Eight seconds into Game 3 of the NBA Finals, Andrew Nembhard earned a small victory. Frustrated with how the Indiana Pacers guard was harassing him off the ball, Oklahoma City Thunder star Shai Gilgeous-Alexander shoved Nembhard twice. The second time, he caught Nembhard with an elbow. It was reminiscent of the headbutt that Nembhard took from Jalen Brunson 10 days earlier, but this one was actually called a foul.
Nembhard's physicality from the opening tip set the tone for what turned out to be a long, difficult night for Gilgeous-Alexander. The offensive foul was the first of his six turnovers, the most he's had in a game since December. Thanks largely to the indefatigable Nembhard, Gilgeous-Alexander finished with 24 points on 9-for-20 shooting and four assists, a ho-hum performance by his standards.
The way the Pacers defended Gilgeous-Alexander in their 116-107 win, it was clear that they'd emphasized picking him up high on the floor and making him work for absolutely everything. They denied him off the ball, and they limited the space he had when coming off pick-and-rolls. Indiana's defensive approach was not drastically different from the first two games, but Tyrese Haliburton and the bigs did a better job of getting up to the level of the screen to prevent him from getting downhill. Nembhard and second-year guard Ben Sheppard slithered around screens, and, when Gilgeous-Alexander managed to free himself of his primary defender, the Pacers aggressively helped off of shooters to keep a body in front of him.
"We didn't necessarily switch it up as much as people think, to be honest with you," Nembhard told reporters Thursday. "We did it better."
Nembhard said that he's trying "to be a pest," but repeatedly stressed that guarding Gilgeous-Alexander is a team effort. Coming into the series, it should have already been obvious that Indiana had evolved into a much better defensive team than its (decent) regular-season numbers suggest. Now that the Pacers are up 2-1, they have prompted a question that would have seemed crazy until relatively recently: Can they pester their way to a championship?
On Wednesday, Gilgeous-Alexander scored just three points on 1-for-3 shooting in 10 fourth-quarter minutes. On one possession coming out of a timeout, look at Nembhard stay attached to him and then, with help from Haliburton, force a travel.
Rarely does Gilgeous-Alexander look that flustered. At that point, though, he'd endured about 36 minutes of this treatment. In the first quarter, here's Nembhard blowing up his dribble-handoff with Isaiah Hartenstein and taking away the passing lane on a cut, leading to a desperate stepback 2 by Lu Dort:
In the second quarter, here's Nembhard neutralizing one of Oklahoma City's few transition opportunities by anticipating Gilgeous-Alexander's Eurostep and taking the hit in the chest:
In the third quarter, here's Gilgeous-Alexander coming off two screens, failing to get open and watching Alex Caruso miss a contested, left-handed hook:
Gilgeous-Alexander is one of the smoothest scorers who has ever lived. Often, he makes the game look impossibly easy. In Game 3, even when he got buckets, it looked hard.
After scoring 126.8 points per 100 possessions (and 119.8 per 100 in the halfcourt, according to Cleaning The Glass) in Game 2, the Thunder scored just 105.9 per 100 (and 100 per 100 in the halfcourt, per CTG) in Game 3. And in the fourth quarter, it was significantly uglier than that. Up six in crunch time, the Pacers came up with their most impressive defensive stop of the season. It's not just that Myles Turner blocked Chet Holmgren twice on the same possession; it's that all five players were in sync, swarming OKC the way it usually swarms everybody else:
So what can the Thunder do about this? Heading into Game 4 on Friday, there is no reason to expect Nembhard and the Pacers to let Gilgeous-Alexander get comfortable.
One thought: If Indiana is determined to keep a body on him, it makes Gilgeous-Alexander more dangerous as a screener. On a set play early in the fourth quarter, Oklahoma City got a layup for Holmgren off a Gilgeous-Alexander back screen:
Another thought: Just like the Pacers ahead of Game 3, the Thunder need to find a way to play to their identity. "I think we have to, as a team, tap back into some of the things we've been strong in all year," coach Mark Daigneault said. Part of the solution may be getting more movement into the halfcourt offense, but, Oklahoma City solved most of its problems en route to the Finals by forcing turnovers and getting out in transition. Essentially, the Thunder have to do what Indiana did to them on Wednesday.
"They really tried to impose their will, especially picking up full, being more physical," OKC guard Isaiah Joe said. "I think we just need to attack that with more aggressiveness and try not to succumb to that and play slow. I think that also comes with us being able to get stops and get rebounds and try to push on fast breaks."
For Indiana, it is significant that what happened in Game 3 felt so familiar. From Nembhard shadowing a superstar to the bench changing the game and the opponent looking out of sorts down the stretch, we have seen all of this before. Generally, the wear-down effect becomes more pronounced over the course of the series.
The difference, though, is that a 68-win team with the best point differential ever is on the other side, led by the league's MVP. Oklahoma City is deeper than the Pacers' previous opponents and a totally different beast defensively. Just about everything went right for Indiana in two quarters on Wednesday, and it was still a two-possession game late in the fourth. Gilgeous-Alexander and the Thunder should be sharper on Friday, so the Pacers will have to be at least as dogged, disciplined and disruptive as they were in Game 3.
"It's a daunting challenge," Indiana coach Rick Carlisle said. "Anything less than a total grit mindset, we just don't have a chance."