2024-2025 OKC Thunder Games Thread

[Dadouv47]

Need to find ways to adjust better against Mcconnell/Toppin to have a chance to win on the road. Obviously need to attack Haliburton as much as possible since he's a bit injured.

If we cant adjust to Obi Toppin and TJ with an injured Haliburton then we don't deserve to win. Neither of those guys are the caliber of player to win two elimination games to win a title.

I don't think so much with TJ this is true but with Obi he's kind of a mismatch. POA guards can only do so much and he obliterates anyone not named Dort but are you really moving Dort off of his other matchups just to contain Toppin? Maybe with Hali injured that's something that's a little more palatable idk

Toppin being a factor is the last thing I thought would happen in this series.

Siakam performance gonna be key for the Pacers moving forward. He was kind of fresh in the second half yesterday so I hope we can make it difficult enough early in game 6 for him to struggle late.

[Woerzboerg]

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[kdthunderup]

We ran a lot more sets which took advantage of how close Nembhard plays Shai and doesn’t help off him. Was a great adjustment from Mark and why I think things opened up offensively. Will be interesting to see if Pacers continue to defend Shai how they have been now we figured out how to counter it better.

We need to game plan better for McConnell. Pacers will be leaning on him harder in game 6 if Hali’s calf injury is somewhat serious.

[spearsy23]

If he isn't able to go it's obviously a loss for them, but with the way he has played are they really that much less dangerous? I assume Nembhard spends more time initiating offense and Mathurin and McConnel play more minutes. If Mathurin is on then that probably actually helps them, if he isn't on then they may be cooked.

[kdthunderup]

Agreed that in a weird way Hali not playing might help them since it throws a completely different wrinkle to play against just as we have adjusted over the series.

[Dadouv47]

If he isn't able to go it's obviously a loss for them, but with the way he has played are they really that much less dangerous? I assume Nembhard spends more time initiating offense and Mathurin and McConnel play more minutes. If Mathurin is on then that probably actually helps them, if he isn't on then they may be cooked.

maybe but then he's gonna lose some needed energy on defense against Shai (obviously great for us). Think losing Hali is a big depth issue for the Pacers even if it's better for them if he sits instead of playing injured

[Dadouv47]

just finish this thing on thursday. Game 7's are tricky and we never know about injuries either. Chet avoided something more serious.

[Devilanche]

surprised Caruso played this poorly yesterday. Bad making decisions and bad offense. Didn't like Kenrich either but I wanted him to play more minutes and still think he deserves some minutes. Can't complain about the rest of our guys...Cason not elite but finally hitting his shots and struggling a bit less.

I like Kenrich having more minutes purely because I don’t think he will cost us the game and that’s some minutes of rest for rest of the guys.

[Big nick]

Indy really screwed up last night we simply can’t stop Mccconell right now, and they took him out how weird. Dub was amazing he has stepped up in a big way a true 2nd for us. I agree Chet badly needs some muscle but he is grinding it out. I will tell you my blood pressure was way up last night! This team is so much fun to watch. I hope we move up in the draft we need to keep very good rookies to help with the pending payroll crunch.

[Clav]

Indy really screwed up last night we simply can’t stop Mccconell right now, and they took him out how weird. Dub was amazing he has stepped up in a big way a true 2nd for us. I agree Chet badly needs some muscle but he is grinding it out. I will tell you my blood pressure was way up last night! This team is so much fun to watch. I hope we move up in the draft we need to keep very good rookies to help with the pending payroll crunch.

They also played Tony Bradley... I mean shoutout for the former Thunder, but he's not a Finals level C.

Indiana made some strange choices trying to impose their will on the game and without Haliburton to initiate at 100%, everything kind of fell apart, they were turning the ball over a lot more, not sound strategy from Rick.

TJ is a nice guard, but he cannot carry them for 40 minutes. They cut to him taking oxygen on the bench at one point.. I'm optimistic we pull through in G6.

[Devilanche]

Indy really screwed up last night we simply can’t stop Mccconell right now, and they took him out how weird. Dub was amazing he has stepped up in a big way a true 2nd for us. I agree Chet badly needs some muscle but he is grinding it out. I will tell you my blood pressure was way up last night! This team is so much fun to watch. I hope we move up in the draft we need to keep very good rookies to help with the pending payroll crunch.

They also played Tony Bradley... I mean shoutout for the former Thunder, but he's not a Finals level C.

Indiana made some strange choices trying to impose their will on the game and without Haliburton to initiate at 100%, everything kind of fell apart, they were turning the ball over a lot more, not sound strategy from Rick.

TJ is a nice guard, but he cannot carry them for 40 minutes. They cut to him taking oxygen on the bench at one point.. I'm optimistic we pull through in G6.

TJ probably was tired from playing too much minutes.

[cjmcallist]

Indy really screwed up last night we simply can’t stop Mccconell right now, and they took him out how weird. Dub was amazing he has stepped up in a big way a true 2nd for us. I agree Chet badly needs some muscle but he is grinding it out. I will tell you my blood pressure was way up last night! This team is so much fun to watch. I hope we move up in the draft we need to keep very good rookies to help with the pending payroll crunch.

They also played Tony Bradley... I mean shoutout for the former Thunder, but he's not a Finals level C.

Any idea why? I was distracted throughout, so I didn't get to see what happened. Carlisle's rotations before had his team playing small during the Tony B minutes, so I assumed that we did something to make him feel like he needed a big center out there. I credited it to our big guys.

[Dadouv47]

I think I might be the worst person at predicting game results and a coin toss is certainly having a better record than me so I have bad news: I'm super confident we win game 6.

[Woerzboerg]

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He will most probably play and I think this is worse for Indiana than him not playing.

[Dadouv47]

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He will most probably play and I think this is worse for Indiana than him not playing.

I don't buy the game time decision. They will make a decision today but won't reveal it which is totally fair.

[slick_watts]

this team is just so much more talented than the pacers that they've been able to just muscle their way to a series lead despite being comparatively brain dead and most of the role players showing tepid performances.

[spearsy23]

I have been less than enthused with the offensive process throughout most of the playoffs, but every time it's gotten bogged down so far Mark's solution of 'play better defense' has been enough to see us through.

[Dadouv47]

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some defensive mistakes from Shai in the finals (fatigue?) but he can still make some key plays

[Dadouv47]

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moving well is a reach but he's playing tomorrow

[Dadouv47]

hope it's just a media thing because I don't like our players saying that it's "just another game". Deep down they know it's not just another game and they should embrace it.