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It was perhaps appropriate that an NBA in the playoffs that no one would have predicted could not end without another touch of conspiracy.
Despite the stars leader Tyrese Haliburton plays with a calf injury, The Indiana Pacers avoided elimination Thursday to win match 6 of the NBA final, 108-91, and push the series of seven best against Oklahoma City to its limit.
For the first time since 2016, the finals have been going to a seventh and last match.
Match 7 is Sunday in Oklahoma City. It became necessary after the Indiana 3-point shot quickly dug Indiana from a start of 10-2 in the first quarter; Its signature tempo rhythm and tireless reserves opened the game and transformed this series into a reversal of parts.
“The way I see it is that we have sucked this evening,” said Thunder Shai Gilgeous-Alexander star, who scored 21 points. “We have to learn the lessons and we have a match for everything we work. The best team on Sunday will win.”
Andrew Nembhard, better known for his defense on Gilgeous-Alexander All Series, was no longer invited to put pressure on the goalkeeper almost the length of the courtyard, just like his custom earlier in the series. The strategic switch has retained part of his energy, and he became alive offensively to score 17 points. Pascal Siakam scored 16 and Obi Toppin scored 20 on the bench for the pacers.
A match after marking a career summit of 40 for the Thunder, Jalen Williams was held at 16 points, and the Thunder was upgraded by 40 in his 27 minutes.
“It was unusual, it was disappointing, it was collective,” said Thunder’s coach Mark Daignault. “It was not a guy. We were not where we had to be at one or the other end of the ground for a large part of the match. We must be much better before match 7.”
Led at one point at the start of the second quarter, the Pacers outstripped Oklahoma City by 21 points in the last eight minutes of the half-tennary to lead, 64-42, in another example of Indiana refusal to bend in difficult circumstances-just as he had to win improbable matches against Milwaukee, Cleveland and New York earlier in the after-season.
This dramatic turn of the second quarter was launched by the pacers Reserve Aaron Nesmith, then gave an exclamation mark by Siakam, which dipped on the star of the Thunder Williams 40 seconds before half-time, then, after a goalless shot from Oklahoma City, sank a reversal jumping over time. Daigneault described the breakdowns the result of an “offensive problem”.
Haliburton underwent an avant-match force test under the Indiana medical staff watch and was considered ready to play, and he adapted with a compression handle covering his right right leg. Its efficiency was questionable after being hampered the interviews in the days following match 5, when he had not managed to establish a single basket.
The Pacers coach Rick Carlisle, already known as one of the most inventive coaches in the NBA, said before Tipoff that facing elimination, he would not retain any possible adjustment which could extend the season of his team.
“We are at a two -game season,” said Carlisle. “With two days between the two (matches 6 and 7), this evening, everything is there.”
However, Haliburton, which had been the engine of Indiana all the playoffs during its race defying the first finals of the team since 2000, was not a lure. His team was ahead of Oklahoma City by 24 points when he was on the ground.
After failing to establish a single basket in match 5, he scored 12 points in the first half and finished with 14. The best news for Indiana was that he had to play only 23 minutes.
Despite the injury, he showed a burst when he jumped into the air from the top of the arc at 3 points and went to the corner, then sprinted in the paint before receiving a pass back and slowly put a shot in the edge of 24 points with 20 minutes remaining in the match. Oklahoma City quickly called for a dead time, but the break did not stop the assault, with its deficit, going up quickly to 28 in a few minutes.
During the previous week, the Thunder had already married difficult positions, and they fought control of the series by limiting their own mistakes. For the second list of the largest list of people to play in the final, it was a sign of maturation. However, all this cool efficiency melted in match 6. They committed 12 reversals before half-time and only made their first 3-point attempts.
The gulf between this night’s teams was so wide that Gilgeous-Alexander, the newly crowned NBA MVP, had equaled its career summit for reversals, eight, with 12 minutes to play in the game.
Oklahoma City finished with 10 more reversals than Indiana and 21 points less on the 3 points.
Paid in yellow t-shirts, the Indiana crowd rarely went from the triumphant to the outfit to watch Oklahoma City Reduce its deficit to 18 with 4 minutes to play in the third quarter. However, Indiana did not oscillate, responding to the attempted rally with a close close to the third quarter crowned by a 27-foot raising by the Ben Sheppard reserve which pushed the advance of Indiana to its largest at night, at 90-60, entering the fourth quarter, and Daigneault, the coach of the Thunder, shot his starters.
Only Oklahoma City has an experience in match 7 during these playoffs, after having advanced the second round by winning at home against Denver. In the history of the finals, the road teams have a sheet of 4 to 15 years in seventh games. The last match 7 took place in 2016, when the Cleveland Cavaliers beat the Golden State Warriors on the road.
“You could ask each NBA team, each team would take advantage of it” to play the game 7 at home, said Chet Holmgren from Oklahoma City. “We are not different, and it is up to us to go there and take advantage of this.”
The title of the Pacers now hopes that it is something that has only happened twice before this season – forcing Oklahoma City to consecutive defeats.
“This,” said Carlisle, “will be a monumental challenge.”
