Doyel: Pacers win state's first NBA Finals game since 2000. How? Because this is Indiana

Indianapolis Star

a day ago

INDIANAPOLIS – At the first NBA Finals game in Indianapolis since 2000, they're wearing gold shirts at Gainbridge Fieldhouse and waiting for something to happen. No, they're waiting for Indiana to happen. Because the shirts for Game 3 of the 2025 NBA Finals between the Pacers and Thunder, they have a message — the final words of a slogan that begins, 'In 49 states, it's basketball…'
But this is Indiana.
That's what the shirts say. Here's something Indiana Pacers coach Rick Carlisle says, and he says it all the time:
'Hard things are hard.'
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This wasn't going to be easy. It's the fourth quarter of Game 3, the most pivotal game, historically, in the NBA Finals. When the series is tied at 1-1, the team that wins Game 3 eventually wins the series 80% of the time. Pretty good, right? Well, this looked pretty hard. The Oklahoma City Thunder are leading by four with less than nine minutes left, they're dominating the glass, and they have the MVP in Shai Gilgeous-Alexander.
What do the Pacers have? They have T.J. McConnell, who is almost always the smallest, oldest guy on the floor. They have Bennedict Mathurin, who spent last year rehabbing from shoulder surgery, missing the Pacers' run to the 2024 Eastern Conference Finals, using his time to attack his rehab, marking his progress by peeling each day off a small calendar at the Pacers' practice facility. They have Myles Turner, struggling through a miserable game, probably because he's struggling through a miserable cold. And they have Tyrese Haliburton, whose overall sluggish play in the 2025 NBA Finals — that Game 1-winning shot notwithstanding — has been the talk of the commentariat for three days.
But it's like their coach tells them, 'hard things are hard,' and as Haliburton will tell reporters later, 'People follow the leader — and (Carlisle) is the leader.'
So it starts with Andrew Nembhard grabbing an offensive rebound and scoring from 12 feet. The crowd is still cheering the basket when McConnell leaps to pick off the Thunder's inbounds pass — his third such steal of this game — and scores immediately. Now the score is tied, and the Thunder are about to experience that Rick Carlisle axiom.
Hard things are hard.
Because this is Indiana.
You know who won the game, right? I mean, this is the NBA Finals. You know. The Pacers beat the Thunder 116-107, which you knew. But I'm trying to show you how it happened, why it happened, why this keeps happening with these 2025 Indiana Pacers.
No, they don't win the same way every time. Haliburton doesn't always hit a shot at the buzzer to win — it just feels like he does.
'This is the kind of team we are,' Carlisle is saying later. 'We need everybody to be ready. That's how we've got to do it.'
So this is how they do it:
With Mathurin, who didn't play in the first quarter and who has been held scoreless in two 2025 playoff games, and held to five points or less five other times. But Mathurin came into this game in the second quarter and scored within 34 seconds after the first of T.J. McConnell's steals under the basket, turning one Pacers field goal into another within seconds. Mathurin scores again moments later, a 16-footer. Then he's hitting a 3-pointer, then a layup in transition, then two free throws.
By the time this game is over, Mathurin will have 27 points in 22 minutes — and that is the second-most impressive individual stat line on the team. Well, maybe the third. We can debate Haliburton vs. Mathurin, because Haliburton fooled around and almost had a triple-double: 22 points, nine rebounds and 11 assists.
But there's no debate who has the most startling individual stat line from this game, and it's neither Mathurin nor Haliburton. It's McConnell, who becomes the first player in NBA Finals history to come off the bench and post 10 points, five assists and five steals. And he does it in 15 minutes. And he does it at 6-1, and at age 33. A unique player, T.J. McConnell.
'His energy is unbelievable,' Haliburton says of McConnell. 'I think you guys know he's a crowd favorite. I joke with him. I call him 'the Great White Hope.''
That's what Haliburton said. Here's what Carlisle said:
'T.J. brings some very unique elements to our team, and he brings unique elements to the game in general,' Carlisle said. 'We need all of our guys to bring whatever is their thing to our thing — and have it be part of our thing. But he's a guy that inspires a lot of people. He inspires our team a lot.'
When the second quarter begins, the Pacers are trailing 32-24. But the second unit is on the floor, led by Mathurin, McConnell and Obi Toppin (eight points, six rebounds, two blocks off the bench), and soon the Thunder's lead is gone. Now the Pacers are leading 49-42.
After the game, after the deal is done, Pacers sideline reporter Pat Boylan is interviewing McConnell on the court. They're playing the conversation on the giant scoreboard, and Boylan is reminding McConnell how the Pacers' second unit turned the game around. 'How,' Boylan is asking McConnell, 'did you turn the tide?'
McConnell is smiling. The crowd, wearing those gold T-shirts, is roaring. Now McConnell is gesturing around the arena.
'I mean,' he says, 'do you hear this?'
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All right, so it's the fourth quarter. The Pacers, as a franchise, have decided it's time for their secret weapon — so they give the mic to Pat McAfee. And McAfee delivers.
'It's been 9,126 days since our state hosted an NBA Finals,' McAfee is shouting into the microphone. He might have looked up that fact or guessed or, honestly, done the math in his head. He has a pretty quick brain, this guy. Photographic memory, among other things. Anyway, McAfee is still shouting into the mic.
'Everyone's talking about Oklahoma City fans,' McAfee says, then challenges Pacers fans to be even louder. 'Let's turn this city up! Let's go!'
Now it's bedlam, and they're playing 'Welcome to the Jungle' over the loudspeakers, and almost immediately Andrew Nembhard is scoring and McConnell is stealing the inbounds pass and scoring, and the hard things are just getting started for Oklahoma City. Mathurin's hitting a 3. Now it's Haliburton's turn to hit a 3, and the Thunder want a timeout to cool off the Pacers, and the crowd.
Yeah, good luck with that.
'They were great,' Carlisle said of the crowd, 'especially in the fourth quarter. It just went up a few decibels.'
So did the Pacers. Haliburton has room to operate, and that spells trouble for OKC. After being bottled up for two games, Haliburton has been getting space in Game 3 by playing off screens or passing the ball to a teammate and rushing to get it right back, or by starting his sprint with the ball — getting downhill, you call that — before even crossing halfcourt. Now he's playing off three screens, forcing the Thunder to switch time and again, until he's alone on 7-1 Chet Holmgren and running the pick-and-roll with Turner, who scores at the rim on his new (smaller) defender.
Soon Haliburton is getting to the rim and missing, but Toppin is flying through the air to slam home the rebound and it's 107-100. This game is almost over, if the Pacers can get just one stop … and there it is. Holmgren shoots a 3, and Turner swats it out of the air. Holmgren grabs the offensive rebound and hurries to the rim to beat the shot clock, but Turner blocks that one, too. Turner doesn't feel well, and he doesn't shoot well — nine points on 3-for-11 shooting — but he blocks five shots.
And now it really is over. The young, deep, athletic Pacers tend to tire out their opponents — 'the wear-down effect,' they call it — and now they're doing it to the younger, deeper, more athletic Thunder. The Thunder enter the fourth quarter leading 89-84, but over the final 12 minutes they will go just 6-for-17 from the floor (35.3%) and miss all four 3-pointers and get outrebounded by three, after winning the battle on the glass 35-26 through three quarters. They will have two assists in the quarter, and five turnovers.
They will look, decisively, like the second-best team in the NBA. And normally I wouldn't be saying that with only 80% certainty.
But this is Indiana.
Find IndyStar columnist Gregg Doyel on Threads, or on BlueSky and Twitter at @GreggDoyelStar, or at www.facebook.com/greggdoyelstar. Subscribe to the free weekly Doyel on Demand newsletter.