Thunder embraced their moments of adversity this season. It paid off in Game 4 of the NBA Finals
OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — The book is called 'The Obstacle Is the Way.' It's a gift that Oklahoma City coach Mark Daigneault gave to Thunder center Isaiah Hartenstein during a trying time this season, knowing the voracious reader would figure out the meaning.
Message delivered.
'I read it and remembered that everything happens for a reason,' Hartenstein said. 'And after that, everything worked out great.'
Such has been the story of the Thunder season. Such was the story of Game 4 of the NBA Finals. Faced with the biggest challenge of their season — a 10-point deficit in the second half, staring at a very real chance of the Indiana Pacers grabbing the almost-insurmountable 3-1 lead in the title round — the Thunder, once again, came away saying everything worked out great.
Led by a dazzling and frantic finish from the reigning MVP and scoring champion Shai Gilgeous-Alexander — who had 15 of his 35 points in the final five minutes or so — the Thunder rallied in the fourth quarter to beat Indiana 111-104 on Friday night. The series is now tied 2-2, heading back to Oklahoma City for Game 5 on Monday night, and it's the Thunder who have home-court advantage again.
'That was an uphill game against a great team,' Daigneault said after Game 4 in Indianapolis, simultaneously lauding his team while also raving about the Pacers. 'This is one of the best teams in the league in the last couple months, since All-Star break. They're a hard team to beat here. They're a hard team to beat, period. I thought we gutted it out on a night when we didn't have a lot going, especially offensively.'
It was a night when the Thunder made only three 3-pointers and were shooting 45% with about five minutes left before Gilgeous-Alexander got going. He took 11 shots in the final 4:40 — three field-goal attempts, one of them a 3-point try, and eight free throws — and made them all. A perfect finish, on a night when little had gone to plan.
'It's unbelievable," Daigneault said. '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 might not have seemed so to the outside world — those who fixated on things like Oklahoma City's 68-14 franchise-best record, its 16-game lead over its nearest challenger in the Western Conference standings, a record number of double-digit wins and how all of it was led by the MVP and scoring champion in Gilgeous-Alexander. But the Thunder did, in fact, face some adversity this season.
They played without Chet Holmgren and Hartenstein for a while during the year. There was some flux to the lineup at times. Everybody probably had some sort of mini-slump along the way. There was a Game 1 loss in the second round to Denver. And Daigneault embraced every bit of that pain, knowing that for the Thunder to get to where they want to go adversity was going to present itself.
Like the being-down-10, late-third-quarter sort of adversity that came up in Game 4.
Just like Hartenstein was led to believe by the book, everything worked out great.
'We haven't really had to show it a lot this year, with the success we had in the regular season,' guard Jalen Williams said shortly before the team left for the flight back to Oklahoma City, where a huge crowd showed up in the middle of the night to greet the team at the airport — as they often do. 'We've had a lot of ups and downs during the playoffs. We've just learned from those experiences. That is something Mark is really big on; every game you should be able to learn, then the next game you should be able to apply something and get better at it. That's what we're trying to do every time.'
The series is far from over and the Thunder know it. Indiana already has won once at Oklahoma City in these finals; surely, the Pacers think they can do it again. And even though the teams finished 18 wins apart in the final standings — OKC won 68 times, Indiana won 50 — it doesn't seem like 18 wins worth of disparity between the clubs right now.
Indiana stole Game 1 at the end. Oklahoma City stole Game 4 at the end, albeit not as dramatically as the Pacers took the opener. Game 2 was pretty much controlled by the Thunder throughout; the Pacers had the best of the play for the majority of Game 3.
Add it up, and it looks exactly like what it is — a 2-2 series going into Game 5.
'I still feel like we have so much work to do,' Gilgeous-Alexander said. 'Halfway there, obviously, but still so far from the finish line.'
___
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