Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, MVP of the NBA, hunched over with the sting of his shorts clamped between his palms and tightly gripping fingers, urgent down into his knees. If the Indiana Pacers do go onto to win the 2025 NBA Finals, that needs to be the defining picture of their Sport 3, 116-107 victory over the Oklahoma Metropolis Thunder.
Indiana didn’t want the type of miraculous comeback within the remaining minutes that can outline this postseason run. However it might have achieved one thing extra surprising on Wednesday night time by exhausting Gilgeous-Alexander and the Thunder.
Oklahoma Metropolis’s unrelenting ball strain, the hallmark of its 68-win common season and the trait that carried it to the NBA Finals, lastly relented within the second half of Sport 3. Gilgeous-Alexander, who has personified nonchalance whereas cementing himself as one of many best pure bucket-getters ever, began the night time by throwing a frustration elbow to earn an offensive foul and ended it gasping for air.
The cherubic Pacers have been largely embraced as a group of future in 2025, too naive to be scared, too headstrong to fail. However possibly that’s not giving them sufficient credit score. Possibly, they’ve a superpower of their very own in these Finals.
Indiana, Pacing
Probably the most well-conditioned group within the NBA couldn’t take full benefit of their superpower over the primary two video games of the Finals. Fewer than 9 % of the Pacers’ possessions got here in transition in Sport 1, and although that quantity elevated to 12.9 % in Sport 2, (per Cleansing the Glass), that’s nonetheless method beneath their season common.
Past the numbers, their half-court possessions felt gradual, too. All through the common season, Indiana all the time performed quicker than easy monitoring numbers would recommend; a lot of its “half-court” possessions would begin by attacking a cross-match discovered by throwing the ball up the ground. Head coach Rick Carlisle’s group could not have shot till the shot clock hit 12, however pushing the tempo finally engineered a great shot.
We noticed little of that early within the Finals, and no Pacer suffered greater than Tyrese Haliburton. In Sport 2, he had scored simply 5 factors on seven shot makes an attempt coming into the garbage-time-filled fourth quarter. However amidst the trash, Carlisle discovered one thing that labored: taking the ball out of Haliburton’s palms, if only for a second.
Different gamers would convey it up, or Haliburton would throw it forward and dash right into a handoff, permitting him to shake off Oklahoma Metropolis’s perimeter defenders and not using a reside dribble. And effectively, guess the primary out-of-timeout play Indiana ran in Sport 3:
Haliburton put up 22/9/11 in Sport 3, and he merely performed higher for a lot of the sport. When the ball was in his palms, he obtained the perfect of Oklahoma Metropolis’s guards many instances, particularly by rejecting screens or feigning the reject, getting an angle downhill both method. He additionally took what was given to him, both within the type of floaters or pull-up jumpers. And by the tip of the sport, sure, Oklahoma Metropolis’s defenders seemingly grew bored with making use of such prolonged ball strain and sagged off.
This play has all of it:
Andrew Nembhard throws the ball forward to Bennedict Mathurin (27 factors) then fills Haliburton place on the weak-side. In simply 5 seconds after securing the rebound, Indiana’s already made a pair passes and off-ball strikes. Luguentz Dort has already run to the paint to course of Indiana’s counter assault as he switches again onto Haliburton, solely to find he’s 10 ft away, buried beneath a Myles Turner display. He loses a recreation of cat-and-mouse, forcing Chet Holmgren to make an emergency swap, however Haliburton has already launched a 3.
Cleansing the Glass clocked over 17 % of Indiana’s Sport 3 possessions as transition alternatives, a fats mark that exceeds even its regular-season common. That — and all of the quick-hitting possession not tabulated as transition — didn’t solely assist Haliburton. Throughout one second quarter play, Pascal Siakam posts up with practically 20 seconds on the shot-clock, that means the Thunder’s back-line isn’t ready to combat for place and bounce everywhere in the entry go.
Mathurin ultimately feasts off it, and it’s the precise sort of play Indiana couldn’t produce within the first two video games of the Finals:
1: IND making an attempt to put up Pascal vs. a set OKC protection with single-digits on the shot-clock in G1
2: IND throwing an entry go with 20 on the shot-clock in G3 pic.twitter.com/ZGDabkyssj
— Lucas Kaplan (@LucasKaplan_) June 12, 2025
Many Pacers made many performs. Mathurin made contested photographs; T.J. McConnell stole inbounds passes (plural) and obtained into the tooth of the protection; Haliburton received many battles on the level of assault. However the Pacers, as a group, had been capable of play their model of ball in Sport 3, and that ought to drop a pit into Oklahoma Metropolis’s abdomen.
Taking The ‘O’ Out Of OKC
And but, the Thunder needs to be far more involved about their very own offense.
In Sport 2, head coach Mark Daigneault did his finest at hand his fashion-minded celebrity loads of runways to walk down and it labored. Gilgeous-Alexander initiated possessions close to the half-court brand nearly each time down and, after roasting whoever hedged on his screens — particularly, Haliburton and Myles Turner — he couldn’t be stopped with a full head of steam.
He scored 38 factors, whereas Oklahoma Metropolis created loads of free throws and 3-pointers on snug drive-and-kick possessions. Indiana’s response to this Thunder adjustment was a daring one: You need to play a full-court recreation? Let’s do it.
Nembhard, Ben Sheppard, Aaron Nesmith and whoever else guarded Gilgeous-Alexander guarded him for 94 ft. Early on, the outcomes had been indistinguishable from Sport 2:
However Indiana caught to the plan and it paid main dividends. Gilgeous-Alexander began to tug, whereas Haliburton and Turner discovered how one can method the ball-screens. On this play, maybe Indiana’s finest rep of the night time, it’s Turner supporting Nembhard’s wonderful effort by sliding his ft and it results in one in every of Oklahoma Metropolis’s 19 turnovers.
off a make, Nembhard denies SGA, then ultimately sticks with him via a display. Myles does an incredible job sliding his ft, and Hali preys on a poor go: pic.twitter.com/mx3GwBjjaR
— Lucas Kaplan (@LucasKaplan_) June 12, 2025
A Poor Shot Profile
Probably the most worrisome stat for the Thunder shouldn’t be the 19 turnovers, although. It’s, as soon as once more, the shot distribution. Oklahoma Metropolis tried 21 3-pointers and shot an incomprehensible 12-of-39 from the midrange, per Cleansing the Glass.
Indiana didn’t draw back till the dying minutes, nevertheless it soundly deserved to win this recreation. As in Sport 1, the Thunder didn’t discover sufficient high-quality photographs to ever go on an prolonged run. Even when issues had been going easily for the 68-win juggernaut, issues had been troublesome.
A part of that is constructing a roster round Gilgeous-Alexander and Jalen Williams as the 2 high-usage ball-handlers. A part of it’s the monotony of mentioned offense, more and more straightforward to plan for as a sequence progresses.
On Wednesday, Gilgeous-Alexander’s decision-making left a bit to be desired, as seen within the clip a couple of paragraphs above. And Williams — who, in all equity, did rating 26 factors on 9-of-18 taking pictures — hasn’t proven the deal with to persistently get all the best way to the rim and spray passes out to shooters. However the Pacers deserves credit score right here, too; by the fourth quarter, they had been capable of each apply strain on Gilgeous-Alexander 40 ft out whereas recovering to Oklahoma Metropolis’s bigs on the quick roll.
None of those possessions ending in 3-pointers, because of all the aforementioned components, is a tricky tablet to swallow for the Thunder:
In such a dense, fascinating Finals, sure matchups or gamers get short-changed. Although you wouldn’t realize it from this text, Sport 3 will go down because the Bennedict Mathurin Sport in a lot of Indiana. We additionally didn’t delve into the curious Daigneault choice to play his double-big lineup of Holmgren and Isaiah Hartenstein for only a handful of (profitable minutes), nor Carlisle taking part in Siakam extra typically because the lone huge.
Lineup choices, although, is not going to stick in my thoughts after watching Sport 3 of this epic sequence. Moderately, the emblematic play, past the defining nonetheless picture of a gassed Gilgeous-Alexander, is that this dagger with which solely Indiana might stab.
The Pacers are 11 factors per 100 possessions higher on protection when Pascal Siakam is on the ground. Ranks within the 99th percentile.
Watch him guard SGA on this significant possession. Wow. pic.twitter.com/CqEqcVV41i
— Esfandiar Baraheni (@JustEsBaraheni) June 12, 2025
Following a complete shutdown of Gilgeous-Alexander, led by Siakam and that includes a powerful hedge from Haliburton, Nembhard tracks down a 30/70 free ball. Two kick-ahead passes later and Siakam is returning the favor to Gilgeous-Alexander, solely one in every of them nonetheless with air in his lungs. The Pacers, up six with only a minute left, have barreled down the courtroom. They see a possibility to attain.
Is it the suitable play on this state of affairs? That’s irrelevant. It’s their play.
