{"id":115291,"date":"2025-06-21T23:03:14","date_gmt":"2025-06-21T23:03:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/115291\/"},"modified":"2025-06-21T23:03:14","modified_gmt":"2025-06-21T23:03:14","slug":"thunders-chet-holmgren-has-struggled-in-the-nba-finals-can-he-bounce-back-in-game-7-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/115291\/","title":{"rendered":"Thunder’s Chet Holmgren has struggled in the NBA Finals. Can he bounce back in Game 7?"},"content":{"rendered":"

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) \u2014 Chet Holmgren hasn\u2019t quite been himself on offense during the NBA Finals<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Oklahoma City Thunder’s versatile 7-foot-1 forward averaged 18 points per game on 57% shooting from the field in the Western Conference finals against the Minnesota Timberwolves. Those totals have dropped to 11.3 points on 35.3% shooting against the Indiana Pacers.<\/p>\n

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In Game 6 of the finals, Holmgren scored just four points on 2-for-9 shooting as the Pacers rolled to a 108-91 win<\/a>. He acknowledged afterward that he\u2019ll need to improve in the decisive Game 7 on Sunday in Oklahoma City.<\/p>\n

\u201cI personally, myself, could be better trying to help us get things going in the right way,\u201d he said after Game 6.<\/p>\n

Holmgren hasn’t panicked. He said a balanced approach to handling difficult games has served him well throughout his career.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can\u2019t obsess over it to the point where it has a negative effect,\u201d he said. \u201cBut you also can\u2019t just completely detach from it to the point where you don\u2019t care about it.”<\/p>\n

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Holmgren has made just 11.8% of his 3-pointers against Indiana. He said he doesn’t worry about numbers as much as he focuses on effort and mentality.<\/p>\n

\u201cI do everything I can \u2014 good or bad, win or loss \u2014 I do everything I can to be better and improve after each game,\u201d he said. \u201cThat doesn\u2019t guarantee anything, but that\u2019s kind of just the process that I\u2019ve always had.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pacers coach Rick Carlisle knows Holmgren is capable of doing damage. Holmgren had 20 points and 10 rebounds in Game 4 and 14 points and 15 rebounds in Game 5.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe is a great young player, and he has had a lot of stretches where we have not dealt with him well,\u201d Carlisle said.<\/p>\n

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Bouncing back from a few bad games is nothing compared with recovering from a foot injury that cost him his entire first season in 2022-23 and a pelvic injury that cost him 50 games this season.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wouldn\u2019t say I enjoyed the injuries, but other than that, I\u2019ve pretty much enjoyed the whole ride,\u201d Holmgren said. \u201cIt\u2019s a beautiful thing, the easy parts, the hard parts, good parts, the bad parts, it\u2019s all part of it. I would say I enjoy it all.\u201d<\/p>\n

After all that, he\u2019s one win from an NBA title<\/a> in his second season of action. He is thankful to be in this position given how his season started. He\u2019s trying not to overthink the situation heading into Game 7.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have to take the emotions out of it, even though it\u2019s everything you dreamed of, and you just have to try and do what you can to continue to prepare how you\u2019ve prepared all year,” he said.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

AP NBA: https:\/\/apnews.com\/nba<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) \u2014 Chet Holmgren hasn\u2019t quite been himself on offense during the NBA Finals. The Oklahoma…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":115292,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[7,366,126,152,6,1220,11,475,179,1714,3460],"class_list":{"0":"post-115291","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba-playoffs","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-chet-holmgren","10":"tag-indiana-pacers","11":"tag-minnesota-timberwolves","12":"tag-nba","13":"tag-nba-finals","14":"tag-nba-playoffs","15":"tag-oklahoma-city","16":"tag-oklahoma-city-thunder","17":"tag-rick-carlisle","18":"tag-western-conference-finals"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/114723855130680101","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115291","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=115291"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115291\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/115292"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=115291"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=115291"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=115291"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}