INDIANAPOLIS – The Indiana Pacers needed Game 4.
They had Game 4. At least it looked that way for three quarters. Felt like Indiana was headed for a 3-1 series lead against the Oklahoma City Thunder in the NBA Finals. Felt like Indiana was in control.
And they were. Until they were not.
The Thunder, who trailed for much of the game and whose largest lead was the margin of the final score, defeated the Pacers 111-104 in Game 4 Friday, June 13.
If the Pacers lose this series – it’s 2-2 headed back to Oklahoma City for Game 5 – they will look at Game 4 as the one that made the difference, the one that altered the direction of the series.
“Hey, you’re up seven at home,” Pacers coach Rick Carlisle said of an 87-80 lead to start the fourth quarter, “you have to dig in and find a way, and we were unable to do it tonight.”
Was it a blown opportunity? That’s unfair to the Thunder who had a lot to do with how Indiana played in the final six minutes. Was it one the Pacers squandered? Was it one the Thunder took? Either way, victory slipped away from Indiana. But that’s NBA Finals basketball between two really good teams that play extremely hard and are well-coached. It’s a series where every possession has meaning, and possessions are grueling.
Just listen to the coaches.
“It’s the ultimate effort, endeavor, whatever you want to call it,” Carlisle said. “I mean, it’s long. It’s arduous. But it’s the greatest opportunity going. It’s really hard, and it’s supposed to be hard.”
Thunder coach Mark Daigneault: “We had some deflating plays. It was an easy game to give up on. … They’re a hard team to beat here. They’re a hard team to beat, period. I thought we gutted it out on a night when we didn’t have a lot going, especially offensively.”
Arduous. Gutted it out. This is an exhausting series, mentally and physically for players and coaches.
“It’s frustrating, of course,” Pacers star Tyrese Haliburton said. “You want to win that game, especially a game at home where you have the lead late. But that’s just not how the cookie crumbled today.’
It has turned into a fantastic series, one that is going at least six games, and a Game 7 won’t be surprising. The Game 5 winner will have a chance to win the title in Game 6 in Indianapolis and that atmosphere the fans create at Gainbridge Fieldhouse will be electric.
Coaches and players talk about how this series is won in the margins. Who dove for a loose ball and saved a possession? Who took a charge or set a solid screen?
“We had a lot of guys make winning plays that can kind of be invisible to the untrained eye,” Thunder center-forward Chet Holmgren said. “It’s not showing up necessarily in the stat sheet. It’s not like a highlight that’s going to be played over and over. It’s not one single instance.”
Oklahoma City took five more free throws and made nine more. “They missed four. We missed eight,” Carlisle said. “The difference of four is significant. There’s a lot of little things going on.’
The Thunder outrebounded the Pacers 43-33 and turned 12 offensive rebounds into 23 second-chance points.
“This series is going to come down to the basics, and our inability to effectively rebound when we needed to is the biggest thing – a bunch of second-chance points made it difficult, and in the end, impossible,” Carlisle said.
It’s a best-of-three series now with Oklahoma City regaining home-court advantage, and the Pacers must win another on the road to win the title against a team that has lost at home eight times all season.
“It’s going to be a challenge,” Haliburton said, “but this group has been resilient all year.’
In a Finals as close as this one, there’s no time to sulk and let disappointment spill into the next game.
“This is where we’re going to have to dig in and circle the wagons and come back stronger on Monday,” Carlisle said. “This is a big disappointment, but there’s three games left. … 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.”