INDIANAPOLIS — In the grand scheme of things, following a 111-104 loss Friday night to the 68-win, top-seeded Oklahoma City Thunder, the fourth-seeded Indiana Pacers have done their job. They board a flight back to OKC after Game 4 in a tied series against one of the heaviest betting favorites in NBA Finals history.
But that is not how Indiana’s Obi Toppin sees it.
“Nah,” he said, “I felt like we should have got this one today.”
And they should have. Tyrese Haliburton’s driving layup gave the Pacers a 103-99 advantage with 3:20 remaining, and they had led for the entirety of the second half to that point. They could practically smell a 3-1 advantage in the best-of-seven set. Only once has a team come back from that deficit in the Finals.
Except, OKC’s Shai Gilgeous-Alexander outscored Indiana by himself, 11-1, over the final three minutes, delivering a series-saving — a season-saving — victory in the clutch. It was a legacy game for the league’s MVP, who had been held in check (20 points on 21 shots) through the first three-and-a-half quarters. For the majority of the game, the Pacers had done what head coach Rick Carlisle has called a “daunting” job.
“It’s the ultimate effort, endeavor, whatever you want to call it,” said Carlisle. “I mean, it’s long. It’s arduous. But it’s the greatest opportunity going. It’s the greatest opportunity going. It’s really hard, and it’s supposed to be hard. This is where we’re going to have to dig in, circle the wagons and come back stronger on Monday. This is a big disappointment, but there’s three games left.”
They do not give rings to the team that led most of the game, as the Thunder learned in Game 1, when Haliburton’s game-winner marked the fourth consecutive series the Pacers stole a game in the clutch.
And that is the thing. Even when two more Gilgeous-Alexander free throws gave Oklahoma City a two-possession lead in the final minute, you expected Indiana to make a run, because that is what they have done all playoffs.
But their magic ran out.
What happened? “I don’t really know,” said Toppin.
After registering 20 assists on 29 made field goals through the game’s first three quarters, the Pacers logged just one assist on their five made field goals in the final frame. For whatever reason, mostly because they could not get stops on the other end, their pace slowed, and the ball stagnated. One of the most pass-happy offenses in the league turned to isolation basketball when the title was in full view.
“I have to do a better job of keeping pace in the game,” said Haliburton. “We have to do a better job of, when we do get stops, getting out and running. A lot of times in that fourth we were fouling too much, taking the ball out, trying to run something vs. just random basketball. I’ve got to do a better job there. … That’s on me. I’ve got to get us playing faster down the stretch.”
“We just got too stagnant,” added Carlisle. “The ball was not being advanced quickly enough. We weren’t creating problems, and we were up against the clock a lot. Things got very difficult.
“But you’ve got to give Oklahoma credit. They made it very difficult.”
That they did. Lu Dort led an inspired effort on the perimeter, as Chet Holmgren protected the rim on the back end of Oklahoma City’s defense. They strangled the Pacers, forcing them late into the shot clock. Eight of Indiana’s 18 fourth-quarter shots were 3s, most all of them in isolation, and they missed all eight.
Prior to Game 4, the Pacers were 9-1 this postseason in clutch situations (when the score is within five points in the game’s final five minutes), scoring 145.7 points per 100 possessions on 49/41/91 shooting splits. On Friday, they scored 70 points per 100 possessions on 17/0/63 splits. And, obviously, they lost.
It did not help that Bennedict Mathurin, Indiana’s Game 3 hero and an 83.1% shooter from the free-throw line during the regular season, missed 3 of 4 free-throw attempts in the game’s final 24 seconds.
“It’s very tough. It’s a very tough time,” said Mathurin. “I have made those free throws, and I love making tough free throws, but the only thing I can do is knock them down next time.”
“They missed four [free throws]; we missed eight,” added Carlisle. “The difference of four is significant.”
As was Oklahoma City’s advantage on the glass in the fourth quarter. The Thunder out-rebounded the Pacers, 8-3, over the game’s final 12 minutes, scoring eight points on their four offensive rebounds. Essentially, everything that could go wrong for the Pacers did go wrong over the final quarter.
That included a wrestling-style promo from former Indianapolis Colts punter turned ESPN personality Pat McAfee, who, with 9:28 remaining in the fourth, hyped up the Gainbridge Fieldhouse crowd, as the Pacers led, 89-86, and seemed to be in control of the game, the series and their championship dreams.
“Even though we’re up 2-1 in the series with home-court advantage, coming into tonight’s game the Oklahoma City Thunder were favored to win the NBA title. Coming into tonight’s game, Oklahoma City was favored by 6.5 points,” McAfee said, as the crowd hung on every word. “That makes us the biggest underdogs in the history of the NBA Finals. That tells me the sportsbooks don’t know, Stephen A. Smith doesn’t know, and the Thunder are finding out, when you come to this state, not only are you playing the best team in the damn league, you’re also taking on the greatest fan base in the history of sports.”
It was a celebration inside the underdog’s house.
Only, from that point on, the Thunder outscored the Pacers, 25-15, shooting 64% (7-11 FG) to Indiana’s 29% (4-14 FG). Indiana practically became a different team, failing to register an assist in that final 9:28. The game slipped away, as did the Pacers’ lead in the series, and now you have to wonder if this was their golden opportunity, and the magic ran out. Or, at least it did for one night.
“We’ve got to bounce back,” said Carlisle. “I don’t need to motivate these guys. I think they have a sense of where they are. But this kind of a challenge is going to have extreme highs and extreme lows. This is a low right now, and we’re going to have to bounce back from it.”
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