OKLAHOMA CITY — To reach the NBA Finals and stunningly steal its opening game, the Indiana Pacers against all odds repeatedly shot better, and defended harder, in clutch situations. It was a perfect storm.
They could replicate none of it Sunday in Game 2, however, because Oklahoma City has evened the series at one game apiece by unleashing what amounted to a perfect swarm.
And it could be the Thunder’s blueprint to a championship.
“No one-man show,” Oklahoma City star Shai Gilgeous-Alexander said, “can win an NBA championship.”
Its 123-107 win inside Paycom Center, in which it led by as many as 23 points in the first half and smothered every nascent Indiana comeback attempt in the fourth quarter, wasn’t just the product of receiving a more efficient game from Gilgeous-Alexander, the league’s most valuable player. After scoring 38 points but needing 30 shots to do it in Game 1, he finished with 34 points on 21 attempts Sunday.
On this night, Oklahoma City built a double-digit lead for a second consecutive game, and sustained it — something playoff opponents have rarely done against Indiana — while showing the full capability of the NBA’s deepest roster.
After scoring four points in Game 1, starting center Chet Holmgren scored 15. Jalen Williams, the All-Star wing largely held in check in Game 1, had 19 points thanks to an aggressive plan that led to nine free-throw attempts. Most telling was how even reserves Alex Caruso (20 points) and Aaron Wiggins (18) finished with more scoring than any Pacer. Even when Kenrich Williams, a forward whose playing time has fluctuated, entered for just eight minutes, Oklahoma City outscored Indiana by 15. Gilgeous-Alexander didn’t feel a need to force his shots on Sunday, assisting six different teammates.
“They play a full 48 minutes, and you can’t just throw the first punch,” Gilgeous-Alexander said. “You’re gonna try to throw all the punches, all night.”
Defensively, Oklahoma City largely made Indiana star guard Tyrese Haliburton invisible for the first three quarters, by having “a lot of different guys who can guard the ball, fly around,” Haliburton said.
Both Oklahoma City and Indiana are reflective of the modern NBA, where rules governing the league’s salary cap have turned teams away from the model of the past decade of signing two and sometimes three major stars and assembling a roster top-heavy with talent, and toward a model based on depth.
Oklahoma City showed in Game 2 just how effective, and aggressive, that depth can be on both sides of the ball. If Indiana has authored multiple improbable comebacks by wearing opponents down, Oklahoma City returned the favor. Its kids — with an average age of 25, this is the second-youngest roster to make the Finals — have proven to be quick learners. The Thunder are now 12-2 after a loss this season.
“It would be easy to just say that one thing looked better tonight, but that would be oversimplifying,” coach Mark Daigneault said. “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. We just were a tick forward in all those areas.”
The Thunder used the same starting lineup, with just one big man, as three days earlier but adjusted by choosing to play bigger players across all of its positions throughout every lineup, which Daigneault saw as an adjustment after his team grabbed 17 fewer rebounds than Indiana in Game 1. In Game 2, Oklahoma City won the rebounding battle by eight. For the first time this series, Oklahoma City played both of its big men, Holmgren and Isaiah Hartenstein, together for four minutes, and outscored Indiana by four points.
The size and attention to detail helped the Thunder contain one of Indiana’s most reliable plays, the pick-and-roll, to stop the Pacers’ screen-setting big men from finding open room to shoot beyond the 3-point line. And their constant defensive movement, whether running man-to-man defense or a 2-3 zone, also blunted Indiana’s ability to drive.
“As you’ve seen they have a swarm mentality, keep everybody out of the paint,” Pacers center Myles Turner said. “They sell out to the paint. They are willing to give up a multitude of shots, 3, mid-range, whatever it is, so we don’t get in the paint. Now it’s just about making a decision, get in there.”
“I think that there’s ways to break down the defense. I think that at times, easier said than done.”
