The Indiana Pacers weren’t able to play the sort of basketball they like on Sunday, and it cost them.
The Oklahoma City Thunder were punishing, especially in the paint, and their defense got the best of the Pacers again and again.
Following his team’s disappointing Game 2 loss, Myles Turner spoke with ESPN about what went wrong and what Indiana must try to improve.
“With Tyrese [Haliburton], there’s plenty of formulas to get him going,” Pacers center Myles Turner said after Game 2. “There are things we went over in our game plan that we didn’t execute well enough today. We’ll get them in the paint. We have been one of the better teams scoring in the paint all year and we have to establish that early. We only had four or six points in the paint in the first half, and that’s not Pacers basketball.”
Turner’s plan is simple: get back into the paint, where the Pacers have performed well all season.
They certainly weren’t given the chance on Sunday, because the Thunder knows how productive the Pacers are when in the paint.
They swarmed and suffocated and didn’t allow them access to that vital part of the court.
The Thunder have also found ways to limit Tyrese Haliburton, which is hurting the Pacers’ chances.
He wasn’t able to find a rhythm during Game 2, and the Thunder’s defensive plans worked out perfectly against him.
There are obviously multiple parts of Indiana’s plan that need to be improved, and they don’t have much time to do it.
Game 3 will be held on Wednesday, and the Pacers are desperate to grab a win and get into the driver’s seat of this series.
All NBA teams know that they do not want to fall behind the Thunder in a series, especially this one with everything on the line.
NEXT: Stats Reveal Thunder's Key To Limiting Tyrese Haliburton In NBA Finals