2025 NBA FINALS: #1 Oklahoma City Thunder vs #4 Indiana Pacers (Series tied 1-1)

[Chuck Everett]

Glad OKC won. I want 7 games! Game 3 is going to be insane

I keep moving the goal posts, but I had the Thunder in six games before the series started. However, I don't trust their bench players to play well outside of Caruso when they don't have the home fans cheering for them. They've been pretty bad across the board all playoffs on the road. So what I need is for the lights to "not be too bright," word to Jarrett Allen.

I don't think OKC needs the bench players to play exceptionally well on offense. They just need JDub and Chet to hit their regular season averages.

When those 2 are aggressive on offense, it speeds up the game for them and it prevents SGA from having to play with the ball to get things going.

SGA has the tendency to try to create things that aren't there and turn his Chet and JDub into ball watchers because the offense by design is very stagnant.

When OKC is applying pressure on defense and getting out in transition, the offense has pace and that pace extends to the bench.

We'll see. The road performance vs. home has been pretty drastic:

OKC Home Record (9-2): 110.7ppg, oppg 92.1
OKC Road Record (4-3): 109ppg, oppg 115.8

The defense is drastically different at home, while the offense is mostly the same. There's a major blowout in both the road/home splits, so there's no point in leaving those games out.

They win by an average of 18 points per game at home. We'll see what happens in Indianapolis. Me wanting to see what they're made of in a close game on the road with the championship on the line isn't really asking for much here. I just remain skeptical they can blowout their way to a chip without winning a game or two like that in the Finals.

[Capn'O]

I always feel better when it happens though. When the losers start complaining about officiating, it means OKC is dominating.

I haven't followed the thread closely (not easy to follow both the game and the thread) but my guess is that the ones complaining aren't Pacers fans. We aren't numerous in here and we don't tend to complain either.

Oh it’s definitely not the Pacers fans. You all have been great.

It’s Shai’s fan club.

Their downright reasonableness is eerily unsettling.

[jkvonny]

Shai sporting a Lennon shirt.

Beatles fan.

[Revived]

Are Pacers gonna come back and win again? This shtick is getting tiring and ridiculous.

It’s only tiring if you’re rooting against the Pacers

It’s tiring regardless, their paid to play with effort for a full game not just the 4th qtr.

[threethehardway]

If Haliburton was just another score first combo guard, IND wouldn't be in the finals, because those guys would never allow their teammates to shine when they have the hot hand.

IND is a deep team and Haliburton's pass first style allows them to fulfill their potential.

No.

This isn't even factual.

Isiah Thomas could go out there and get 30. When it was time for him to respond because his teammates weren't getting it done, he did it himself because he's the best player.

When Steph Curry gets tired of watching his teammates goof around on offense, he goes get the ball and literally tear apart the soul of the opposing team.

When Magic Johnson stopped playing with his food because he's the biggest, fastest, and the most talented player on the court. He gets the bucket himself. All the passing stops.

Running an offense and all of this, "gotta make the teammates" better is for losers. It's for the fans to project themselves into the sport. It's for the 7th man that couldn't find a bucket even if it hits him in the head.

I want my star player to bail me out if I am having a bad night. I don't wanna go 3-11 like Pascal did tonight and the highest paid player on the court, the one that gets all the endorsement deals, the one that's on TV, ,the one that is smiling all up in the in the camera when we win because of his game winner, is nowhere to be found because "he doesn't have an ego", nah he just not that guy.

SGA went and got buckets tonight, getting trapped, splitting defenses and still getting to his spots. Haliburton watched his team get clamped. When they got on a little run, he didn't keep it going. SGA was putting the lead back to 20 in response.

[rolling_91]

Great game from OKC tonight but game 3 is in Indiana. Even though you can say that OKC has probably won 6 of the 8 quarters, they are going to have to execute offensively in Indiana to win. How confident are you that they will?

They won a big game in Denver, game 5. They won a big game in Minnesota, game 4. But they also got smoked in game 3 by the Twolves. You never know with young teams.

Haliburton is getting locked down on the ball and can’t break down the defense so the Pacers are having problems in the half court. I expect Carlyle to have some answers. I believe the Pacers will win game 3.

[xBulletproof]

Neither is being a scoring guard. IND got this far because Haliburton never let his ego get in the way of a win.

Um... only star guards that can score at will have won championships.


Haliburton just can't score at will.

I wish people would stop letting limitations become virtues. Everyone can see he can't break down defenses at will and score. He knows it and his teammates knows it.

SGA tonight dropped 34 on their head and Haliburton did absolutely nothing, like he always do.

Pacers succeed in spite in Haliburton's passivity, not because of it.

There's nothing admirable about being the highest paid player and being paraded as a star and getting 30 and 40 points on your headtop and you can't do nothing about it.

You can't stop it and you can't respond lol. It's nothing to do with ego, it because he can't.

If Haliburton was just another score first combo guard, IND wouldn't be in the finals, because those guys would never allow their teammates to shine when they have the hot hand.

IND is a deep team and Haliburton's pass first style allows them to fulfill their potential.

You can't reason with this dudes nonsense. He magically shows up every time the Pacers lose to spout this stuff, and says nothing when they win, except when he shows up too early to gloat, then the Pacers made one of their comebacks

It's kinda funny because he will say things like ... "Tyrese can't turn it around when things aren't going his way", except we keep seeing him leading comebacks when things aren't going his way. He said he can't get to the rim, the same game he took Giannis to the rim for the game winner, and a driving dunk right before that. There are examples for days on things he's said that make 0 sense, even in the same day it's said.

Given the illogical mess that comes off that keyboard, it's clearly an emotional issue. It's certainly not logical. Seeing that it's always about Haliburton, and seeing that specific user name, I think it would be hilarious if it was Tim Hardaway. Tyrese cousin nailed his wife, so the emotional, and not logical responses make sense. You can look up the interview Hardaway just did about Haliburton where he was talking about how he wanted to "**** him up" Timmy is all bent out of shape about him, and this person with that username happens to be too? Coincidence? Who knows.

[Chuck Everett]

And I just want to add this: The Thunder are about as close to unbeatable at home as it gets in these playoffs. They've lost two games on buzzer beaters essentially that they have dominated the entire way. Every other game aside from Game 5 versus Denver was an easy victory.

[Nuntius]

I haven't followed the thread closely (not easy to follow both the game and the thread) but my guess is that the ones complaining aren't Pacers fans. We aren't numerous in here and we don't tend to complain either.

Oh it’s definitely not the Pacers fans. You all have been great.

It’s Shai’s fan club.

Their downright reasonableness is eerily unsettling.

We know

[Jordan45822]

Pacers are due a game 4 against Cleveland type game. Their best overall game in the whole playoffs (well you can say game 4 against Milwaukee too). Just not sure they can do that against OKC defense.

[Deathray]

Once again it was a story of two halves. Carlisle has to figure out a way to get the offense going early in game 3.

[fanofthegreats]

Indy is done. Haliburton is too bag less to do anything

[tmorgan]

I expect it to be 2-2 heading back to OKC. Then we’ll see if the Pacers can actually take 2 of 3 from a more talented roster after multiple adjustments have been made on both sides. I’m not saying they can’t, by the way.

Still hoping for 7 games.

[picc]

Why does Haliburton have two voices?

[boomershadow]

OKC has been much better at home than away, and they're still going to game 3 in indy tied.

[BrianInPhilly]

Pacers/Carlisle have to figure out the bench minutes, staggering starters minutes better ... I may have bad memory but Nesmith running primarily with the bench in the 2nd half seemed to help slightly. With McConnel / Mathurin / Shepperd in they just seem much worse than the starters. Those guys are not aggressive enough offensively - Shepperd specifically 1-2 shooting in 14 minutes won't cut it considering he's not bodying up anyone on defense.

[Raps in 4]

33-26 FTAs isn't an egregious difference. And it's not like those 7 FTAs would have made a difference. The game was already lost in the second quarter. The Pacers were awful all night.

This wasn't like a few years ago when Silver was trying to push the Lakers back into relevance and they were averaging like twice as many FTAs as their opponents. That **** was blatantly rigged. Small differences like this are normal. Maybe there was a little homecourt favourtism but I didn't notice it.

[bucknut]

Pacers/Carlisle have to figure out the bench minutes, staggering starters minutes better ... I may have bad memory but Nesmith running primarily with the bench in the 2nd half seemed to help slightly. With McConnel / Mathurin / Shepperd in they just seem much worse than the starters. Those guys are not aggressive enough offensively - Shepperd specifically 1-2 shooting in 14 minutes won't cut it considering he's not bodying up anyone on defense.

Imo the two best pacers bench guys for this series is mcconnell and mathurin and need to play more. Both are probably the strongest guys on the team pound for pound if I had to guess and best at getting downhill. Which both is becoming a requisite for the necessary force to play against this OKC defense. Mcconnell has been perhaps more efficient and productive then anyone this series.

Pacers bench is ultra variable and streaky Look at a guy like toppin. Don't trust his shooting but can get hot, zero mid range. He's either easily a net negative or on the fast break getting buckets and a microwave.

Siakam looks like a shell of himself. Everything looks forced, and he looks low-key unathletic and it's the first time I can recall seeing it in him. He's usually exposing another big off the bounce, now he is getting exposed by putting it on the floor.

Neismith looks like a second round draft pick lucky to be in the league. Playing without strength as bad as anyone on team. Arms flailing constantly never strong with the ball getting stripped. In every defensive highlight running on help late on a shooter. A complete non factor in offense unless he's jacking a three

Neimbhard looks slow, weak, and unathletic and falling off balance way too often. If he doesn't have space to go into his dribble package he can't play through contact.

Haliburton to me looks fine despite his lack of success. He still looks like the same guy. Neismith and neimbhard look nothing like the same guys. Right now the pacers have a force problem.

All said, they had a crap ton of open shots tnite they missed and on the bad part of the streaky variance. Turner had like 4 open threes just in the first half. Similar to how on game one OKC missed a ton of shots

The series is going to be decided in the next two games

[Calvin Klein]

Shai sporting a Lennon shirt.

Beatles fan.

Who knows, young people these days wear bands t shirt as a fashion accessory

[guynumber45]

I think Indy has to win all their games at home to take this series. They did their job by stealing the first game on the road. But it's too much to ask them to take another game in OKC. That team is a different beast at home