OKLAHOMA CITY — One and six-tenths of a second — that’s all it takes to win a game.
Not 48 minutes, or even 47 minutes and 58 seconds.
One and six-tenths of a second is all the time it took between Tyrese Haliburton releasing a picture perfect jump shot destined for the rim and the ball knowing exactly where to go, cleanly swishing to stun yet another road crowd.
This time it happened to be the NBA Finals, as the Indiana Pacers and Haliburton conducted true thievery in the din of an Oklahoma City night, overcoming the odds and their own mishaps Thursday night to strike first and take Game 1, 111-110, in this best-of-seven series against the Thunder.
For once, Haliburton didn’t have Thunder resident linebacker Lu Dort steering him into an off-road ditch. He instead saw Cason Wallace.
And Haliburton saw daylight and opportunity.
He saw history.
“The ball ended in Obi’s [Toppin] hands, and he passed it to me,” Haliburton said. “I’m obviously confident in in my ability. And feel like, if I can get to that spot, I feel very comfortable in there.
“It’s a shot I’ve worked on a million times, and I’ll work on a million times more.”
The Pacers almost had to plan ahead for a spontaneous moment, gathering during an officials review with 22.5 seconds left. The Pacers could very well have been awarded possession after Pascal Siakam landed out of bounds after contact while chasing a rebound — but they had to prepare for multiple outcomes.
Of all the different permutations, it felt like every one of them was destined to land with the ball in Halliburton’s hands, and he would decide the game. Some players just have a magnetism, this innate ability to sit still when everything is swirling and to rally teammates to believe even during the impossible.
It didn’t matter the officials ruled Siakam wasn’t fouled and the ball would stay with the Thunder.
It didn’t matter Shai Gilgeous-Alexander would have his turn at closing before the Pacers’ star, the MVP coming up short against tough defense from fellow Canadian Andrew Nembhard, who bottled him up and forced a back-iron miss.
Tyrese Haliburton rises up for the game-winner in Game 1 of the NBA Finals on Thursday night. (Photo by Matthew Stockman/Getty Images)
(Matthew Stockman via Getty Images)
“But I think, as a group, like, we never think the game is over, ever, honestly speaking, never, like … that never creeps in,” Haliburton said. “How can we walk this team down?”
Rather easy, if this postseason is any indication.
One must have the confidence of a seasoned coach who won’t call timeouts, who’ll allow the game to be called on the terms of his players and not sideline wizardly. Pacers coach Rick Carlisle has done enough and seen enough to not be overwhelmed.
Haliburton wasn’t having a historic game, the comeback being engineered by Toppin and Myles Turner and Siakam and Nembhard — the group that refused to believe the game was out of reach. Haliburton finished with 14 points, but it felt like 30.
“Let’s get this stop, and if we get the stop and rebound, and we’re gonna go,” Carlisle said. “Hopefully get the ball in Tyrese’s hands and make a play.”
It feels ridiculous, the way Haliburton and the Pacers seem to tempt fate right in the face of common sense, since there’s no way this can continue to happen. Doing it against the Cleveland Cavaliers is one thing, and sending the New York Knicks spiraling into an offseason of questions and speculation is another.
But the Oklahoma City Thunder are a serious outfit, nothing to trifle around with. The Thunder hounded the Pacers all night, yet it was the Pacers who shockingly ran off the floor at Paycom Center as victors.
It keeps happening because the Pacers stay close enough, long enough to put themselves in winning position, and they feel they have an ultimate winner in Haliburton.
“Brother,” Turner said with a sigh in the winning locker room. “If you’ve seen us the last two months, nothing is surprising.”
For 24 minutes, it felt like the Pacers didn’t belong in the same gymnasium as the Thunder — like a bad scrimmage between high school sophomores who’ve never played together against seniors who’ve been together for years.
For 12 minutes, it looked like the Pacers would at least be competitive, that they weren’t drawing dead for the entire series.
But for the last five, at some point they realized the Thunder weren’t this inevitable unit, that constant pressure would at the very least produce an opportunity — and, maybe, the Thunder would crack under the expectations of being heavy favorites.
The Thunder didn’t choke this away, not necessarily. Perhaps Thunder coach Mark Daigneault overthought matters by inserting guard Cason Wallace in the starting lineup in place of center Isaiah Hartenstein to go smaller and quicker.
Who knows whether it mattered or not? The Pacers’ calamity of errors was the first-half storyline as their 19 turnovers outnumbered their made field goals (15).
Dort, Jalen Williams and Alex Caruso were everywhere and were better than advertised, better than their amazing 36-1 mark against the Eastern Conference this year.
And yet, the Pacers were only down 12 after two quarters.
“When I got off the bus, when I put on my shoes,” Haliburton said when asked at what point did he start to believe the Pacers could win this game, this night. “I mean, there was never a disbelief in this group, honestly. We like controlled chaos, but that was just chaos.”
But within that the Pacers quietly stacked wins. They forced Gilgeous-Alexander into an evening where he took an overwhelming share of the offense — just like Knicks guard Jalen Brunson did last round.
They stopped treating the ball like it was doused in Crisco and began chopping away in the second half, committing just five turnovers the rest of the way.
“I think that on this stage, you don’t have time to be stunned, you know, you don’t have time to be disappointed again,” Turner said. “But we weathered the storm. We were resilient.”
The Pacers resiliently pulled themselves by their bootstraps all season, digging out from of a 10-15 record in the opening weeks of the season.
“After you have a run like last year,” Haliburton said. “And you get swept in Eastern Conference finals, and all the conversation is about is how you don’t belong there, and how you lucked out to get there, and that it was a fluke, guys are going to be pissed off.”
The Pacers hear a little more than the average group does, outside conversations seeping into the locker room and bus rides. You bet they’ve heard how these two teams are in different weight classes.
“And I think as a group, we take everything personal,” Haliburton said. “It’s not just me, it’s everybody, you know, I feel like that’s the DNA of this group, and that’s not just me. We do a great job of taking things personal, and that gives this group more confidence.”
So much unnecessary conversation has clouded the basketball in this series. Whether the NBA likes small markets at the big stage, whether Haliburton or Gilgeous-Alexander is a superstar or not, or if they’re the face of the league.
Maybe Haliburton’s not.
Maybe he’s just a cold-blooded gamer.
But while he’s got the ball in his hands with 6.4 seconds left, tell him he’s not one of those special dudes.
Then close your eyes and pray.
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