The Pacers showed a rare weakness. They won by relying on their biggest strength.
OKLAHOMA CITY — The NBA Finals appeared over less than two quarters after it started Thursday night when the Thunder, it appeared, had solved a previously uncrackable code.
For six previous weeks and three rounds of the NBA playoffs their opponent, the Indiana Pacers, had played fast while rarely turning the ball over, a potent combination that fueled the franchise’s first Finals appearance in a quarter-century. Yet, as Oklahoma City harassed Indiana into 19 first-half turnovers in Game 1, the most in any half of this postseason, it became the first opponent to make the Pacers beat themselves.
These Finals are anything but over, however, because that breakthrough proved temporary.
Despite the disruption of Oklahoma City’s defense, and the 15-point lead it built with nine minutes remaining in the fourth quarter, the Thunder found themselves in the final minutes just like Milwaukee, Cleveland and New York before it — unable, ultimately, to figure out how to put away a Pacers team that simply will not quit.
Indiana led, in total, for three-tenths of a second in Game 1, but that was enough for a 111-110 victory that saw what would have been an inexplicable comeback for any other team became an inevitable Pacers hallmark. It was the third consecutive series in which they authored a stunning series-opening victory on the road by remaining cool in the clutch.
“They went up 15 and we just said, hey, just keep chipping away at the rock,” Pacers coach Rick Carlisle said postgame. “Just chip away and hang in. And we have a lot of experience in these kinds of games. Our guys have a real good feel for what it’s all about, giving ourselves a chance. We got fortunate, but made plays.”
Indiana committed 17 more turnovers than Oklahoma City and took 16 fewer shots.
“Not the recipe to win,” said Pacers star Tyrese Haliburton, whose 21-foot jumper with 0.3 of a second left was his fourth game-winner of this postseason.
Haliburton admitted to feeling nerves before tipoff and also rushed as he took only four shots during the first half — 14 fewer than his superstar guard counterpart Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, the new NBA Most Valuable Player. Gilgeous-Alexander would finish with 38 points, more than Haliburton (14) and co-star Pascal Siakam (19) combined as Thunder guard Lu Dort, who had defended Haliburton tougher than anyone else during two decisive Thunder wins in the regular season, continued to throttle the engine of the Pacers’ offense.
Inside a Paycom Center atmosphere that Carlisle described as “madness,” Indiana’s start was as ominous as the thunderstorm that rolled through this city before tipoff, dumping buckets of rain on fans who ran through ankle-deep puddles into the arena. Early in the second quarter, Indiana had already exceeded its per-game average for turnovers (13). The Thunder entered Thursday 43-4 when forcing more than 10 steals this season. They had that many before halftime.
Indiana trailed by only 12 points at halftime, then turned the ball over just twice in the third quarter, but could never quite close the gap. When Oklahoma City’s Jalen Williams stole an inbounds pass with 9:42 to play and ran the interception the length of the court for a dunk and a 94-79 lead, an arena that had waited 13 years to host another Finals game erupted.
But the Pacers did not implode. The only thing more improbable than another Pacers comeback was that their defense, an enormous liability as recently as December, was critical in making it happen. Indiana allowed just two points in the final 2:50, and limited Oklahoma City to just 46 points inside the paint despite taking 54 shots there.
“We had control of the game for the most part of it,” Gilgeous-Alexander said. “It is a 48-minute game. They teach you that lesson more than anyone else in the league the hard way.”
And the Pacers have made a habit of winning the hard way. Indiana is the first team since 1998 with five playoff comebacks of at least 15 points. The team has been so consistent at it that they now anticipate postgame questions about how, exactly, they pull improbable victories off.
“Our biggest thing is our response,” Pacers center Myles Turner said. “We know things are going to go bad at times, and not look good but you got to be even keel. Calm waters.”
With sunglasses on, and facing four rows of reporters and cameras late Thursday, Haliburton sat behind a microphone and linked his team’s growing resume of rallies to something deeper than play execution or shot-making. Since he was a teenager, Haliburton has collected slights, and even bookmarked social-media insults about himself, as an accountability check, to never allow himself to get complacent. That appears to have rubbed off on teammates who also “do a great job of taking things personal,” Haliburton said.
“After you have a run like last year when you get swept in the 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,” Haliburton said. “And then you come into the year with all the talk around how it was a fluke, you have an unsuccessful first couple months and now that’s easy for everybody to clown you, talk about you in a negative way.
“And I think as a group, we take everything personal. It’s not just me, it’s everybody. I feel like that’s the DNA of this group. And that’s not just me. Our coaching staff does a great job of making us aware of what’s being said. Us as players, we talk about it in the locker room, we talk about it on the plane. We’re a young team, so we probably spend more time on social media than we should. But I just think we do a great job of taking things personal, and that gives this group more confidence.”
For the Pacers, it was just another postseason win in which the remarkable has become routine, because though they are fallible, as Thursday proved, no opponent has yet solved how to break the Pacers over a seven-game series. They never stop, and still were not in the afterglow of Game 1. As dozens of reporters funneled down a hallway to Indiana’s locker room, a Pacers assistant coach cut against the flow going the other direction, out of the arena, his expression more serious than celebratory.
“On to the next one,” the coach said.
