By Joe Vardon The Athletic
OKLAHOMA CITY – There was no magical comeback, no last-second stunner by the opponent. Just a more typical, complete, dominant effort from the Thunder.
The NBA Finals is tied, 1-1, after Oklahoma City’s perhaps predictable response from its gut-wrenching Game 1 collapse to the Indiana Pacers. The Thunder won Sunday’s Game 2, 123-107, behind 34 points from league MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, excellent individual recoveries by Chet Holmgren and Jalen Williams, and a complete game from a top-rated defense that snuffed out any Hoosier hope of yet another rally.
“I always expect our team to play well,” Thunder coach Mark Daigneault said. “They have built that kind of trust over time.”
Indiana was led by Tyrese Haliburton’s 17 points. Myles Turner contributed 16 points and Pascal Siakam provided 15 points and seven boards but shot 3 of 11.
Game 3 is at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday in Indianapolis.
Oklahoma City was the NBA’s best regular-season team with 68 wins, hasn’t lost consecutive games since November (besides a couple meaningless ones once playoff seeding was set), and beat its opponents by more points than any team in history. There is no time more important than the present to turn it up a notch. The second-youngest team to reach a finals in NBA history needs three more wins for its first championship since the franchise moved from Seattle to the great plains in 2008.
The Pacers erased a 15-point deficit in the fourth quarter on Thursday, won the game on a Haliburton jumper before the buzzer, and was attempting to open a third consecutive playoff series by winning the first two games on the road. They’d already come from 15 or more points down to win five playoff games, and won three postseason games when trailing by seven with three minutes or less to go.
The Thunder, the NBA’s best defense in the regular and postseasons, simply didn’t give the Pacers any room to breathe life into another upset. Indiana trailed by six after one quarter, by 18 at halftime and by 19 through three quarters. When Haliburton finally got it going in the fourth quarter (he’d scored just five through the first three), Oklahoma City traded baskets with him and didn’t let the lead get below 19 through the first six minutes.
“Indiana is kind of an acquired taste,” Daigneault said. “There was a lot of things we were just a little better in, more comfortable, and that’s at both ends of the floor.”
The Thunder’s defense turned Indiana over again (15 turnovers in Game 2 after 25 in Game 1 from the Pacers) and was much better on the glass than it was on Thursday, winning the rebounding battle instead of losing it by a wide margin.
Holmgren, the Thunder’s 7-footer who struggled with just six points on 2-of-9 shooting in Game 1, responded with 15 points and six boards on Sunday. Williams, an All-Star who like Holmgren is in his third season, recovered from his poor shooting performance in Game 1 to contribute 19 points, five boards and five assists (he still only shot 5 of 14, but was 8 of 9 from the line and the output he provided felt much bigger in a win).
Alex Caruso scored 20 points and Aaron Wiggins gave the Thunder 18 unexpected points off the bench.
Wiggins played just nine minutes in Game 1 and didn’t get into Game 2 until the second quarter, but his emergence was nevertheless a part of a grander lineup scheme the Thunder employed to stay light and quick to match the Pacers’ speed while beefing up on the glass. Isaiah Hartenstein, the Thunder’s other 7-footer who usually plays alongside Holmgren, came off the bench again and contributed eight rebounds.
“I don’t know if there was any lineup that they used that wasn’t impactful for them,” Indiana coach Rick Carlisle said. “Caruso and Wiggins, both those guys shot it well. They caused other problems. They ran it well. They made plays. They got a great feel to cut, and they hurt you in a lot of different ways.
“But you know, Shai, you can mark down 34 points before they even get on the plane tomorrow, you know, for the next game. The guy’s going to score. We’ve got to find ways to make it as tough as possible on him. Williams played really well tonight. All their guys played well. And so we’re going to have to do a lot of things better.”
With his first basket at 8:24 of the first quarter, Gilgeous-Alexander went over 3,000 points for the season, counting the regular season and playoffs. He is the 12th player ever to hit that mark, joining Michael Jordan, Wilt Chamberlain, Bob McAdoo, Elgin Baylor, James Harden, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Kevin Durant, Kobe Bryant, Rick Barry, Shaquille O’Neal and Luka Dončić.
Gilgeous-Alexander added eight assists and five rebounds on Sunday and converted 11 of 12 at the foul line. He’s averaging 36.0 points through two games in this series – and his total of 72 points is the most ever by a player in the first two NBA Finals games of his career, narrowly edging Allen Iverson’s 71 in 2001.
If you were getting at all nervous that Indiana might do it again – the Pacers had cut the deficit to 17 with about four minutes left, Gilgeous-Alexander’s layup and free throw with 3:54 to go put those fears (or prayers, if you favor the Pacers) to rest.
Carlisle pulled Haliburton – Indiana’s lone starter on the court in the middle of the fourth – after he’d hit a 3 to get the Pacers within 17.
“Sometimes you have to make tough decisions,” Carlisle said. “That was an easy one.”
### Indiana stars need to set tone
The supporting cast around Haliburton and Siakam, namely the Pacers’ other three starters, carried the bulk of the weight for this team in their Game 2 loss. Aaron Nesmith, Myles Turner and Andrew Nembhard combined for 41 points on 15 of 30 from the field and 6 of 17 from 3-point range, 12 rebounds, eight assists and three steals. Bennedict Mathurin even chipped in 14 points on 4-of-7 shooting.
Siakam and Haliburton just didn’t hold up their end of the bargain as Indiana’s marquee players. While the box score might suggest otherwise for both, as far as points, rebounds and assists, the two were a combined minus-20 Sunday. Siakam shot just 3 of 11 from the field and 1 of 4 from distance.
And Haliburton, who did lead the Pacers in scoring with 17 points, managed just three of those in the first half. Although Haliburton tallied 14 points in the final 24 minutes, the majority of those came with the game seemingly out of reach for Indiana. Ultimately for Haliburton in Game 2, it was too little too late.