Berry Tramel
OKLAHOMA CITY — The Thunder figured out Sunday night how to negate Tyrese Haliburton’s clutch gene. Don’t give the Indiana Pacers a chance to make it close.
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, with help from Aaron Wiggins off the bench, led a second-quarter charge that put the Pacers in a big hole, and this time, Indiana never dug out. The Thunder routed the Pacers 123-107 to even the NBA Finals at one game each.
Indiana beat the Thunder 111-110 in Game 1 Thursday night, on Haliburton’s fourth game-winning shot of these playoffs, a 20-foot jumper with 0.3 seconds left, after the Pacers rallied from a 15-point fourth-quarter deficit.
But Luguentz Dort, with help from friends, continued the suffocating defense that made life miserable for Haliburton, with no buzzer-beating tonic available.
Haliburton scored 17 points, but 12 of them came in the fourth quarter, with the game apparently decided.
People are also reading…
Meanwhile, Gilgeous-Alexander scored 34 points on 11-of-21 shooting, Alex Caruso scored 20 points, Jalen Williams 19, Chet Holmgren 15 and Wiggins a cool 18.
SGA scored seven points and Wiggins six in a 19-2 burst in the second quarter that gave the Thunder a 52-29 lead. The Pacers never got closer than 13 the rest of the way.
Mark Daigneault stuck with his smaller starting lineup — Cason Wallace in place of Isaiah Hartenstein — but used both big men much more than in Game 1, and both Holmgren and Hartenstein were effective.
And Wiggins was sensational, with 17 points, on 6-of-11 shooting, including 5-of-8 from 3-point range.
In 18 playoff games this season, Wiggins’ playing time had dwindled, and he reached double-digit scoring just thrice, two of which came courtesy of garbage time in blowouts. That’s after averaging 12.0 points and 22.9 minutes a game during the season.
berry.tramel@tulsaworld.com
0 Comments
Get in the game with our Prep Sports Newsletter
Sent weekly directly to your inbox!