NBA Finals: Do the Pacers have a shot to beat the Thunder?
NBA Finals: Do the Pacers have a shot to beat the Thunder?
Yahoo Sports senior NBA analyst Kevin O'Connor is joined by Mo Dakhil to discuss how Indiana can potentially slow down Oklahoma City and they offer their predictions for who will take home the title. Hear the full conversation on 'The Kevin O'Connor Show' and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you listen.
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I've got a hard time coming up with ways Indiana wins the series.
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If Indiana does win the series.
What's gonna be the story?
Like what went wrong for Oy, what went right for Indiana, if indeed the Pacers are the one hoisting the Larry O'Brien trophy.
I think it it'll come down to what went right would be just obviously the Pacers will have put in a, a, a strategy.
Like for me, my one suggestion in terms of, and I don't think it's a good one, so I don't want anybody to go like you're crazy.
I think it's you're in a situation, you have to deal with it.
But my one suggestion is let SGA score and try to cover everybody else because it's just too hard, right?
You can't take everything away.
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Shay is gonna get his 30 points.
Minimum, regardless of what you do.
So, hey, let's just do a better job of covering everybody else.
Make it so that Jaylen Williams isn't getting clean looks.
Make it so that Chet Holmgren is not getting clean looks.
Let's take away the, the big to big passing between Hartenstein and Chet.
Let's try to make them have to really work on offense beyond SGA.
And I think that's gonna be the thing that we look at, but the other thing we're gonna talk about is that the Pacers will have found a way to gash this defense, and that's gonna be.
Unbelievably hard.
And I think it's got to be a mix of everything.
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They got to find ways to get transition points.
They gotta create turnovers for a team that's a low turnover team, much like themselves, and then get out in transition.
That allows them to set up their defense and create opportunities for them to sort of get stops because it's just gonna come down to that, Kevin.
Like if they're gonna be able to get stops, they're gonna be able to get fast break buckets and from that, they'll be able to kind of, their, their fast-paced game will be the problem for the Thunder.
Um, going.
Thunder in 5.
I want the Pacers to make this a 6-game series.
I just think it's gonna be really difficult.
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I think that defense is just so suffocating and game 5 of Pacers, Knicks really kind of showed you how hard it is for the Pacers sometimes to get offense going when there's a lot of pressure and the team's able to exert that pressure.
The Knicks weren't able to kind of sustain that.
I don't think anybody expected them to sustain that, but that's the Thunder's wheelhouse.
That's where they play.
That's how they defend.
So I think it'll be a tough one for the Pacers.
Uh, I feel like I have not heard anybody say anything but OKC and 5, and I also am saying OKC in 5.
It just feels like the most logical thing.
In in a steals at least one, out of respect to them, they take one game, but OKC, I think they're gonna prove themselves to be a special special team.
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I've also discovered that it's a thoroughly enjoyable way to watch a sport. You don't have to wait until Seattle is awarded an NBA expansion franchise to have a rooting interest. We can all join hands together and hope that the team that was stolen from us fails to win a championship for the 17th consecutive season. I know, it sounds kind of petty and immature. That's because it is petty and immature, and you can sit with the grown-ups if you want, but I'm having a hell of a time down here on the low road, thinking about just how devastating it would be for the Thunder to lose to the Pacers, who were 5-to-1 underdogs when the series began. He-he-he. I just cackled again. Don't worry, I know better than to make any premature proclamations. We've still got a long way to go. The Thunder trailed the Denver Nuggets 2-1 in the Western Conference semifinals only to come back and win the series in a seventh game. As an experienced hater, trust me when I say you've got to keep an even keel about these things. You can't get too high when the team you loathe loses just like you can't let yourself get too low when they win. You also need some stamina. When you're cheering for a team, momentum builds over the course of a playoff run. People around you are getting excited, too. When you're rooting against one, though, it takes effort and a laser focus not to get discouraged as you watch a team like the Thunder keep clearing hurdles. A cake walk over Memphis in the first round. A seven-game nail-biter against Denver, and then a Minnesota team that absolutely mailed in the fifth and final game of the conference finals. At some point you might even find yourself conceding that it is possible, perhaps even likely, that the one team you absolutely do not want to win the sport's top prize may do just that. And it is in those moments, when doubt starts to creep in, I like to remind myself just what I'm in this for: misery. More specifically: Oklahoma City's misery, and the closer the Thunder get to a championship, the more misery a loss is going to induce. Someone with more going for them and less resentment might decide that investing this much energy in a certain team NOT winning might not be healthy. I have a word for these sorts of people: amateurs. You don't spend this much time hating this one team without going through a few gut checks that really show what you're made of, and my loathing of the Thunder is built to last. In fact, I can think of only one thing that might dilute my venom: If Seattle were to be awarded an expansion franchise, and if this expansion franchise were to be named the Sonics, and if the Sonics were to win their second NBA championship before the Thunder were to win their city's first, then I might dial back my animosity. But probably not. It's too much fun hating the Thunder. I better stop now before I start cackling again. Danny O'Neil was born in Oregon, the son of a logger, but had the good sense to attend college in Washington. He's covered Seattle sports for 20 years, writing for two newspapers, one glossy magazine and hosting a daily radio show for eight years on KIRO 710 AM. You can subscribe to his free newsletter and find his other work at
