though he was having an MRI on Tuesday<\/a> to try to figure things out. It seems to be the sort of injury that if this were a back-to-back situation in December, he\u2019d be missing at least one game.<\/p>\nBut these are the finals, this is June, there no back-to-backs in the playoffs and when the league gets to the last series two-day breaks between games aren\u2019t uncommon. Amen to that, the Pacers are probably saying right about now.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Finals, the NBA Finals, is one of the great stages in all of sports,\u201d Pacers coach Rick Carlisle said. \u201cAnd so, it shouldn\u2019t happen quickly and abruptly. It should happen at the right pace and the right tempo, and the space in between games does help player health. That\u2019s a very important aspect of it.\u201d<\/p>\n
There was a one-day gap between games in this year\u2019s finals just once, separating Games 3 and 4 in Indianapolis. Everything else has seen a two-day gap, as will be the case going into Game 6 at Indy on Thursday night. And if the Pacers win to force a Game 7 back in Oklahoma City, that\u2019ll be preceded by another two days off going into an ultimate game on Sunday night.<\/p>\n
It should be noted that the Thunder don\u2019t mind the schedule being drawn out, either.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe recover,\u201d Oklahoma City coach Mark Daigneault said. \u201cThe finals are great because you get extra time in between the games. I think that\u2019s huge in terms of rest and recovery at this time of the year. I think it\u2019s good for the product. I think it\u2019s a good thing and by the time the ball goes up in the air, everybody is going to be ready to play and everybody is going to be excited.\u201d<\/p>\n
Even those who aren\u2019t dealing with an injury seem to be welcoming the two-day gaps between finals games.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a lot of games. It\u2019s tiring, for sure,\u201d Thunder star and league MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander said. \u201cBut every game is tiring. When you\u2019re giving your all, every possession, you\u2019re going to be tired. I don\u2019t think I\u2019m the only one out there that is tired.\u201d<\/p>\n
It wasn\u2019t always like this.<\/p>\n
The first NBA Finals were in 1947, before the league was called the NBA (it was the Basketball Association of America then) and before the title round was called the finals (after being called the BAA Finals in the early years, it was called the NBA World Championship Series until the mid-1980s).<\/p>\n
That first year, Philadelphia and Chicago played five games in seven days. It would be unthinkable to play at that pace now; the NBA, for much of the last decade, hasn\u2019t even scheduled stretches like that in the regular season.<\/p>\n
The finals between Minneapolis and New York did the same thing \u2014 five games, seven days \u2014 in 1953. Boston and the Los Angeles Lakers played a five-game series in an eight-day span in 1965. Golden State and Washington played four games in eight days in 1975, with two cross-country flights in there as well. And this was long before charter flights became the rule in the NBA, too.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re fortunate in this series. Travel is pretty reasonable. Not a long distance,\u201d Carlisle said, evidently aware that the finals has the shortest distance between the dueling cities \u2014 Oklahoma City and Indianapolis are separated by 688 miles by air \u2014 than any finals matchup since 1956. \u201cNot a long flight. I do believe it\u2019s a better circumstance for the overall integrity of the competition.\u201d<\/p>\n
The two extra days gives everybody \u2014 Haliburton, coaches, everyone \u2014 more time to get ready. Daigneault, the father of kids ages 3 and 2, said it gives him more time to be a dad between games.<\/p>\n
\u201cI do twice as much parenting,\u201d he said, \u201cnot twice as much work.\u201d<\/p>\n
Carlisle said coaches get more time to study film, though at this point in the series it\u2019s pretty clear that the Thunder and Pacers know each other about as well as they can. And Haliburton will get another 24 hours of whatever scheme the Pacers\u2019 medical staff draws up to try to get his leg good to go in Game 6.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll these guys playing in this series on both sides. I think it\u2019s pretty clear now that we\u2019re going into the sixth game, and all attention and the crowd noise in both arenas, everything, this is a lifetime opportunity,\u201d Carlisle said. \u201cNot many guys are going to sit, even if they are a little banged up.\u201d<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
AP NBA: https:\/\/apnews.com\/nba<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"INDIANAPOLIS (AP) \u2014 Given the way Indiana guard Tyrese Haliburton was limping on his way out of the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":107501,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[7,588,113,126,2624,150,1622,6,446,1220,586,310,475,1714,209,66,278,682],"class_list":{"0":"post-107500","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-in-state-wire","10":"tag-indiana","11":"tag-indiana-pacers","12":"tag-indianapolis","13":"tag-los-angeles-lakers","14":"tag-mark-daigneault","15":"tag-nba","16":"tag-nba-basketball","17":"tag-nba-finals","18":"tag-ok-state-wire","19":"tag-oklahoma","20":"tag-oklahoma-city","21":"tag-rick-carlisle","22":"tag-shai-gilgeous-alexander","23":"tag-sports","24":"tag-tyrese-haliburton","25":"tag-washington"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/114705094886960043","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107500","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=107500"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107500\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/107501"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=107500"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=107500"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=107500"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}