How Caitlin Clark, Tyrese Haliburton view long-term outlooks in Indiana
The post How Caitlin Clark, Tyrese Haliburton view long-term outlooks in Indiana appeared first on ClutchPoints.
With the Indiana Fever rooting for the Indiana Pacers in the NBA Finals as they are up 2-1 in the series against the Oklahoma City Thunder, the relationships between the two teams have been well-documented. As Fever star Caitlin Clark has been supporting the Pacers, making appearances at the games, she would speak about her and Tyrese Haliburton's long-term outlook on the state.
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There's no doubt that Indiana has been in a major basketball spotlight with Clark and the team getting the headlines and the men's basketball team close to capturing their first title in franchise history. While fans hope they continue to see this level of success, Clark would even say that she and Haliburton feel that they 'hope to stay the rest of our careers' with their current teams, according to ESPN.
'Ty and I would both tell you this is where we both hope to stay the rest of our careers,' Clark said. 'People are like, 'It's a small market.' But no, that's what makes it fun. These people, this is what means the world to them. We haven't hosted a Finals game in 25 years, and I've never seen this type of excitement. People are lining up three hours before the game. I literally just got the chills thinking about it.'
Caitlin Clark on how much basketball means to Indiana
© Kyle Terada-Imagn Images
Despite the Fever guard in Caitlin Clark dealing with a quad injury, she still is making her way out to support the team, even bringing some good luck as the Pacers are 8-0 when she's present at games, dating back to last year's playoffs. She would speak on how the support between the teams is mutual and how the fanbase cares a lot about basketball.
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'And they're the same for the Fever,' Clark said. 'I think it's just like [Pacers coach] Rick [Carlisle] said, 'In 49 other states it's basketball, but here it's just really different.' I'm really fortunate to be able to play here, and he's the same.'
Clark has been back at practice as she ramps up to return from the injury that has sidelined her for two weeks, but once she returns, she will be back to being arguably the most popular player in the WNBA. Looking at the team itself, the Fever is currently 4-5, which puts them third in the Eastern Conference with their next game against the New York Liberty on Saturday afternoon.
Related: Fever waives guard ahead of Caitlin Clark's return
Related: Paige Bueckers gets blunt advice from Wings teammate Arike Ogunbowale
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Indianapolis Star
41 minutes ago
- Indianapolis Star
'This is a low right now': Pacers let 3-1 NBA Finals lead vanish with 17-point 4th quarter
INDIANAPOLIS -- Tyrese Haliburton's hopeless heave from the logo caromed hard off the left side of the backboard and he and the other four Pacers on the floor immediately turned and headed for the tunnel as fast as they could go without running. ABC's cameras picked up Haliburton telling teammates, "Let's win one on the road, we alright." It was, on one hand, necessary optimism from the face of the franchise in a time of despair but also seemed to be a mechanism to delay emotionally processing what the last 12 minutes had cost the Pacers. Indiana's lead on the Oklahoma City Thunder in Game 4 of the NBA Finals on Friday night was never an overwhelming one. It peaked at 10 points with 2:08 to go in the third quarter, and that double-figure edge lasted all of 96 seconds. They entered the fourth quarter with a seven-point advantage, and no one has done more in these playoffs to show exactly how fragile a seven-point lead is than the never-dead Pacers. Still, the advantage felt bigger because of how thoroughly the Pacers had dominated fourth quarters in this series. In Games 1-3, they outscored the Thunder by a combined margin of 100-73 in the fourth quarter with a dramatic comeback in Game 1 and a dominant finish in Game 3. It also felt bigger because the Thunder seemed winded by the Pacers' relentless pressure and the deafening Gainbridge Fieldhouse crowd was edging close to delirium at the prospect of a commanding 3-1 lead in the NBA Finals and being just one win away from an NBA title, something the franchise had never experienced. But for one of few occasions in this postseason it was the Pacers who were walking off the floor stunned and wondering how exactly a late lead had gotten away from them. They lost Game 4 111-104 to the Thunder after being outscored 31-17 in the fourth quarter in their first sub-20-point quarter since the first period in their Game 5 win over Cleveland in the Eastern Conference semifinals. They led by four points with 3:20 to go but were outscored 12-1 the rest of the way, missing their last five field goals as well as three of their last four free throws. So now the series is tied 2-2 and the Pacers have lost the home-court advantage they stole in Game 1 on Haliburton's game-winning jumper with 0.3 seconds to go. It's essentially a best-of-three series with Game 5 on Monday and Game 7 on June 22 to be played in Oklahoma City and the series guaranteed to go at least six games. "It's frustrating, of course," Haliburton said in his post-game news conference, acknowledging reality without giving in to any sense of impending doom. "You want to win that game, especially a game at home where, like you said, you have the lead late. But that's just not how the cookie crumbled today. So take a shower, watch film and see where we can get better and get ready to go for Game 5." The Pacers seemed to be at a loss for exactly why the cookie crumbled that way, except everyone interviewed from the team or coaching staff seemed to have settled on the term "stagnant" to explain the offense. It was certainly difficult to argue with that assessment as the Pacers' ball-movement-based offense registered just one assist in the period and zero after the 10:56 mark. The Pacers made just 5 of 18 field goals in the fourth quarter. They missed all eight of their 3-pointers and their three turnovers in the period all happened at inopportune times. "We just got too stagnant," Pacers coach Rick Carlisle said. "The ball was not being advanced quickly enough. We weren't creating problems and we were up against the clock a lot. Things got very difficult." Carlisle acknowledged that the Thunder had a lot to do with making it difficult. With the prospect of a nearly insurmountable deficit staring them in the face, the Thunder dialed up pressure, fought through screens, stepped up on the glass and did whatever they had to do to keep the Pacers from functioning as they planned. The Thunder got excellent point-of-attack work from ace defenders Luguentz Dort, Jalen Williams and Alex Caruso, who spent all night navigating a bevy of screens but still had enough juice left to stay with their primary assignments for most of the period. When they had to switch, however, MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and 7-1 big man Chet Holmgren held their own and Holmgren in particular kept smaller Pacers ball-handlers in front of him at key moments. " I just thought we showed great will in the game," Thunder coach Mark Daigneault said. "I thought we really hung in there in the third. I thought that was the key to the game. They really had the wind to their back. We had some deflating plays. It was an easy game to give up on. We kept it in striking distance, 8, 10, then able to close it in the fourth. I thought Lu in particular set an unbelievable tone defensively in the fourth quarter. That was kind of contagious." Haliburton scored eight of the Pacers' 17 points in the period and was responsible for three of the five field goals with all of them being driving layups. However, he was 3 of 7 from the floor in the period, missing on all three of his 3-point attempts. The rest of the team, however, was 2 of 11 from the floor and managed just one field goal after a run-out dunk by forward Obi Toppin with 10:56 to go. Haliburton acknowledged that the failed overall operation falls on him as the point guard. The ball frequently got stuck above the 3-point line with no direction and the offense failed to involve Pascal Siakam down the stretch, even though he was the team's leading scorer on the night with 20 points. The three-time All-Star and two-time All-NBA pick with a championship ring from his time with the Raptors managed just one field goal attempt in the fourth quarter -- a missed contested 3-pointer with 10:18 to go. "I have to do a better job of keeping pace in the game, Haliburton said. "Probably did a much better job of that last game, especially down the stretch, keeping pace, getting rebounds and really pushing it. I think we have to do a better job of when we do get stops getting out running. A lot of times in that fourth we were fouling too much, taking the ball out, trying to run something, versus just random basketball. I've got to do a better job there. Watch film, see where I can get better. But yeah, that's on me." As Haliburton mentioned, the Thunder helped their defense with their offense. Gilgeous-Alexander seemed exhausted for much of the game with the full-court pressure he was dealing with but Oklahoma City relieved some of that by using forward Jalen Williams to take the ball up and giving Gilgeous-Alexander a bit of a breather. That helped him close strong as he scored 15 points in the fourth quarter on 3 of 6 shooting to finish with 35 points. The NBA's foremost expert in drawing fouls was 10 of 10 at the line in the game, including 8 of 8 in the fourth quarter and he drew two key fouls on forward Aaron Nesmith to get him fouled out with 44 seconds left. The Thunder had a miserable 3-point shooting night, making just 3 of 16 attempts, but Gilgeous-Alexander's 3 with 2:58 to go cut a four-point lead to one and helped turn the tide. "I just tried to be aggressive," Gilgeous-Alexander said. "Like you said, I knew what it would have looked like if we lost tonight. I didn't want to go out not swinging. I didn't want to go out not doing everything I could do in my power, in my control to try to win the game. The guys deserve that as much from me. The coaching staff deserves that much from me." For as poorly as they shot the ball, the Pacers still had an opportunity in the game's final minute thanks, in large part, to hustle plays. They took a four-point lead with 3:52 left because Nesmith rebounded a blocked shot by Haliburton and drew a foul from Dort and hit two free throws. The Pacers were down four with 24 seconds to go when Bennedict Mathurin chased down a rebound on a missed 3-pointer by Myles Turner and drew a loose-ball foul from Holmgren. However, Mathurin missed both free throws. The Thunder called timeout after grabbing the rebound and Mathurin was called for an away-from-the-play foul that give Oklahoma City a free throw and possession of the ball. Gilgeous-Alexander hit the free throw and Mathurin managed to complete a steal off a deflection by Haliburton and draw another foul at the rim, but this time he missed the first free throw before hitting the second. Mathurin was then called for another away-from-the-play foul and the Thunder scored the game's last seven points without needing a field goal. The Pacers collapse will certainly sting for the next two days and could for eternity if they don't find a way to win the series. They held a 3-1 lead in each of the previous three series in the playoffs and there's no way to get that back. However, they've also defied much longer odds in these playoffs than what come with a series tied 2-2 with two games left on the road and they've rallied back from bad performances, too. They'll certainly be underdogs on Monday, but they have yet to lose consecutive games in the playoffs. "I don't need to motivate these guys," Carlisle said. "I think they have a sense of where they are. But this kind of a challenge is going to have extreme highs and extreme lows. This is a low right now, and we're going to have to bounce back from it."
New York Times
an hour ago
- New York Times
Why did Pacers go ‘stagnant' in fourth quarter of Game 4 loss? They wish they knew
INDIANAPOLIS — T.J. McConnell didn't even need to dribble. When the Indiana Pacers guard came up with a loose ball in the fourth quarter of Friday's Game 4 of the NBA Finals, he quickly fired it ahead to a streaking Obi Toppin. Indiana's high-flying forward was all by himself as he received the pass and soared in for a right-handed tomahawk dunk. Advertisement Kenrich Williams was the culprit of the Pacers' easiest bucket of the night. The Oklahoma City Thunder forward ran down the court with his palms up and a puzzled look spread across his face while Toppin brought the home crowd to its feet. Williams had just thrown what was supposed to be an easy inbounds pass to teammate Alex Caruso for a layup, but he put too much force on the ball, leading to McConnell's steal and Toppin's jam. That sequence gave the Pacers a seven-point lead with 10:56 to play. It was also their only assist during a fourth-quarter collapse that saw Oklahoma City come back for a stunning 111-104 victory that knotted the finals 2-2. 'We just got too stagnant,' Pacers coach Rick Carlisle said. 'The ball was not being advanced quickly enough. We weren't creating problems, and we were up against the clock a lot. So things got very difficult, but you gotta give Oklahoma (City) credit. They made it very difficult.' Indiana committed only three turnovers in the fourth quarter, one fewer than Oklahoma City, but could not capitalize. The Pacers were outscored 31-17 in the final frame as their typically high-octane offense morphed into the motionless hero ball they've so rarely played in recent years. Indiana's one assist in the fourth quarter tied for its lowest mark in any game this season. Tyrese Haliburton was the only Pacer to make more than one shot in the fourth quarter, going 3-of-7 from the field for eight of his 18 points. But as the point guard, he still pointed the finger squarely at himself for not getting his team in rhythm. 'I gotta do a better job of keeping pace in the game,' Haliburton said. 'I thought I did a much better job of that last game, especially down the stretch. Keeping pace, getting rebounds and really pushing (the ball).' Indiana shot just 5 of 18 in the fourth quarter and missed all eight of its 3-point attempts, two by Haliburton. With the Pacers leading by two points with just under four minutes to play, Haliburton uncharacteristically went one-on-one against Shai Gilgeous-Alexander early in the shot clock. Haliburton hit the league MVP with a series of crossover moves before trying to shoot a step-back 3, only for Gilgeous-Alexander to close the distance and block his shot. Fortunately for Indiana, Aaron Nesmith caught the rebound and was fouled, leading to two made free throws. Advertisement But later in the period, when Haliburton once again called his own number and revisited his step-back 3-pointer against Thunder center Chet Holmgren, he wasn't as lucky. This time, with the Pacers trailing 105-103 with just under two minutes left, the star guard air-balled a 27-footer that went off teammate Pascal Siakam and out of bounds. Indiana missed its next three shot attempts and only scored one point the rest of the night. 'They went more to that small four-guard lineup that got us stagnant there, but I still think there's a lot of areas for us to get better,' said Haliburton, who had a game-high seven assists but none in the final frame. 'Felt like we got some good looks, just missed some good looks.' Fellow point guard Andrew Nembhard didn't offer much insight as to why the Pacers' fourth-quarter offense was stuck in mud. The third-year pro, who shot 1-of-4 from the field for two points in the last period, said his team just 'kind of stopped' what was working when it produced 20 assists through the first three quarters. Added Toppin: 'I don't really know.' But one thing all of them do know is that a 3-1 series lead was one quarter away and they blew it. How the Pacers handle the rest of these finals will determine how long this haunts them. It could be for only a few days if they still deliver the franchise's first NBA title. Or it could be for a lifetime if the Thunder are the first to four.
New York Times
an hour ago
- New York Times
‘Stoic' SGA shuts up critics with torrid fourth quarter to even NBA Finals
INDIANAPOLIS — If you didn't know any better late Wednesday night inside the visitors locker room at Gainbridge Fieldhouse, you'd almost wonder if Shai Gilgeous-Alexander truly understood the magnitude of this NBA Finals moment. His Oklahoma City Thunder squad which was historically dominant in the regular season had fallen yet again to the relentless Indiana Pacers, with the prospect of an all-time upset in this series more real than ever. He had been on a historic postseason run, one that rivals the likes of Michael Jordan and LeBron James, but this latest turn for the worse was the kind of thing that could stain a young superstar's early legacy. Advertisement Yet there was Gilgeous-Alexander, the 26-year-old MVP who had picked the worst possible time to become passive with his game, chatting with his teammates at his locker as if this was a loss in January. Did he understand the stakes here, how a second straight campaign in which his Thunder had the league's best regular-season mark only to fall short in the playoffs would be such a brutal look? Was this going to end like his Team Canada experience at the Paris Olympics, where those medal hopes went unfulfilled and he would later admit that he 'overlooked the opportunity a little bit?' His mood was strangely light. His postgame fit, which he spent several minutes perfecting before heading to the news conference podium, was clearly a priority. No chairs in the room had been flipped. There was zero tension in the room. The signs of behind-the-scenes desperation — so often a necessary ingredient for survival in title-contending times like these — were nowhere to be found. Truth be told, it was all so bizarrely chill. 'Fellas, appreciate you,' Gilgeous-Alexander said to his teammates as he headed out for the night. Two nights later, with Gilgeous-Alexander's furious finish saving the Thunder's season in their 111-104 win in Friday's Game 4 and marking the most meaningful performance of his young career, the feeling has never been more mutual. After Gilgeous-Alexander spent most of the previous two games straying from his steadiness, his stat line not reflecting that he was fading and the Pacers managing his production despite not double-teaming him, he came to life. He scored 15 of the Thunder's final 16 points, with those final four minutes so impactful that they might wind up being the turning point of this surprisingly wonderful series. He finished with 35 points (albeit with zero assists), hitting 12 of 24 shots and burying all 10 of his free throws. This was the kind of stuff that legends are made of — even if Gilgeous-Alexander doesn't look or act like so many of the greats who came before. What's more, it was further confirmation that his steady demeanor should not be mistaken for weakness. This is just him. And yes, in case you hadn't been convinced by now, he is Him. Advertisement Just ask his teammates. 'You wouldn't know if it was a preseason game or it's Game 4 of the NBA Finals down 2-1 with him,' said Thunder guard Alex Caruso, who had 20 points and five steals Friday night. 'That's why we have such a good mentality as a group. That's why we are able to find success in adversity. No matter what's going on, you look at him and he's the same. Underneath that stoic personality or (his) look on the court is a deep, deep-rooted competitiveness. That is sprinkled throughout the whole team. …He never blinks, never shies away from the moment.' It sure felt like that wasn't the case as the end of Game 4 neared, though. As the second half began, I was texting with a rival assistant coach to get an outside perspective on what was unfolding. Gilgeous-Alexander had 12 points on 6-of-11 shooting at the half, but he was a minus-12 as the Pacers led 60-57. The report card wasn't pleasant. 'I honestly think SGA has been atrocious,' the coach wrote. 'He looks tired. Worn out. Slow. … They haven't had to double him. It hasn't been some magical scheme. (The Pacers) have just worn him out with their pressure. They did the same to (the New York Knicks' Jalen) Brunson (in the Eastern Conference finals). …He's looked so bad on defense.' In a way, it was comforting to know that it wasn't just us media types who were confused by his play. And, truth be told, his vibe. It's safe to assume that the Thunder find this whole curiosity about Gilgeous-Alexander's aura comical. But he remains an enigma to the media masses, an all-time level talent who doesn't emote like Kobe Bryant or Russell Westbrook, talk trash like Kevin Garnett, or deliver demonstrative highlights like LeBron. The lack of that visible intensity that is so common this time of year, and which is so often equated with passion and commitment, is nowhere to be found in the SGA highlights. Advertisement And apparently that doesn't matter a lick. 'Same demeanor as always,' Thunder coach Mark Daigneault said when asked about SGA's late-game energy. 'You really wouldn't know whether he's up three, down three, up 30, down 30, eating dinner on a Wednesday. He's pretty much the same guy. 'It's unbelievable. He really didn't have it going a lot of the night. He was laboring. We had a hard time shaking him free. For him to be able to flip the switch like that and get the rhythm he got just speaks to how great of a player he is. …It's nothing we don't know, but he definitely showed who he is tonight.' All while showing the Pacers that his way — the calm, cool and collected way — works just fine after all. 'I just tried to be aggressive,' Gilgeous-Alexander said. 'I knew what it would have looked like if we lost tonight. I didn't want to go out not swinging. I didn't want to go out not doing everything I could do in my power, in my control to try to win the game. 'The guys deserve that much from me. The coaching staff deserves that much from me. I just tried to be aggressive, but also let the game come to me, not try to force anything too crazy. I guess it paid off.' As the assistant coach put it at night's end, 'He shut me up.' He was hardly alone.
