INDIANAPOLIS — The ultimate game.
That’s what coach Rick Carlisle kept saying following the Indiana Pacers’ somewhat improbable Game 6 win over the Oklahoma City Thunder, sending the Finals to a decisive Game 7 for the first time since 2016.
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It feels like a window into the Pacers’ collective psyche, that all they had to do was take care of business Thursday night, and in front of them would be the opportunity of a lifetime.
“One game,” Carlisle said. “I mean, this is what it’s all about. I mean, this is … this is what you dream about growing up — this kind of opportunity.”
The notion is simplified, but if you look at the Pacers as a team that has grown in confidence since the NBA Finals began, a team that didn’t feel it threw away its best chance at an upset two games ago with the Game 4 collapse, this makes sense.
There was no stopping the Indiana Pacers on Thursday night. (AP Photo/Michael Conroy)
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
They aren’t supposed to be here, but they don’t know that. And they knew something we didn’t, something our eyes wouldn’t allow us to.
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If they had a reasonably healthy Tyrese Haliburton — who went through round-the-clock treatment and consultation over the past 72 hours — they could do more than make this elimination game respectable.
Haliburton didn’t come out of the tunnel like Willis Reed. He wasn’t limping around like Isiah Thomas on a bad ankle. It was hard to tell just how hurt Haliburton was, though it surely seemed like he was ailing walking out of Game 5 in Oklahoma City.
He had what he called an “honest conversation” with Carlisle, given how ineffective he was in Game 5, when the Pacers clawed back from a big deficit only to let it slip away with five disastrous minutes, to make sure he wasn’t dragging his teammates down.
But not going out there for Game 6 was not an option.
“I just look at it as I want to be out there to compete with my brothers,” Haliburton said. “These are guys that I’m willing to go to war with, and we’ve had such a special year, and we have a special bond as a group, and you know, I think I’d beat myself up if I didn’t give it a chance.”
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But the chance turned to confidence, perhaps buoyed by the healing powers provided by Gainbridge Fieldhouse, and the Pacers rolled to a dominant 108-91 win to send the series back to Oklahoma City. Haliburton’s 14 points and five assists don’t jump off the page, but the first time he hit a shot, he almost looked to the heavens to say, “Finally …” after going bucket-less in Game 5.
“We’ve got one game. One game,” Haliburton said. “It’s nothing that’s happened before matters, and nothing that’s going to happen after matters. It’s all about that one game. Just trying to approach it the right way for the next couple days.”
Now, they believe.
Perhaps the signal was Carlisle not messing around with Haliburton’s status, coming right out in pregame and saying Haliburton was ready to go and that his injured calf could handle the rigors of the biggest game in franchise history.
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“What’s the point? I mean, this time of year, playing games isn’t going to get you anywhere,” Carlisle said 90 minutes before game time. “We got a job to do tonight. We’ve got to get ready to battle a team that has been the best team in the league all year long. It’s a tough game. It’s an elimination game. There’s a lot going on.”
The Indiana Pacers cannot be trifled with. They cannot be broken. If they buckled, they quickly came back to their feet before any knockout punch could be delivered.
The Pacers put themselves into the Thunder’s luggage, stalling a victory celebration that many expected before the night began. The Pacers led by as many as 30 at the end of the third quarter, and the Thunder played their reserves for the final 12 minutes, thus making the score look more respectable than it was.
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The Thunder are kings in waiting and perhaps will still emerge victorious in this series to validate their favored status. But there is no intimidation factor across the way. They don’t win the game before walking into the building — at least not yet.
The Pacers are almost defiant about looking at the Thunder as some unbeatable juggernaut, claiming with certainty their confidence hasn’t grown from the start — but through six games, one cannot deny how comfortable the Pacers have gotten.
If the Thunder thought they graduated by beating Nikola Jokić and the beaten-up Denver Nuggets, they’ve found out they’re a few credits short of completion and headed to summer school.
“I think that’s just always been us. I don’t think that changed,” Pacers forward Pascal Siakam said. “We continue to be us, no matter what, and I think that’s what makes us who we are.”
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They morphed into the best of what Oklahoma City has done in this series, providing their own 40 minutes of hell and targeting the league’s Most Valuable Player all night. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander was in his own personal purgatory, with eight of the Thunder’s 21 turnovers that got the Pacers into the open floor when the set offense was taking its time. Every time he turned his back, there was a Pacer, scrapping, reaching, getting in his space to make him think and throw off whatever rhythm the Thunder believed they’d gained.
The Pacers have stymied Gilgeous-Alexander as well as anyone has this postseason, bringing his assist-to-turnover ratio to 27-to-23 in the Finals. For reference, he’s a three-to-one performer the past two seasons, but Andrew Nembhard isn’t giving him much space and is tireless in making him work.
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One exhausts himself when he knows a championship is close, when it feels likely, when it no longer feels like a dream that is unattainable. Jalen Williams, the Thunder’s co-star who’s blooming every game, went from putting up 40 in Game 5 to being a ghastly minus-40 in 26 minutes in Game 6.
In the middle two quarters, the Pacers outscored the Thunder by a whopping 62-35 margin, and it wasn’t long before the Thunder packed up their things, living to fight a Game 7 on their home floor.
If the Thunder think that will bring them solace, they’re in for another rude awakening.
“It’s so, so exciting. As a basketball fan, there’s nothing like a Game 7,” Haliburton said. “There’s nothing like a Game 7 in the NBA Finals. Dreamed of being in this situation my whole life. What happened in the past doesn’t matter. What happened today doesn’t matter. It’s all about one game and approaching that the right way.”
The Thunder have created a storm they cannot contain, with a seventh game that feels like an opportunity for all kinds of history.
The ultimate game.
