Before the 2025 NBA Finals finally started, Mark Daigneault threw a last-second curveball to the Indiana Pacers. He opted to start Cason Wallace over Isaiah Hartenstein. Don’t let revisionist history fool you. While everybody questioned the move after their Game 1 loss, it was met with applause. Deservingly so, too.
The lineup data suggested it was the right move to make. The Thunder have started double-bigs with Chet Holmgren and Hartenstein, but the stats suggested they only won those minutes by a small margin. The Holmgren at five and small-ball lineups painted a more dominant picture.
Of course, both lineups have their trade-offs. With Wallace as the starter, they amped up their turnover rate but were destroyed in rebounds. Forcing 25 turnovers became null when OKC only scored 11 points off them. Meanwhile, second-chance looks gave Indiana enough life en route to Tyrese Haliburton’s game-winner.
The Thunder eventually went away from both centers. They played the final minutes with neither Holmgren nor Hartenstein. The result offered postgame skepticism. Fans wondered why Daigneault went away with the starting lineup that won them three rounds.
But Hartenstein said he has full trust in Daigneault. The 27-year-old had a career season after wandering for most of his career. It helps that Wallace has had plenty of starting experience, too. He was OKC’s unofficial sixth starter when it juggled through injuries for most of the year.
“Mark does a great job of communicating, so we talked about it yesterday. I am here to do whatever is best for the team. I trust Mark and I think, again, it’s worked in the past,” Hartenstein said. “Caso has been amazing throughout the playoffs. He’s been amazing when he started in the regular season. So I don’t think that contributed to us losing the game. We had control over the game the whole game.”
Like most have mentioned, the Thunder’s Game 1 loss to the Pacers shared parallels with their Game 1 loss to the Denver Nuggets. Both times, OKC came out rusty but held onto a double-digit comeback before a late surge by the opposition was capped off with a game-winner for Aaron Gordon and Haliburton.
“It was more, again, like the Denver series, the first where we let that go. That’s on us. I think we kinda slowed. We went into their hand slowing the pace down a little bit too much the last eight or six minutes,” Hartenstein said. “We slowed down the pace. I think that was the biggest key that we need to just keep going on. When we have the lead, let’s not slow it down. Let’s put the foot on the gas.”
The old adage goes that a playoff series doesn’t start until the road team wins. After being viewed as a lopsided matchup, the 2025 NBA Finals started with a bang. The Thunder now enter a must-win scenario in Game 2 or risk being on the verge of an all-time upset.
“The Pacers have been doing an amazing job throughout the playoffs, so it wasn’t something coming in that we didn’t know they’ve come back from big leads,” Hartenstein said. “We’ve always responded really good and we have a group of guys that respond, and we are going to be ready for the next game.”