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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Video Transcript
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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