The Indiana Pacers were on the brink of elimination heading into Game 6. But a spirited performance in front of their passionate home crowd ensured they booked a flight to Oklahoma for a decisive Game 7. It was a one-sided affair, with Indiana outclassing the Thunder in every facet of the game. The final score: 108–91. The victory, however, didn’t come as a surprise to Dwyane Wade, who weighed in on the result during the latest episode of his podcast.
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Wade, a three-time champ, took a trip down memory lane, recalling the 2006 Finals against the Dallas Mavericks. Heading into Game 6, his Miami Heat were leading 3-2, but a desperate Mavericks team went all out to try and force a Game 7. He used that memory to compare the Pacers’ win against OKC two days ago.
The Gainbridge Fieldhouse crowd was electric, and Wade suggested that the Thunder simply didn’t show up. They didn’t look like a team determined to get the job done and were up against a Pacers squad playing with nothing to lose.
“When you got a team playing at home, if you don’t match their intensity, you’re not gonna win the game. They’re (Pacers) playing desperate. Knowing that you’re gonna play against a team whose back is against a wall, at home, who can beat you, and they’re playing desperate, you have to match their intensity,” said Wade.
It was clear that the Thunder players, including the MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, were looking past this contest. That’s almost as much on head coach Mark Daigneault for not preparing them. Fortunately for Wade, in 2006, his coach was the iconic Pat Riley. He recalled how the 8-time Finals winner prepped them for their Game 6 in ’06.
“That was one thing that Pat Riley helped us with. He helped us understand going into Game 6 that there’s gonna be three onslaughts that we weren’t gonna be able to do nothing about. Dallas was just gonna bring it. The crowd was gonna go crazy,” Wade recalled.
“We have to match their intensity the entire time. And we did. We matched their intensity,” added the Hall of Famer. Miami would go on to win the game 95-92 and call themselves champions by the end of the night.
Wade brought the conversation back to the current series, pointing out that the Thunder never showed any real sense of urgency, which is why the Pacers had effectively sealed the game by the start of the fourth quarter. “We watching an OKC team that has not matched their intensity at no point within the game. So yeah, Indiana gonna run away with it.”
That said, Wade did credit OKC for showing a certain level of confidence throughout the postseason. But he added that it felt like they were playing as if they knew they had another game to fall back on. “You got to play just as desperate, because your goal is to win a championship. But they playing like they got another,” he said.
The entire OKC organization, especially Gilgeous-Alexander, should be paying attention to Wade. This Finals is theirs to lose after a dominant regular season. The question now: Can they finish the story? Or will the dark magic of the Indiana Pacers strike one more time and deliver the franchise its first-ever championship? We’ll find out in Game 7, less than 24 hours away.
