If the lesson of these NBA playoffs is how quickly fortunes can change, then the latest example is the Oklahoma City Thunder.
Three days after the Thunder appeared seemingly out of offensive options, fatigued and headed toward a 3-1 series deficit in the best-of-seven NBA Finals, they’re now just one win away from claiming an NBA championship.
Summoning the same offensive heroics and defensive tenacity that saved their season in the final quarter of Friday’s Game 4, the Thunder on Monday burst open a double-digit lead to start Game 5 on their home court, then held off Indiana’s attempted comeback to win 120-109 and lead the series 3-2.
Oklahoma City can close out the NBA Finals, and win the franchise’s first championship since relocating in 2008, as early as Game 6 on Thursday, in Indianapolis.
It is the first time since March that Indiana has lost consecutive games, and also the first time at any point during the postseason that it has trailed in a series. They were done in by the career-making game of third-year Thunder wing Jalen Williams, who scored 11 of his 40 points in the fourth quarter. Of his 14 baskets, nine were scored at or within feet of the rim, his aggression continually punching holes into an Indiana defense that, only days earlier, had continually frustrated Oklahoma City.
Williams and co-star Shai Gilgeous-Alexander also combined to take 26 free throws between them, to 30 attempts by Indiana’s entire team.
The Pacers, after falling by 16 points early in the quarter, were down just two with 8:11 remaining in regulation, setting the stage for yet what looked like another improbable road comeback in a postseason full of them. This would have been among the most stunning because little had worked in the Pacers’ favor all night — with nothing as damaging as the ineffectiveness of star guard Tyrese Haliburton, who played through a nagging injury and finished without a field goal, missing all six of his field-goal attempts. Haliburton finished with four points, seven rebounds and six assists.
“He’s not 100%, it’s pretty clear,” Pacers coach Rick Carlisle said. “But I don’t think he’s going to miss the next game. We were concerned at halftime and he insisted on playing and I thought he made a lot of really good things happen in the second half.”
Midway through the first quarter, Indiana had already committed six turnovers and trailed by 10. It wasn’t the only ominous sign for the Pacers; in the waning seconds of the first quarter, Oklahoma City had already made more 3-pointers (four) than it had in all of Game 4, and Haliburton, reportedly playing through tightness in a calf since Game 2, left the game to return to the locker room for treatment.
As he walked out of the tunnel, away from the court, Indiana’s hopes of winning appeared to retreat with him. When Haliburton eventually returned nearly six minutes later, wearing a brace around the right leg while on the bench, Indiana was still down 10. As the Pacers missed shots at the rim and free throws, Oklahoma City was pulling ahead by as many as 18 points late in the first half, and 14 at halftime.
The gap between the teams was the product of many factors but was most evident in the comfort levels of their respective All-Star guards, with Shai Gilgeous-Alexander scoring 13 points before halftime, to zero for Haliburton — the first time he’d failed to score during a first half in the playoffs in 36 career playoff games. He scored his first points with 7 minutes to go in the third quarter.
Gilgeous-Alexander finished with 31 points, including 10 assists — notable given that he had mustered zero in Game 4, as Oklahoma City made a tactical shift to limit his opportunities to initiate his team’s offense as a way to keep him fresher for the fourth quarter. It worked: Gilgeous-Alexander’s flurry of points late in Game 4 evened the series coming back to Oklahoma City on Monday.
With its assortment of double-digit comebacks this postseason, Indiana was the last team to be daunted by a double-digit deficit. And when it had pulled within nine points halfway through the third quarter, then just two early in the fourth quarter, Oklahoma City’s control became tenuous.
Yet within the next two minutes, Indiana committed four turnovers and Oklahoma City scored off of each, a sequence that quickly doubled the Thunder’s lead. Indiana ultimately committed 23 turnovers that Oklahoma City turned into 32 points.
“That’s the game,” Carlisle said. “We have to do a heck of a lot better there.”