Will NYK keep an 'open mind' in head coach search?
Vincent Goodwill joins Dan Patrick to unpack the fallout of Tom Thibodeau's firing, explaining why he believes the Knicks will keep an "open mind" in their search before previewing the NBA Finals.
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Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Pacers vs. Thunder NBA Finals: Yep, this is the OKC team that is trying to put a bow on a historic season
OKLAHOMA CITY — After blowing a fourth-quarter lead in Game 1 of the NBA Finals, the Oklahoma City Thunder spent every waking hour since Thursday night hearing about it. About how they galaxy-brained themselves with their starting lineup switch. About how blinking first and going away from playing two-big lineups cost them not just a game, but home-court advantage. About the myriad tactical adjustments they desperately needed to make to stem the tide of the rampaging, team-of-destiny Indiana Pacers. About everything. Advertisement So Thunder head coach Mark Daigneault got in the lab, pored over the film and came up with the most brilliant adjustment that any coach can make: Hey, everyone: play better. 'I think we were just a little bit better in a lot of different areas — of execution, of pace, organization, decision-making in the paint, aggressiveness at the basket, gathering the ball,' Daigneault said Sunday, after Oklahoma City returned serve in a dominant 123-107 win to level the 2025 NBA Finals at one game apiece. 'We just were a tick forward in all those areas … I thought everyone played better individually, and I thought we played better collectively.' Masterful gambit, Coach. Oklahoma City Thunder guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander was tough to stop in Game 2 of the NBA Finals on Sunday, June 8, 2025, in Oklahoma City. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez) (ASSOCIATED PRESS) The Thunder did on Sunday what they've done after losses all season: punch back. Hard. They're now 17-2 after a defeat this season, including 5-0 in the playoffs, with those five wins coming by an average of 19.6 points — right in line with their 20.5-point average margin of victory following a regular-season L. Advertisement 'I think tonight was a better representation of how we play,' said Thunder reserve Alex Caruso, who scored 20 points on 6-of-11 shooting in 27 characteristically hyperactive minutes off the bench. It was, in virtually every capacity. After combining for 23 points on 28 shots in Game 1, Jalen Williams and Chet Holmgren combined for 34 on 25 in Game 2. Holmgren also provided strong rim protection and held his own on multiple possessions when switched out onto the perimeter, while Williams drew praise from Daigneault for an attacking approach that saw him draw seven fouls and dish five assists. 'He didn't get off to a great start in his first stint, but he really settled into the game,' Daigneault said of Williams. 'He's huge for us. All the things he brings to the game — defensively, size, versatility, physicality, offensive, on-ball, off-ball … that floor is really high. We really need him every single night.' Advertisement The uptick from Williams and Holmgren was emblematic of the overall bounce-back for Oklahoma City, which scored a scorching 128.1 points per 100 possessions against an overwhelmed Pacers defense. After going just 28-for-68 (41.2%) inside the 3-point arc in Game 1, Oklahoma City shot 26-for-46 (56.5%) on 2-pointers in Game 2, a dramatic improvement finishing on the interior. After notching a season-low 13 assists in Game 1, the Thunder nearly doubled their dimes, dishing 25 against 13 turnovers. They got to the line more often: 20-for-24 in Game 1, 29-for-33 in Game 2. They created and made more 3-pointers: 11-for-30 in Game 1, 14-for-36 in Game 2. After decisively losing the rebounding battle in Game 1 — though, as both Daigneault and Pacers head coach Rick Carlisle noted, that was partly a function of there being fewer defensive rebounds for OKC to get, considering how often they turned Indiana over in the first half — the Thunder earned a 43-35 edge on the glass. After giving up 12 buckets at the rim in Game 1, they allowed just five in Game 2, doing a better job of forcing the Pacers into contested midrange looks. While they allowed 40 3-point attempts, those looks more often felt harried and off-rhythm, launched over crisp and hellacious Thunder closeouts. Advertisement They smothered Tyrese Haliburton, holding him to just five points on seven shots with four assists against three turnovers through three quarters. They better matched the physicality of Pascal Siakam, Myles Turner, Andrew Nembhard and Aaron Nesmith, refusing to concede space and clean shots to the Pacers' other starters, short-circuiting Indiana's offensive ecosystem in the process. 'I thought the guys did a really good job of keeping the foot on the gas, especially defensively,' Daigneault said after Oklahoma City held Indiana to just 104.4 points per 100 possessions — a worst-in-the-league-caliber offensive performance — through the four-minute mark of the fourth quarter, when Carlisle waved the white flag and pulled his starters. 'I thought we really amped it up on that end of the floor.' The Thunder rolled on the offensive end, too, with the NBA's Most Valuable Player continuing his assault on both the Pacers defense and the record books. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander scored a game-high 34 points in Game 2, giving him a total of 72 in the series — a new high-water mark for any player in his first two career NBA Finals games, surpassing the 71 that Allen Iverson poured in back in 2001. But unlike in Game 1, where the Pacers were able to (somewhat) limit the MVP's damage to tough self-created buckets, Gilgeous-Alexander needed just 21 field-goal attempts to crack 30 on Sunday — and also added eight assists to six different teammates, breaking down the defense and drawing help before kicking it out to create 22 more Thunder points through his passing. Advertisement 'The way I see it, I have no choice,' Gilgeous-Alexander said of relying on his teammates. 'No one-man show achieves what I'm trying to achieve with this game. All the stats and the numbers, they're fun. I don't play in space as much as I do without having them out there. I don't get open as much as I do without having the screeners out there … those guys are the reason why we're as good of a team as we are. I just add to it.' The Thunder are hard enough to beat when Gilgeous-Alexander's going off by himself. But when he's got help — to the tune of four other Thunderers scoring 15 or more points, the first time five teammates have done that in a Finals game since the Raptors did it against the Warriors in 2019 — they're damn near impossible to deal with. Caruso drilled four 3-pointers off the bench. Aaron Wiggins, relegated to just nine minutes in Game 1, came out firing in the second quarter, scoring eight points in eight minutes as part of a trademark 19-2 Thunder run that turned a two-possession game into a 23-point boatrace. (Indiana promptly ripped off 10 points, if only to remind Oklahoma City that, as Jalen Williams said before Game 1, 'They're never too far behind, and we've always got to keep that in the back of our mind.') Advertisement 'I think we just kind of found a rhythm on both ends of the court,' said Wiggins, who finished with 18 points on 6-for-11 shooting, including a 5-for-8 mark from long range, in 21 minutes. 'We were able to get stops, get out in transition, hit a couple shots. Once we kind of got going, you could kind of just feel the energy playing a factor in that.' And, crucially, that energy never really waned. When the Pacers started drawing fouls early in the third quarter, getting into the bonus early and giving themselves a chance to march to the free-throw line to get their offense unstuck, the Thunder remained poised, took care of the ball and continued to generate good looks for themselves, scoring 34 points on just 23 possessions in the frame to keep them at bay. When Indiana had a shot to cut the deficit to 16 in the closing seconds of the third — an opportunity to maybe grab a sliver of momentum, some steady footing from which to mount one last furious charge — Cason Wallace swatted the hell out of it: The Thunder never eased up. Not when they once again started small, with Wallace in place of Isaiah Hartenstein. Not when Hartenstein checked in for Holmgren midway through the first quarter — or when Holmgren checked back in for Luguentz Dort with 3:51 to go in the first, as Daigneault went double-big against Indiana's reserve frontcourt of Obi Toppin and Thomas Bryant, kicking off a 9-0 Thunder run to end the quarter. Not when they turned to Wiggins and rock-solid small-ball 4 (and sometimes 5) Kenrich Williams to better match Indiana's size on the perimeter. ('I don't know if there was any lineup that they used that wasn't impactful for them,' Carlisle said.) Advertisement Not when the Pacers made a couple of runs to cut the deficit to 13 — the moments where things got wobbly in Game 1. The Thunder never wobbled on Sunday. They stood tall, firm, sovereign. The 68-win juggernaut we watched all season showed up in Game 2, giving the Pacers plenty to think about as they board the plane to head back home. 'Another bad first half,' Carlisle said. 'Obviously, it was a big problem, and we just played poorly. A little bit better in the second half, but you can't be a team that's reactive and expect to be successful or have consistency. So we're going to have to be a lot better on Wednesday.' Advertisement As will Oklahoma City. Daigneault said that the Thunder try to use the early games of a series 'to learn what our options are, and what our trade-offs are, and … just get a little bit more information.' 'Now we have it,' he said. 'We'll apply that as we move forward in the series.' Gilgeous-Alexander highlighted one specific thing they learned the hard way in Game 1 and applied in Game 2 — and, in the process, looked a hell of a lot more like the Thunder team that dominated the league this season. 'You can't just throw the first punch,' he said. 'You've got to try to throw all the punches, all night. Yeah, that's what we did: We threw enough punches tonight to go get a W.'
Indianapolis Star
2 hours ago
- Indianapolis Star
Pacers an 'acquired taste.' In Game 2, OKC Thunder swallowed Indiana up to even NBA Finals
OKLAHOMA CITY – Oklahoma City Thunder coach Mark Daigneault called the Indiana Pacers an acquired taste. 'We haven't played them a ton,' Daigneault said. 'They're not in the West obviously. They play a very distinct style on both ends.' After wasting an opportunity to win Game 1, the Thunder were left with a bitter aftertaste against the never-quit Pacers. The Thunder devoured the Pacers in Game 2 Sunday evening the NBA Finals with a 123-107 victory. NBA Finals Game 2 box score, stats: Thunder rolls as OKC evens series vs. Pacers While the Pacers stole homecourt advantage, they haven't played great and it's starting to become an issue as the series moves to Indianapolis for Games 3 and 4. 'Another bad first half,' Pacers coach Rick Carlisle said. 'Obviously, it was a big problem, and we just played poorly. A little bit better in the second half but you can't be a team that's reactive and expect to be successful or have consistency.' At this stage, the Pacers cannot rely on their ability to complete a comeback. They need to start better, and now, it's on Carlisle and his staff to figure that out. Indiana trailed by as many as 23 points, and while the comebacks have been compelling, it's not a recipe for playoff success. 'We're going to have to be a lot better on Wednesday,' Carlisle said. The Thunder were more physical, dominated the paint for the second consecutive game and limited Tyrese Haliburton to a quiet 17 points, 12 of which came in the fourth quarter when Oklahoma City had control of the game and was not in the mood to blow another double-digit lead. How did the Pacers handle Oklahoma City's physicality? 'Not well,' Carlisle said. 'They were the best in the league during the year at keeping people out of there (paint). They are great at it. We have to find ways to get the ball in there, and you know, it's just there are so many things that have to go right on a set of two possessions to get the ball into the heart of their defense.' Throughout the season and especially the playoffs, the Thunder's top-ranked defense finds a way to take away or limit the opponent's strengths. They did it against Denver and Minnesota in the Western Conference semifinals and finals. 'Our offense is built from the inside-out, and we have to do a better job getting downhill,' Haliburton said. 'They collapse and make plays from there. I thought we could improve a lot there. But yeah, they are flying around. They have got great point-of-attack defenders and great rim protectors. We can do a better job, watch the film, and see where we can get better going into Game 3.' What about Haliburton's performance? 'There's a lot more to the game than just scoring. … People shouldn't just look at his points and assists and judge how he played, or judge how any of our guys played just on that,' Carlisle said. 'That's not how our team is built. We are an ecosystem that has to function together. We've got to score enough points to win the game but who gets them and how they get them, not important.' Pascal Siakam found no consolation in getting a split and grabbing homecourt advantage in the series. 'You want to win every game you play, so we are not happy with how the game went today, and that's it,' he said. 'We've just got to turn the page, focus on Game 3. That's the biggest game of the year.' This series is much closer to being a 2-0 Thunder lead than a 2-0 Pacers lead, and between Game 1 and 2, Carlisle compared a playoff series to a book. 'Each game in this series is going to look different,' he said. 'A playoff series is a series of seven chapters, and each one takes on a different personality.' If the Pacers don't find a way to start the next chapter better than they have, the book is going to close quickly on their championship aspirations.
USA Today
2 hours ago
- USA Today
Photos: Best images from Thunder's 123-107 Game 2 win over Pacers
Photos: Best images from Thunder's 123-107 Game 2 win over Pacers The Oklahoma City Thunder bounced back with a 123-107 Game 2 win over the Indiana Pacers on Sunday. The 2025 NBA Finals are now tied at 1-1. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander led the way with an efficient 34 points. Jalen Williams had 19 points and Chet Holmgren had 15 points. Off the bench, Alex Caruso scored 20 points and Aaron Wiggins had 18 points. Meanwhile, Tyrese Haliburton was held to 17 points and six assists. Pascal Siakam finished with 15 points and seven rebounds. Myles Turner scored 16 points. Let's look at some of the best photos from the Thunder's 16-point Game 2 win over the Pacers:
