INDIANAPOLIS – A stifling defense.
A productive offense.
A breakout game from Bennedict Mathurin.
Oh, and a strong dose of TJ McConnell.
These were the key ingredients for a Game 3 win as the Indiana Pacers took a 2-1 series lead in the NBA Finals. Final score: Pacers 116, Thunder 107.
This time, the Pacers didn’t need a dramatic last-second comeback. Instead, they leaned on smaller rallies throughout the night. The Thunder led by 9 in the first quarter and held an eight-point advantage at the end of the first quarter.
The Pacers responded with a dominant second quarter in which they scored 40 points, their highest-scoring quarter of the series. They held a four-point lead at halftime.
The offense wasn’t nearly as efficient in the third quarter, scoring just 20 points, and a late three by Jalen Williams put the Thunder up by five entering the final frame.
Indiana scored 32 points in the fourth quarter and put down the defensive hammer on OKC, limiting the Thunder to just 18 points. The 14-point swing proved decisive.
The Pacers took a 101-98 lead with 6:42 left on a Tyrese Haliburton three and never relinquished it.
Mathurin feasts off the bench
Bennedict Mathurin missed the playoffs last year after having surgery on a torn labrum. He wasn’t there when the Pacers beat the Bucks and Knicks before falling to the Boston Celtics in the Eastern Conference Finals in a four-game sweep.
He scored five points in Game 1 and 14 points in Game 2.
On Wednesday night, the Thunder couldn’t stop him.
Mathurin scored 27 points—leading all scorers—in 22 minutes off the bench. His night included a super-efficient shooting performance (9-12 on field goals, 2-3 on three-pointers, 7-8 from the free throw line) as he put every tool in his offensive arsenal on display.
Driving layups? Check. Midrange jumpers? Check. Drawing contact and playing through it? Check. Shots from distance? Check.
And he didn’t even play a minute in the first quarter. He checked into the game at the start of the second quarter and helped spark a run that propelled the Pacers to a lead.
“Mathurin jumped in there and immediately was aggressive and got the ball in the basket,” Carlisle said. “Look, this is the kind of team we are. We need everybody to be ready. It’s not always going to be exactly the same guys that are stepping up with scoring.”
“He did a great job of coming off handoffs, reading the pocket, rising up for the mid-range,” Haliburton said of Mathurin. “This is a defense that will give that up. Analytically, that’s not the best shot. I thought he did a great job of hunting that, getting downhill.”
With this team, it can be anybody’s night. Game 3 belonged to Mathurin—and the Pacers knew it was coming.
“That was a big game and huge minutes for us. It’s a guy that we missed heavily last year in our run,” Haliburton said. “We consistently talked about it all year, how important it was going to be for him to be part of this playoff run and you’re seeing why that is. He was a huge reason for our victory.”
Mathurin said he found shots he liked and took advantage. He saw his team struggling and seized the opportunity.
“Just staying ready. Whenever my number gets called, just to go into the game and do the right things and try to help my team win. That’s the whole mindset,” he said.
Missing so much time last season was agonizing for Mathurin, a competitor’s competitor who aims to play at a high level and meet the expectations of a top-six draft pick.
Carlisle said, during rehab from shoulder surgery, Mathurin kept a daily calendar and ripped off the pages each day to mark his return to basketball. The third-year guard tried to soak in as much information as he could during his recovery.
“I think as much as I was out last year not being able to play, I learned a lot. Just being on the bench, being next to the coaches who were able to run me through the game,” Mathurin said. “It was an unfortunate situation, but I was fortunate enough to learn a lot and be ready for this year.”
McConnell shines
If you need energy, just sub in TJ McConnell.
In just 15 minutes on the court, McConnell finished with 10 points, 5 assists and 5 steals. It was the first time in NBA Finals history that a bench player recorded such a stat line.
McConnell entered Game 3 at the start of the second quarter, when the Pacers were staring down an eight-point deficit and needed a boost. Three minutes of game time later, McConnell sank a pair of free throws that turned a 32-24 deficit into a 37-36 lead.
Highlights came fast and furiously. After assisting Siakam on a bucket, McConnell stole the inbounds pass. Siakam missed a three, but McConnell corralled the rebound and found Mathurin for a layup.
He had an assist on a drive as he found Aaron Nesmith for another score, followed immediately by one of his signature inbound steals. He had an assist on a three from Mathurin and stole a second inbounds pass, although the Pacers didn’t cash in with a score.
By the time McConnell left with 7:27 left in the quarter, the Pacers had extended their lead to 39-36. When the Thunder surged back to tie the game at 51, McConnell came back in with 3:26 left in the half.
He hit a pair of free throws and capped the half with a bucket that gave the Pacers a 64-60 lead.
In the fourth quarter, McConnell missed a layup, but Andrew Nembhard cleaned up the rebound and hit a jumper. McConnell stole the inbounds pass and scored a layup to tie the game at 95 all. He assisted on another Mathurin three before leaving the game for the final time.
His impact was impossible to miss.
“TJ just brought a competitive will to the game,” Carlisle said.
“I think his energy is unbelievable. You guys know he’s definitely a crowd favorite,” Haliburton said of McConnell. “I joke with him, I call him the ‘Great White Hope.’ He does a great job of bringing energy in this building and I think people feed off that. He had a couple unbelievable steals.”
The Pacers didn’t come out in the first quarter with the kind of aggression they needed. McConnell set the standard.
“He does a great job of giving us energy and getting downhill. I mean, nobody operates on the baseline like that guy,” Haliburton said. “He did a great job of getting in there and making hustle play after hustle play and sticking with it. I thought we did a great job of feeding off what he was doing.”
Star power
It’s not uncommon to see six or seven Pacers players in double digits when checking the box score. That wasn’t the case on Wednesday night.
Instead, three Pacers players—Haliburton, Siakam and Mathurin—scored 20-plus points.
Haliburton rebounded from a subpar Game 2 by nearly posting a triple-double in Game 3. He fell one rebound short and boasted a stat line of 22 points, 11 assists, 9 rebounds, 2 steals and a block.
“I thought his approach tonight was exactly what it needed to be,” Carlisle said of Haliburton. “A combination of spatial awareness and aggression and a real good feel for aggression to score along with getting his teammates involved at the right times. He was terrific.”
Haliburton scored only one bucket in the fourth quarter, but it was huge—a three that put the Pacers up 101-98 to break a tie. The Pacers never trailed after that. He followed up with assists on key buckets by Turner, Nesmith and Siakam in the closing stretch.
Siakam steadied the offense early by scoring Indiana’s first six points. He finished with 21 points, 6 rebounds, 4 assists, 2 steals and a block.
“Pascal scored the first six points of the game when points were hard to come by,” Carlisle said. “And he did it on three difficult shots, one-on-one. Fadeaways—those are tough shots.”
DEE-FENSE! DEE-FENSE!
The Thunder boast a historically dominant defense, but the Pacers showed their defensive mettle in Game 3. Indiana forced 19 Oklahoma City turnovers and converted those into 21 points.
That’s usually the Thunder’s game—you can typically count on OKC to win the turnover battle and convert live-ball situations into points.
The Pacers had 13 steals (5 from McConnell) and 11 blocks (5 from Myles Turner). They harassed MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander all night. The result? His first sub-30-point performance in the NBA Finals. He got to the free throw line only six times.
The Pacers threw multiple players at Gilgeous-Alexander, double-teamed him and trapped him. He still scored—no one’s going to stop that—but he wasn’t particularly efficient and had to work for every one of his 24 points.
Nembhard, Nesmith and Ben Sheppard were the primary defenders, although Gilgeous-Alexander also got doses of Turner, Siakam and Haliburton.
“I think with Shai, he’s so good, he’s so slippery in between those gaps. He splits screens and you’re like, ‘I don’t know how he’s doing that,’” Haliburton said. “I think in Game 2 specifically, if you watch a lot of my coverages, I did a poor job of being at the level. I was back and then he could come off and he had so much space.”
The Pacers have quietly put together some genuinely hardnosed defensive performances in the playoffs. It’s a work in progress—and continues to be one.
“We’ve put an incredible amount of work into becoming better defensively. We’re still not great, but we’re way better than we were. It’s taken tons of work,” Carlisle said. “It’s a difficult system and it requires a lot of sacrifice. But when you execute it the right way, whether it’s two years ago in some game that doesn’t seem very meaningful in mid-January or in Game 3 of the Finals, these guys see important things are important and hard things are hard.”
As a unit, the Pacers held the Thunder to 6-17 shooting in the fourth quarter, including 0-4 from three-point range. The Thunder scored just 18 points in the final frame–their lowest point total in a quarter so far during the NBA Finals.
Turner had a tough night offensively. But he was a defensive menace during a key fourth-quarter sequence in which he blocked Chet Holmgren’s three. Holmgren recovered the carom and tried to drive past Turner, who proceeded to block his layup.
At that point, the Pacers led 110-104 with under two minutes left. They needed the stop. Turner delivered.
Game 4 on Friday
The Pacers host the Thunder again on Friday night. It’s the only time in the series that the teams will get just one day of rest between games.
Tip is scheduled for 8:30 p.m. at Gainbridge Fieldhouse.