This year’s NBA Playoffs were wildly entertaining, and Game 1 of the finals carried that forward. The Oklahoma City Thunder entered the series as huge betting favorites, but just as they’ve done all postseason long, the Indiana Pacers overcame the odds and a late-game deficit to steal victory from the jaws of defeat.
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Tyrese Haliburton hit the game-winning jumper with 0.3 seconds left, and by this point, nobody can be surprised. Hali is on such a superlative run of clutch shot-making that everyone watching, including all of those poor OKC fans in the building, knew the ball was going in before it left his hands.
Haliburton finished with a respectable 14 points, 10 rebounds and 6 assists, but there were long stretches where his impact was limited. Although it wasn’t his most dominant offensive showing, he once again came through when it mattered most.
On his podcast last night after the game, Draymond Green spoke about what he expects from Haliburton in Game 2, before making a fun, cross-sport, Indianapolis-centric comparison to explain why OKC had better be ready for what’s to come.
“You know Hali, when he don’t have a good game, he usually don’t have two bad ones in a row,” Green said. “If I had to guess, he gonna come out Game 2 so d*** aggressive. He gonna come out firing. He gonna come out downhill.”
“Haliburton is like Peyton Manning,” Green opined. “The last thing you want Peyton Manning doing is playing with a lead. Peyton Manning gets to play with a lead, and he gets to dial up anything he wants to dial up. Good luck … That’s now the position that Hali is in, and he gonna come out firing, and that’s trouble.”
The Thunder must be wondering how they lost Game 1
Even without Haliburton playing his best, the Pacers still found a way to erase another big fourth-quarter lead. Just like the vanquished foes before them, OKC has to be shaking their heads and wondering what happened.
The Thunder almost never lose at home. Not only that, but they normally blow visiting teams out. They were 35-6 at the Paycom Center in the regular season and 8-1 there in the playoffs. They won the turnover battle 25 to 7. They also held a 6-point advantage from the free-throw line. What went wrong?
The Pacers held two key advantages. They outshot OKC from 3-point range, making 18 of 39 compared to the Thunder’s 11-30. They also dominated the boards to the tune of a 56-39 rebounding edge.
Shaun Livingston was impressed that Haliburton started slow, but the Pacers trusted their system and were able to get the win because of it.
“It’s interesting to see that [Haliburton] came out the first half, I think he took like five shots. Shai took like 19. So I’m thinking to myself in the first half, ‘Man, one of them is setting the tone for what this series is gonna look like, and then the other one is just trying to feel it out and catch the flow,'” Livingston said.
“The way that they played all year long,” Livingston continued, “sharing the basketball, trusting each other. There’s something about the energy in that system to where when you can constantly sharing it, constantly sharing it, it’s gonna find you.”
Just as they have all playoffs long, the Pacers won Game 1 to set the tone for the series. The Thunder lost Game 1 of their series to the Nuggets but were able to battle back and win in seven. Will they be able to do that again, or will the Pacers cap off their magical run? For anybody who didn’t think this was going to be a fun series, that misapprehension is out the window now.
Game 2 will air on ABC on Sunday night at 8 p.m. ET.
