 68-14 mark, the No. 1-ranked defense and the league's best point differential of all time. So yeah, maybe it's time to stop with all the nitpicking and give this young man his flowers. Pacers coach Rick Carlisle certainly did after Game 2. '(With) Shai, you can mark down 34 points before they even get on the plane tomorrow for the next game,' he said. 'The guy's going to score. We've got to find ways to make it as tough as possible on him.' One might say that's a different way of deeming SGA unstoppable. Yet even with Carlisle's comment, it's notable that he wasn't asked a single question about Gilgeous-Alexander's performance. He shoehorned that insight into a question about the Thunder's offensive depth. On this night, like so many that have come before it, it was as if Gilgeous-Alexander's massive part in the Thunder win was such a given that it wasn't even worth discussing. But that consistency shouldn't be taken for granted. As these last two series have shown, there's a difference between a superstar like Gilgeous-Alexander, who shows out almost every single night, and the stars like Edwards and Tyrese Haliburton, who are more of a roller-coaster experience. Haliburton's incredible game winner in Game 1 disguised that he was largely ineffective leading up to that magical moment. Three nights later, with Lu Dort and Cason Wallace making him so miserable throughout, he was MIA when it mattered most (three points, three assists in the first half) before finishing with 17 points, six assists and five turnovers. Advertisement Two games in, here's how the battle of the point guards is sizing up … SGA: 36 points, 5.5 assists, 5.5 rebounds, 3.5 steals and two turnovers per game. Haliburton: 15.5 points, 6.0 assists, 6.5 rebounds, one steal and four turnovers per game. Thunder coach Mark Daigneault is the least shocked observer of them all. 'Yeah, unsurprising at this point,' he said afterward. '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.' For Gilgeous-Alexander's part, the (elite) work continues from here. Whether people are going to appreciate it or not. 'I'm being myself,' he said. 'I don't think I tried to reinvent the wheel or step up to the plate with a different mindset. Just try to attack the game the right way. I think I've done a pretty good job of that so far. Now, I would trade the points for two W's, for sure. But this is where our feet are. This is where we are. You can't go back in the past. You can only make the future better. That's what I'm focused on.' It was quite fitting that SGA made that statement while wearing his customary shades, for his future is indeed so bright that it's blinding. He wore a T-shirt that featured the late, great John Lennon as well. Just imagine the possibilities that lie ahead for him and these Thunder.
Indianapolis Star
an hour ago
- Indianapolis Star
First two games of NBA Finals showed Pacers' good and bad. They have one more weapon: Indy
OKLAHOMA CITY – Now, the terms are set. Each in a way as distinct as the two results, Games 1 and 2 of these NBA Finals have shown us the viable paths for Indiana and Oklahoma City to winning this year's NBA title. The one variable left to introduce — Indianapolis — enters the mix Wednesday night, after the Thunder's 123-107 win Sunday night effectively reduced this seven-game series to five. For those Thunder, Sunday unfolded according to the formula: Shai Gilgeous-Alexander's brilliance lighting the game as his natural gravity simultaneously pulled his supporting cast into it, while Oklahoma City's exhausting defense made hard work of everything at the other end of the floor. Thunder-struck: No miracle comeback this time as OKC buries Pacers in Game 2 And for Indiana, Game 1 reminded a league expecting something akin to an OKC coronation that the Pacers are older, they are deeper, they are molded and polished by the sheer number of times they have stared failure in the face without flinching and, because of it, they live by one of sport's most important lessons: No game is over if you refuse to let it go. So much of what we believed about these two teams coming into this series was affirmed by these two games, precious little of it disproven. On a razor's edge, the series shifts to the corner of Maryland and Delaware, the Pacers with one more ace to play. 'Gainbridge,' Myles Turner said postgame Sunday, 'is gonna be rocking.' For all Indiana could celebrate Thursday what has become its trademark never-say-die character — the soul of this team now seemingly defined by its myriad unlikely comebacks — Sunday delivered a series of stiff reminders. Gilgeous-Alexander (34 points, eight assists) remains one of the league's least stoppable players. The Thunder have depth to burn themselves. And they did not finish with a league-best 68 regular-season wins by accident. That Indiana's slow start Thursday could largely be blamed on the Pacers' own mistakes was a quiet blessing. If you're the one digging your own holes, then you can still climb out of them. Sunday was not that. Sunday was not 20 first-half turnovers and frustratingly sloppy, but fixable, offense. Sunday was Oklahoma City at its dominant, championship best. 'They did a good job being disruptive,' Pascal Siakam said. 'They got out in transition. They made some tough shots. They've got guys that contributed across the board.' Gilgeous-Alexander made a visible effort to involve his teammates more immediately in Game 2, passing up early looks in favor of kickouts and skip passes. The result: He still scored 34, to accompany 38 in Game 1, but this time with help. Alex Caruso and Aaron Wiggins combined for 38 points off the bench, while Chet Holmgren finished with 15, and Jalen Williams 19. Indiana has found success in these playoffs living with an opponent's best player scoring in bunches, so long as he can't bring his complementary pieces into the game around him. The Pacers got a full dose of Thunder on Sunday. 'They were huge tonight,' Thunder coach Mark Daigneault said of his bench. And, for the second-straight game, Daigneault's defensive gameplan rendered Tyrese Haliburton human. Haliburton's 14 points, 10 rebounds and six assists in Game 1 were comfortably offset by his last-second heroics but, on Sunday, there would be no such sparkle. After draining a first-quarter 3 it looked like he might find him his rhythm, Haliburton went nearly two full frames without making a shot of any kind. Pacers coach Rick Carlisle deflected Haliburton-specific questions postgame, spreading responsibility among his entire team. Carlisle called the Pacers 'an ecosystem that has to function together,' and declared 'everybody's got to do more.' But Indiana will not be long for this series if its centerpiece star is so absent from the box score for such long stretches as Haliburton was Sunday. And Haliburton knows that. 'I've had two really poor first halves (this series),' said Haliburton, who found that offense in the fourth quarter and finished with a team-high 17 points. 'I've got to do a better job figuring out where I can be better.' This is the path Oklahoma City can open no previous opponent could. A way to win distinct to the Thunder on the Pacers' playoff journey. No one Indiana saw in the East can dictate with lineups, matchups, depth and size the flow of a game defensively the way Oklahoma City can. Collective versatility allows the Thunder to flash enough different kinds of defenses at Haliburton to keep him off balance. Daigneault's subtle shift back to more big lineups locked Indiana out of the paint Sunday. At their best, they are the best team in the NBA because they are the best defense in the NBA. The Pacers felt that to the tune of just 45 points and 20 turnovers in the first half of Game 1, before their prodigious 3-point shooting threat saved them in the second. There was no such rescue Sunday. Whether at the Paycom Center or Gainbridge Fieldhouse, Indiana won't win this series without unpacking at least some of what Oklahoma City wants to make happen at the defensive end of the floor. 'Our offense is built from the inside out. We've got to do a better job getting downhill,' Haliburton said. 'It's a great defense. We can do a lot better job and watch the film, see where we can get better going into Game 3.' All of which should be said against the context of the Pacers' Game 1 win. Ultimately, the baseline job of any road team in the first weekend of a seven-game series is to grab at least one win. Take back homecourt advantage. Reset control of the series, at least for a time. Siakam acknowledged the Game 1 win didn't provide much 'consolation' after Game 2, but Game 1 did show us functionally how Indiana can beat this excellent Oklahoma City team. The same 3-point disparity the Pacers could not open up in Game 2 proved the foundation for a comeback in Game 1. Oklahoma City's depth shone so brightly on Sunday night in large part because it was rendered ineffective Thursday. And while the Thunder are still justifiable favorites in this series, Game 1 showed them what Milwaukee, Cleveland and New York already learned at great cost: The only way to know you've beaten these Pacers is to keep hammering until the clock hits zeroes. So, the series shifts. The Paycom Center was deafening for much of these first two games. After a quarter-century wait for another Finals appearance, the Pacers fly home firm in their belief theirs will be an equally intimidating atmosphere. 'Give credit where credit's due: This is a great playoff environment,' Turner said of Oklahoma City. 'I expect it to be a lot louder in Indianapolis. I know how long the city's been waiting for this Finals experience. They're gonna show up.' These first two games affirmed so much of what we believed about these teams' title credentials, and their respective paths to that end goal. Now, Indiana introduces a weapon that if not secret is certainly at very least dangerous. Game 3, Wednesday night. Indianapolis is waiting.
New York Times
an hour ago
- New York Times
Thunder flex their depth around Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. They'll need that to continue
OKLAHOMA CITY — Aaron Wiggins is a distant eighth on the Oklahoma City Thunder in total minutes during these NBA playoffs. He was briefly pulled from the rotation during the Western Conference finals. He typically doesn't enter the game until the start of the second quarter, and if he doesn't provide a near-immediate spark, he doesn't see the court for too long. He only received nine minutes in Game 1 of the NBA Finals. Advertisement Thunder coach Mark Daigneault first went to Wiggins in Game 2 with 15.2 seconds left in the first quarter. It was a chance to get Wiggins' shooting on the floor for an extra late-quarter offensive possession and warm him up for his upcoming run. With Wiggins spaced in the right corner, Chet Holmgren swooped in for a finger roll to put the Thunder up six. This was the beginning of a run that gave Oklahoma City complete control for the entirety of their 123-107 Game 2 win over the Indiana Pacers, evening these NBA Finals at 1-1. Wiggins made a leaning 10-footer on the first possession of the second quarter. He hit a stepback 3 four minutes later. Daigneault left Shai Gilgeous-Alexander on the bench for five straight second-quarter minutes, and the Thunder expanded their lead by nine. Daigneault left a hot Wiggins on the floor, and he responded with five 3s and 18 points in 21 minutes, his most since the playoff opener against the Memphis Grizzlies. The Thunder won during his court time by 24 points. 'Sometimes it's 20 minutes, sometimes two minutes, sometimes he gets 10,' Gilgeous-Alexander said of Wiggins. 'It's all over the place. But no matter what, he finds a way to impact winning for us.' Wiggins' expanded role was only part of the Thunder's subtle and ultimately successful adjustments from the finals opener. They started the same way, leaning small against the quicker Pacers, but went to their double-big lineup of Holmgren and Isaiah Hartenstein for the first time in the series late in the first quarter. After giving up an immediate 3, they had a plus-six spurt together. Daigneault appears wary to play both centers together when Myles Turner is on the floor as part of a five-out Indiana look, but when Thomas Bryant enters, the Thunder's staff sees a better environment to attack bigger. Advertisement 'I always love playing with Hart,' Holmgren said. 'Especially when he's throwing lobs up to me.' The two centers combined for maybe the Thunder's highlight of the night, a late third-quarter pick-and-roll where Gilgeous-Alexander drew two defenders and dumped it over to a diving Hartenstein, who lobbed it over Bryant's head to Holmgren for a tomahawk dunk. Holmgren had a significantly better performance than in the opener. He only made two of his nine Game 1 shots and was limited to 24 minutes. Daigneault opted to close without him on the floor, a possible mistake in retrospect, considering what happened. But Holmgren made Daigneault's decision to keep him on the floor more often in Game 2 by bringing a level of offensive assertiveness. Holmgren was upset with himself for his rushed, soft finishing on Thursday night and corrected that on Sunday. He had nine points in the first quarter and finished with 15 on 6-of-11 shooting. 'You have to have a level of care,' Holmgren said when asked if his frustration fueled his response. 'If you're just like, whatever, I don't think that's good. I'd say I have a good middle ground of not getting overly emotional but also caring enough to try and always be better next game.' As the series shifts to Indianapolis, the double-big lineup still appears to be only a minor part of Daigneault's plan. Hartenstein and Holmgren played five minutes together and were a plus-four. But both centers were impactful separately against a Pacers team that generates uncomfortable situations for bigs. 'They were both really good in both situations,' Daigneault said. 'One area where we improved tonight was our pick-and-roll coverage against their bigs. They're a different look because of the rolling, the popping, just the way they play. They both were great. I thought Chet, in particular, had a rough offensive night in Game 1. As always, he rose back up and was really, really good.' Advertisement Gilgeous-Alexander had a far more efficient night. After needing 30 shots for his 38 points in Game 1, he went for a smoother 34 points on 11-of-21 shooting and 11 of 12 from the line. He had eight assists and four steals, outplaying Pacers star Tyrese Haliburton, who left the arena limping. But the Thunder kept control of this game when Gilgeous-Alexander rested, showcasing that star-plus-depth combination that boosted them to 68 wins this season. They won the 36 Gilgeous-Alexander minutes by five points and the 12 minutes he rested by 11 points. The five-man unit of Alex Caruso (who had 20 points), Jalen Williams, Wiggins, Cason Wallace and Hartenstein was particularly effective. 'We've played that lineup a lot through the playoffs,' Caruso said. 'Mark went back to it because we've had a lot of success. Me and Cason do a good job of mixing it up with whoever is the lead guard. Dub has great hands. We have a versatility in the lineup. It lets Wigs get a little bit loose, too.' The Thunder will fly to Indianapolis on Monday afternoon, readying for Tuesday's practice and media circus before a Wednesday and Friday two-game crack at taking back control of a series they let slip in the opener. They are 4-3 on the road in these playoffs. They'll need their depth to show up again. 'No one-man show can win an NBA championship,' Gilgeous-Alexander said. (Photo of Aaron Wiggins: Alonzo Adams / Imagn Images)
