Rick Carlisle on Shai Gilgeous-Alexander: 'You can mark down 34 points'
Rick Carlisle on Shai Gilgeous-Alexander: 'You can mark down 34 points'
Only seeing him twice a year in the regular season, Rick Carlisle has quickly grown accustomed to the frustrations teams face against Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. He's an unsolvable Rubik's Cube. Take away one spot, he'll slither his way to another.
As the Oklahoma City Thunder evened the 2025 NBA Finals against the Indiana Pacers at 1-1 apiece, Carlisle said Gilgeous-Alexander belongs in a special group of players who are unguardable. Three straight 30-point campaigns and an MVP trophy will earn you that type of respect.
Gilgeous-Alexander is off to a historic start in his NBA Finals experience. His 72 points scored through two games are the most anybody has put up in their NBA Finals debut. He passed Allen Iverson's 71 points for the all-time record.
"But you know, Shai, you can mark down 34 points before they even get on the plane tomorrow, you know, for the next game. The guy's going to score," Carlisle said. "We've got to find ways to make it as tough as possible on him."
The Pacers don't have the personnel to slow down Gilgeous-Alexander. Nobody does, really. The good news for Indiana is that it did its job with a road split to start the series. Game 1 will likely need to be replicated back home if the Pacers want to pull off the all-time upset.
Gilgeous-Alexander will get his points, but if the rest of the Thunder struggle, it turns into a math advantage. The Pacers just have to hang around in the final moments. They can rely on Tyrese Haliburton's late-game heroics to escape with a thrilling win.
Meanwhile, OKC's game plan to regain homecourt advantage will need to be similar to Game 2. Just stomp them out on the scoreboard with avalanche runs. Continuously stiff-arm the Pacers on the scoreboard and keep them away with double-digit leads.
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