Everything should have fallen apart for the Indiana Pacers when Jalen Williams put the Oklahoma City Thunder up 15 in the fourth quarter after yet another Pacers turnover. With a dominant defense and an offense that thrives off those stops, surely, it wouldn’t happen this time.
Not like the Bucks. Not like the Cavaliers. Not like the Knicks.
But it did. It did happen again.
There’s a plethora of stats to point out the absurdity of it all, but the game-winner had to be set up by the improbable comeback.
And that started with a simple, but aggressive and one effort from Andrew Nembhard as he drove through the contact of Alex Caruso and scored.
That’s when the lemon-booty-fication of the game began.
The Thunder would answer back, but the process of trading punches and the Pacers closing the gap was underway. And in that, Nembhard would play a key role.
One aggressive drive begets another, but instead of fighting for his shot, Nembhard found Obi Toppin for a three-pointer. Obi, like the team, overcame a terrible start and showed up when it mattered most.
The drive was an example of how the Nembhard and the Pacers could use the Thunder’s own Zerg-rush tactics against them. Three players collapsed on Nembhard, but he spun around and had Toppin open. Even if someone was closing out on Toppin, Haliburton was wide open as well.
Nembhard and the Pacers as a whole would play defense that kept the Thunder from easy buckets. They would exploit the corners of the court that the Thunder haven’t guarded well all season. Toppin would CLAP-CLAP-CLAP his way into another 3-pointer after a swarming Oklahoma City defense surrounded Aaron Nesmith.
Nembhard picked up another assist as Myles Turner Texas Two-Stepped1 his way into one of his two timely three-pointers down the stretch. Not that everything was perfect, but at least fouls forced Shai Gilgeous-Alexander to earn it from the line. And even when there was a mistake by the Pacers, they bounced back immediately.
Criticize Haliburton for a game that will only be exalted into the holy of holies for Pacers fans due to his last shot, but the Pacers’ offense flowed regardless. Nembhard and Turner worked the pick and roll to create opportunity while the Pacers’ late-game hero watched. The casualness of the pass to set up Myles kept Chet Holmgren committed to the roll while Indiana’s big man hit a shot over a smaller defender in Lu Dort.
The punches continued to be exchanged but there was no knockout coming from Oklahoma City. A Haliburton jab here, an easy missed bucket for the Thunder there, keeping SGA limited to free throws and not three-point plays, a left hook from the Pacers here, and other plays slowly saw the bruised but not broken Pacers ready for their own late haymaker.
But it wasn’t quite time for Haliburton to steal the show; Nembhard still had work to do.
Nembhard took on the MVP one-on-one and drilled a step-back three-pointer and later a pair of free throws to firmly put the game in potential surrender cobra territory. The only real blemish for him late was a badly missed three-pointer on tired legs, but Pascal Siakam was there to rebound and cut the lead to one.
Not to mention Nembhard ‘redeemed’ himself quickly by stonewalling Gilgeous-Alexander when a basket would have drastically changed the mental calculus of the Pacers and coach Rick Carlisle2.
All of that, of course, set up inevitability.
Haliburton is rightly the hero, but let us not forget what Nembhard and other Pacers did to set up the chance to steal Game 1 on the road.
No lead is too large to overcome, and as seen again, it doesn’t always need to be the Pacers All-Stars in Haliburton and Siakam leading the way.
When anyone can spark a comeback, when anyone can be the foundation that might hold up an eventual statue of Haliburton outside of Gainbridge Fieldhouse, why shouldn’t the Pacers believe that they will, in fact, do it again.
“Most definitely. … We stay connected. We’re going to play until the whistle blows. It didn’t feel like we were down 20. I don’t know what the deficit was, but it felt like we were just right there,” Nembhard said.
And it’s hard not to believe him. At this point, what don’t the Pacers believe they can come back from?
These sorts of moves aren’t new to Turner. ↩︎
In the post-game presser, Carlisle said while the review on the Pascal out-of-bounds play was ongoing they discussed how they would handle things if they got a stop. “Yeah, that’s very — we talked about it, but we still don’t know the outcome of the challenge yet. We said if it is their ball, let’s get the stop. There’s going to be a difference in the shot clock and the game clock and if we get a stop and get the rebound, we’re going to go. Hopefully get the ball in Tyrese’s hands and look to make a play. ↩︎
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