BACKS AGAINST THE WALL

PHOTOS BY CHRISTINE TANNOUS/INDYSTAR

Oklahoma City Thunder guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (2) looks to a pass while hounded by the Pacers’ defense on June 16 during Game 5 of the NBA Finals at Paycom Center in Oklahoma City.

Turnovers have put Pacers on brink of elimination heading into Game 6

18 giu 2025 - The Indianapolis Star - USA TODAY NETWORK

 Dustin Dopirak - Pacers Insider

OKLAHOMA CITY – Myles Turner was asked to describe his emotions now that the Pacers have gone from being so close to an NBA title to now seemingly so far away from it.

On Friday night, they held a 10point lead at home in the third quarter and a seven-point lead in the fourth with a chance to take a 3-1 lead in the NBA Finals, which would’ve put the Thunder needing a comeback only the 2015-16 Cavaliers have achieved in the Finals. Now, thanks to the Pacers’ fourth-quarter collapse in Game 4 and their 120-109 loss at the Paycom Center in Game 5 on Monday, Indiana finds itself down 3-2 and just one loss away from seeing its magical playoff ride to the franchise’s first NBA Finals in 25 years come to an end.

Turner paused for a beat and reminded himself and the reporter asking the question that for all that has slipped through their hands in the last four days, the Pacers still are still in an enviable position. They’re still one of the NBA’s last two teams standing and one of just two Pacers teams in the franchise’s NBA era to get this far. They still have a home game on Thursday in Game 6 with a chance to extend the series and they are a team that has made its way in these playoffs by being seemingly impossible to put away. “Man, this is the best time of the year, bro,” Turner said. “We’re going back to Gainbridge (Fieldhouse) with your back against the wall. This is the type of stuff you dream of as a kid. I think I’m motivated. That’s the best way to describe it.”

The Pacers are where they are because of monumentally improbable comebacks in games, having authored four of the wildest comebacks in NBA history in the course of these playoffs -Game 5 against the Bucks, Game 2 against the Cavs, Game 1 against the Knicks and Game 1 against the Thunder in this series -- so it only stands to reason that they should have to come back in a series to win a championship.

This marks the first time in these playoffs that the Pacers have played from behind in the series, but they have years of muscle memory and scar tissue that has taught them how to play from behind both in games and in series. They rallied from a 3-2 series deficit to beat the Knicks in last year’s Eastern Conference semifinals, staving off elimination at home in Game 6 before winning at Madison Square Garden in Game 7, so they are not in unfamiliar territory and move forward with every reason to believe they’re capable of doing that again.

“We’ve had our backs against the wall many different times over the last two years and had to find different ways to win,” All-Star point guard Tyrese Haliburton said. “The way that this year has gone, nobody said this was going to be sweet. It’s kind of poetic that we’re here. We’ve got to be ready to go for Game 6. It starts with me, and we’ve all got to be better. That’s just point-blank, period.”

All that being said, the Pacers spent most of Monday evening doing exactly the sort of things a team can’t do if it intends to beat a Thunder team that finished with the NBA’s best record and the fifth most regular season wins in league history. And if they don’t fix Monday’s problems by Game 6, their season will most likely end on Thursday night.

No team in the NBA recorded more steals, created more turnovers or scored more points off turnovers than the Thunder did and the Pacers went into this series knowing they had to take great pains to make sure they didn’t give the ball away. Since a jittery 25-turnover performance in Game 1, they’ve kept their giveaways to relatively manageable numbers. They held the Thunder to 14 points off turnovers or fewer in the first three games. In Game 4, they allowed 25 points off turnovers but managed to post 23 points off giveaways themselves.

In Game 5, though, they gave the ball away in the worst spots and in the worst ways. The Pacers committed 23 turnovers and 15 of those were steals with Thunder ace defenders Alex Caruso and Cason Wallace recording four each and first-team All-Defense pick Luguentz Dort and MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander recording two each. The Pacers lost dribbles and threw errant passes and several times committed giveaways above the 3point arc that led to easy breakaway layups and dunks or even kick-ahead 3pointers. The Thunder outscored the Pacers off turnovers 32-9. In the fourth quarter alone, the Thunder recorded six steals, caused eight turnovers and outscored the Pacers 13-2 off turnovers which helped Oklahoma City put the game away after Indiana had fought back to cut the deficit to two points.

“I think it was just carelessness on our part,” Turner said. “I think they were able to play passing lanes well. They’re handsy, and they just turned us over. You’re not going to win a game in the NBA Finals like that.”

The Pacers committed the third-fewest turnovers in the NBA this season and allowed the fifth-fewest points off turnovers.

But some of the Pacers’ most surehanded players were the ones who struggled the most against the Thunder’s ball-hawking defense. Haliburton, who was dealing with “lower-leg tightness” for much of the evening, committed three turnovers. All-Star forward Pascal Siakam, who led the Pacers with 28 points and also recorded six rebounds, five assists and three steals, committed six turnovers. Andrew Nembhard, who averaged 5.0 assists per game against 1.7 turnovers per game in the regular season, had four turnovers including three back-breaking ones in the fourth quarter. All of those were liveball and all of them went for points.

“I think we picked up our dribble a little early in a lot of those situations,” Nembhard said. “We let them get to the line and it put us in a lot of tough situations. I think by picking up our dribble, we get sped up and there’s no release, really. We’ve got to be better in general and be strong with the ball.”

Said Siakam: “I think it starts with me. I’ve got to be better, especially the first quarter (when he had four turnovers), taking care of ball. I think it just kind of sets a trend a little bit with turnovers that we had in the critical parts of the game. I’ve got to be better with that. I also think they do get away with a lot of reaching, probably a testament to the defense. But I think they do get away with a lot. Some of those turnovers, I felt they were fouls. But I’ve got to be better.”

The Thunder offense was already operating well enough that it didn’t need a lot of easy baskets. Gilgeous-Alexander was problematic as usual with 31 points on 9 of 21 shooting and 13 of 14 at the line, but he also dished out 10 assists and eight of those led to 3-pointers. After hitting just 3 of 16 3-pointers on Friday night, the Thunder were 14 of 32 from beyond the arc on Monday with GilgeousAlexander’s gravity creating a lot of those open looks.

The other two assists teed up forward Jalen Williams for easy layups, which was just part of a spectacular night for him. Williams scored a playoff careerhigh 40 points on 14 of 25 shooting, hitting 3 of 5 3-pointers and also posting six rebounds, four assists and a steal.

“He’s just really good at getting downhill, getting to the rim, and getting to his spots,” said forward Aaron Nesmith, who has had the assignment of guarding Williams for most of the series.

Williams, Gilgeous-Alexander and the Thunder’s ball-hawking defense won’t be any less of a problem on Thursday night, but the Pacers do have another two nights to watch film and look to solve problems and they will have a Gainbridge Fieldhouse crowd behind them knows it will be tasked with trying to help the Pacers extend their season.

“We’ve got to protect home court,” backup point guard T.J. McConnell said. “Our backs up against the wall. I know our fans will be fired up. We’ve got to go out there and play and give everything we have.”

***

Why didn’t McConnell play more in 4th after igniting Pacers’ comeback attempt?

18 Jun 2025 - Indianapolis Star | USA TODAY NETWORK

Nate Atkins

OKLAHOMA CITY – Moments after a Game 5 loss in the NBA Finals that puts the Pacers’ season on the brink, TJ McConnell lay on his stomach a trainer’s table in the bowels of the Paycom Center as a medical assistant took a careful examination of his back. He stayed there so long that he was the second-to-last Pacers player to enter the locker room, trailed only by the injured Tyrese Haliburton.

A back needs a certain level of inspection when it just carried a team and a city’s championship hopes. Especially when it might need to do so again in two days.

McConnell was the spark the Pacers were searching high and wide for in a Game 5 that turned so rapidly into the kind of deep hole against the Thunder that these comeback kids have been desperate to avoid.

The backup point guard exploded when he made his usual third-quarter appearance, ripping off 13 points on 6 of 8 shooting in a single frame to turn a laugher into the kind of game these playoffs have taught the Pacers they can win.

In the process, the Pacers closed the gap from down 14 at halftime to within 2 points early in the fourth quarter.

And all of a sudden, the game had the feel of another Pacers second-half comeback.

It wasn’t ultimately enough, for reasons both organic and debatable in the afterglow of a 120-109 defeat that gave the Thunder a 3-2 series lead.

There he was, dribbling at the top of the key against Alex Caruso, forcing McConnell to his right in order to slalom through a double team before drilling a midrange jumper against a collapsing closing defender. Then there he was, driving hard into the paint to draw a double team, spinning around as if he was going to launch another midrange jumper and flipping it to the corner for a Pascal Siakam 3-pointer.

McConnell finished with 18 points, the most points he’s scored in a playoff game on fewer than 20 minutes.

But therein lies the harsh reality of turning up the inferno in a 33-year-old’s belly: His fuel lives on borrowed time. McConnell is wired at this stage to be a spark, not the entire flame that can overwhelm the heroics of a duo like Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Jalen Williams and an Oklahoma City crowd salivating in sight of its first championship.

And the concern now is that he might need to do just that to survive a Game 6 on Thursday if Haliburton’s calf injury has him as nonexistent as he was in Game 5, when he scored four points and didn’t make a single shot.

“He answered the call,” Myles Turner said of McConnell. “It doesn’t surprise me, personally. I’ve seen him do this multiple times before. It may be a lot of peoples’ first times seeing it, just his heroics and the different things that he does. His mindset and mentality, it never waivers. It’s inspiring and it gets our team going.”

The question the Pacers face is not whether McConnell can do this. It’s just about how much to reasonably squeeze out of an aging player with an all-gas-nobreaks playing style before it creates diminishing returns.

And for as supercharged as his third quarter was, those signs of wear and tear were setting in by the beginning of the fourth quarter, or the time when the games of this series have too often turned on their heads.

“He was very tired. That’s why we got him out,” said coach Rick Carlisle, who brought McConnell in earlier in the third quarter than usual in order to create that spark. “I think there was a play early in the fourth where it looked like fatigue had set in there.

“Then Ty was back in, and then that group went on a good run there. Yeah, it’s always a consideration. But I haven’t gone through the entire game and completely analyzed the whole thing.”

McConnell came out after committing a turnover that led to a Thunder 3-pointer and 10-point lead with 10:50 to play in the game. The Pacers would cut the deficit to 95-93 with 8:30 remaining and McConnell on the bench. But turnovers by Haliburton and Andrew Nembhard on four consecutive possession starting with 6:16 left led to 8 consecutive Thunder points and put the game out of reach.

It’s going to create one of the bigger “what ifs” of this playoff series, if the Pacers don’t end up winning it. Carlisle knows when to read McConnell’s fatigue and to prevent a slip, but he chose not to bring him back into the game after the fourth quarter devolved into more costly turnovers and stagnant offense, particularly in the backcourt.

Carlisle had a couple of different possibilities on his hands. He could have given Haliburton more rest, given that his shot still hadn’t gotten going and Carlisle had already considered shutting his star point guard down at halftime due to the calf that had him out of sorts. Haliburton pushed to play, and trusting in his star has been essential to building this team. It was also potentially the necessary formula in a game that increasingly became about the stars, with Williams and Gilgeous-Alexander becoming the second duo in the past 40 Finals to go for 40 and 30 points, respectively, in the same game.

The other option was to pull Nembhard. Though he came out with a decent first half with seven points, he went scoreless in the second as the ball pressure became overwhelming. He finished with four turnovers, but they turned into easy Thunder scores at critical moments that killed potential Pacers rallies and gave all the energy back to the road crowd.

Nembhard was able to appreciate what McConnell gave while acknowledging that turnovers did the Pacers in.

“He was aggressive, got into the paint, created problems and made shots,” Nembhard said.

Not enough Pacers found ways to do that with Haliburton unable to be the engine. Pascal Siakam dropped 28 points, but no other Indianapolis player could match what McConnell did in just 22 minutes.

It’s valuable to have but problematic to count too much on.

“I’m just trying to put some energy into the game as I always do,” McConnell said, “and get us jumpstarted.”

Now, the Pacers have to hope they only need a jump, and that they have what it takes to drive the rest of the way. 

***

Thunder’s Batman finds his Robin

18 Jun 2025 - The Indianapolis Star - USA TODAY

Josh Peter

The Indiana Pacers lost more than a game Monday night in a 120-109 defeat to the Oklahoma City Thunder in Game 5 of the NBA Finals.

They lost the narrative. At least temporarily.

The Pacers have been basketball’s equivalent of Jason from the movie “Friday the 13th.’’ You can’t kill them. Sure enough, down by as many as 18 points in the first half Monday, June 16, the Pacers pulled within two points with about eight minutes left.

The Thunder slayed Jason, er, Indiana. They went on an 18-4 surge and now head into Game 6 of the NBA Finals needing one victory to win the championship.

Winners Robin: Every Batman needs a Robin. Even the NBA MVP can’t do it all himself.

On Monday night, the Thunder’s Robin (a.k.a. Jalen Williams) scored a game-high 40 points on 14-of-25 shooting to go along with six rebounds and four assists. When Indiana pulled within 95-93 in the fourth quarter, Williams’ 3-pointer sparked OKC’s subsequent surge.

And you know you’ve had a legendary night when you upstage Batman (a.k.a. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander), who had 31 points and 10 assists.

Little guys: It’s understandable if you’re watching Indiana’s T.J. McConnell play and laugh in disbelief when you hear his official height is 6-1. He can look really small out there weaving in between and around the big men. But McConnell, the 33-year-old backup point guard, looked larger than life Monday.

He scored 13 points in the third quarter to keep the Pacers in the game. And even though he will be reduced to a footnote, it’s worth remembering that McConnell finished the game with 18 points on 8-of-14 shooting in addition to four rebounds, four assists and two steals in 22 minutes.

Thunder fans: When it comes to decibel readings, OKC’s fans look determined to live up to the team’s nickname – the Thunder.

It was so loud, you couldn’t even hear the clank of the rim after Tyrese Haliburton’s shots.

“Unreal,’’ Mark Daigneault said when asked about the crowd. “They’ve been unreal forever. But they just put the wind at our back, you know. And we have to give them a reason to. We have to play with the type of togetherness and competitiveness and spirit they can relate to, which I thought we did tonight.’’

Losers

A right leg: In particular, the right leg that belongs to Indiana’s Tyrese Haliburton. He appeared to injure it during a fall in the first quarter and left the game. Although he returned in the second quarter, it created uncertainty.

Was the injury at all responsible for Haliburton shooting 0-for-6 from the floor? If so, how did he manage to grab seven rebounds and dish out six assists? And will the leg be healthy enough for Haliburton to be in top form Thursday night?

Butter fingers: At times, the Pacers looked like they were handling a greased pig rather than a basketball.

The Pacers committed 23 turnovers compared to just 11 by the Thunder.

You don’t need an analytics expert to figure this one out. Committing twice as many turnovers is not a reliable path to the NBA championship.

Reality: These are two terrific teams. There will be only one victory parade.

Heartbreak is coming soon for the Pacers or the Thunder.