INDIANAPOLIS — Bodily and quick was the Pacers’ defensive strategy in Sport 3 of the NBA Finals, and extra of the identical is coming till Shai Gilgeous-Alexander proves he and the Thunder can deal with it.
“You bought to suck it up. There is a most 4 video games left within the season,” Gilgeous-Alexander mentioned Thursday of the hands-on protection from Indiana in Sport 3. “It is what you labored the entire season for. It is what you labored all summer season for. To me, the best way I see it, you bought to suck it up, get it executed and attempt to get a win.”
Sport 4 on Friday is important to Oklahoma Metropolis after falling behind 2-1 within the best-of-seven NBA Finals. Indiana seemed to be the higher conditioned crew on Wednesday evening, closing out Sport 3 with a ending kick and driving the adrenaline of a locked-in house crowd. Pacers’ coach Rick Carlisle gave extra credit score to Andrew Nembhard, Ben Sheppard and Aaron Nesmith for his or her collective defensive effort and the function it performed in limiting Gilgeous-Alexander’s contributions.
“I would not say it stunned me,” Thunder ahead Chet Holmgren mentioned of the Pacers’ stamina in Sport 3. “That is sort of been I assume you can say their id main as much as this collection. It is what’s confirmed up within the video games up so far. Now we have to determine a approach to counteract that and sort of change that and swing it in our favor as a result of it is not a profitable formulation to not be higher than the opposite crew within the fourth quarter.”
Gilgeous-Alexander had solely 4 free throw makes an attempt within the second half of Sport 3 and appeared to put on down late within the recreation. He solely took three pictures within the last 12 minutes.
“We had been a bit of out of character in lots of methods yesterday,” Thunder coach Mark Daigneault mentioned. “I believe that occurs in a playoff collection. 4 video games, 5 video games, six video games, seven video games is a very long time. You are going to get a variety of video games and experiences in that. Now we have to get it course corrected fairly shortly if we wish to give ourselves a greater likelihood in Sport 4.”
–Jeff Reynolds, Discipline Stage Media