In their most painful defeat of the season, the Oklahoma City Thunder looked like their opponents often do: erratic, mistake-prone, tired, and like a team that wouldn’t recognize what they saw if they looked in a mirror.
In Wednesday night’s loss, the Thunder submitted their highest turnover rate of the playoffs and second-highest turnover rate of the entire season. Their vaunted defense allowed the Indiana Pacers to generate an ungodly 153.8 points per 100 possessions in the second quarter. Overall, just 43.2 percent of Oklahoma City’s baskets were assisted in the game, which was its second-lowest mark of the postseason (only Game 1 of the Finals was worse). In the fourth quarter, Alex Caruso was the only Thunder player to record an assist.
It’s not even like the Thunder succumbed to anything Indiana did before they started to look out of sorts. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, the coolest cucumber in basketball, picked up his first foul eight seconds into the game when Andrew Nembhard got under his skin:
The Thunder are normally an emotionally mature team that strikes a perfect balance between composure and chaos, largely because they do such a good job of controlling the controllables. But in Game 3, they made catastrophic errors, missed too many free throws, and let the Pacers dictate elemental terms that Oklahoma City is typically able to set.
Afterward, Thunder coach Mark Daigneault conceded that his team did not at all look like themselves. “I thought it was an uncharacteristic night in a lot of ways for us,” he said. “We got to learn from it and then tap back into being who we are in Game 4.” He also repeatedly credited the Indiana Pacers for looking like the Indiana Pacers. “I thought they were in character in terms of their physicality, their pressure on defense,” he said. “Then they were in character in terms of their pace on offense.”
He’s not wrong. The Pacers didn’t fundamentally alter their approach in Game 3 so much as execute what they had been doing with a ton more force. A key example: Myles Turner spent the majority of his time in Oklahoma City up to touch defending Gilgeous-Alexander’s pick-and-rolls. In Game 3, he was a little higher than he had been earlier in the series, but it was less a tactical change and more a decision to splash some hostility on a preexisting game plan:
The league’s MVP finished with 24 points on 20 shots in 42 minutes, with six turnovers and just four assists. When you compare that with Pacers guard Bennedict Mathurin, who had 27 points on 12 shots in 22 minutes off the bench, it’s no wonder the Thunder lost. Equally important: There were too many sequences when Gilgeous-Alexander didn’t get off the ball as quickly as he should have, like this drive that drew Pascal Siakam off Jalen Williams in the strongside corner. SGA didn’t see his teammate one pass away:
Gilgeous-Alexander was hounded up the court by Nembhard and Ben Sheppard (whose energy off the bench was major) and unable to operate at the pace he prefers. There was no easy herking and jerking to his comfort zones as we saw him do in Game 2. Instead, SGA acquiesced to the Pacers’ harassment with several lazy passes that were immediately pounced on; he appeared to be exhausted in the final frame, too, with just three points and one field goal in the fourth quarter—both tying his postseason low. It’s hard to think of too many games this season in which Gilgeous-Alexander looked this flustered:
“They were higher tonight in the pick-and-rolls,” he said after the game. “They were above the screen. When you come off it, you got to go backwards. It goes back to a little bit more force. If we're more aggressive in the pick-and-roll and setting it up, then we get a better angle. Things like that usually comes down to who throws the first punch. I think that’s what that was.”
On the other end, Indiana made a point to involve Gilgeous-Alexander in as many actions as it could, particularly if it meant switching onto Tyrese Haliburton, who was massive. Here SGA is trying to stop a stagger pick-and-roll with the screens set pretty far apart. Haliburton takes the first one, gets a switch, and then rejects the second with a crossover that catches Gilgeous-Alexander off balance (a physical state he’s unfamiliar with) and leads to a paint floater:
Despite trailing 2-1 in the Finals, the Thunder should not panic about their performance in Game 3. They led by five points heading into the fourth quarter, created pretty good shots with SGA on the bench, and could’ve easily won the game if Williams or Gilgeous-Alexander converted a few more paint jumpers that rimmed out. So much of what the Thunder did in Game 3 is hard to reconcile with the team they’ve been all season. Oklahoma City hardly ever turns the ball over and won 68 games on the back of its ability to generate more field goal attempts than its opponent. But in Game 3, the Pacers took six more shots and recorded seven more steals, accelerating plans to build a statue outside Gainbridge Fieldhouse of T.J. McConnell stealing an inbound pass:
“Those plays hurt, especially because they’re very controllable. You can take your time,” Gilgeous-Alexander said. “You make mistakes in basketball, no matter the stage. We definitely had opportunities to cover those things up. But you also don’t let plays like that happen.”
There were other weird decisions that seemed small but added up. Daigneault decided to sub Isaiah Joe in for Cason Wallace with just under a minute left in the first half against an ultra-small Pacers group that included Obi Toppin with four guards. Joe’s spacing opened up a lane for SGA on a driving layup with 35 seconds left in the second quarter, but there was an opportunity to sub him out after a dead ball occurred moments later. Instead, Daigneault let Wallace and Lu Dort sit on the bench while Indiana, being one of the most deliberate offenses in the league, immediately attacked Joe—who didn’t play in the second half—with McConnell.
Oklahoma City’s adjustments won’t be drastic heading into Game 4. The Thunder shouldn’t tinker too dramatically with how they’re defending Haliburton or overreact to Mathurin’s outburst. Perhaps Isaiah Hartenstein, who played only 18 minutes Wednesday, could get some more run. That doesn’t mean he should start beside Chet Holmgren, but it does mean Daigneault should consider being more indulgent toward his usual starting center and not yank him out of the game every time he commits a foul. He’s Oklahoma City’s best screener and one of its top passers, and he can free ballhandling teammates up when summoned to do so:
But there’s nothing fundamentally wrong with how the Thunder are approaching this series. It’s plenty fair to believe they can win three more games before the Pacers can lock up two. But as the heavy favorites coming in, it’s at least a little concerning to fall behind a team that hasn’t been down in a series this entire postseason. In Game 4, the Thunder will likely set harder screens, commit fewer turnovers, share the ball more, and do a better job of getting back in transition and packing the paint on defense.
On paper, they’re more talented, have more size, and can deploy a tighter defense. It’s still their series to lose, even as the Pacers defy all forms of conventional wisdom every time they step on a basketball court.
“We think we have some solutions,” Daigneault said. “But we got to go out there and do it.”
