Heading into Game 6 of the NBA Finals, the Oklahoma City Thunder was one win away from an NBA Championship.
Exiting Game 6 of the NBA Finals, the Oklahoma City Thunder remains one win away from an NBA Championship. The difference? The Indiana Pacers can say the same thing, and they’re coming off a dominant win.
The Pacers embarrassed OKC Thursday, winning 108-91 in a game that wasn’t competitive after the first quarter. As they have so often in this series, Indiana flipped the script on OKC, forcing 21 turnovers and playing lockdown defense on Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Jalen Williams and forcing a Game 7 in a series that many had left for dead after OKC’s Game 6 win.
OKC opened the game on a 10-2 run, confirming the thoughts of so many national pundits who thought the NBA season would end Thursday. After the fast start for OKC, Indiana dominated.
The Pacers looked like the more aggressive team. They looked like the more desperate side, like they knew their season was on the line. Once the going got tough, OKC looked like a team that knew it had a Game 7 at home. Now, it’s left to navigate that game with everything on the line.
The easiest fix for OKC? Make some 3s.
In the first three quarters, the Thunder made three 3s. That number, on top of losing the rebounding battle and the turnover war, made a win nearly impossible, no matter how good a team is.
Rebounding has never been a strength of the Thunder’s, but normally, it offsets that weakness by dominating the turnover margin. When a team can take that away, as Indiana has a few times in these finals, OKC isn’t anywhere near the 68-win juggernaut that we saw all season.
Indiana’s role players also dramatically outperformed OKC’s.
Isaiah Hartenstein, Lu Dort, Alex Caruso, Aaron Wiggins and Cason Wallace combined to shoot 31% from the floor. On the other side, Ben Mathurin, Obi Toppin, T.J. McConnell, Aaron Nesmith and Andrew Nembhard combined to shoot 46%.
If you’re OKC, those numbers will almost never add up to a win, especially with Gilgeous-Alexander, Williams and Chet Holmgren all turning in pedestrian, or worse, performances.
So now, OKC’s historic season comes down to this.
Whether or not it’ll be remembered as one of the best single-season performances in NBA history comes down to 48 minutes. Make 3s, hold onto the ball and get a good role performance or two and OKC will likely be champions.
But, based on Game 6, Indiana is coming for blood. If OKC doesn’t play with a level of controlled aggression and fury it has rarely displayed this season, the Pacers could walk out of OKC into a silent Reno Ave., with a Larry O’Brien trophy hoisted above their heads.
