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So: What do you do with a problem like Tyrese, the engine of a hard-charging Indiana offense that scored nearly 120 points per 100 possessions<\/a> in its 12-4 run through the Eastern Conference playoffs? What\u2019s Job No. 1 when you\u2019re dealing with a quicksilver ball-handler who\u2019s a high-volume, high-efficiency shooter capable of popping for 30 in any given game, but who\u2019d much prefer to set the table for his teammates all night to the tune of double-digit assists? What\u2019s the first thing your defense looks to take away?<\/p>\n Wallace took a beat to consider. Then, with a smile, he decided.<\/p>\n \u201cEverything,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n What Wallace\u2019s answer lacked in specificity, it made up for in sheer soundness of logic. After all, when you\u2019re as all-consumingly excellent as the Thunder\u2019s defense is \u2014 No. 1 in points allowed per possession during the regular season<\/a>, No. 1 in the playoffs<\/a>, one of the stingiest units the league has seen since the ABA-NBA merger<\/a> \u2014 you don\u2019t have to choose; you just erase. Specificity is for lesser beings.<\/p>\n Can the Thunder slow down Tyrese Haliburton? (Photo by William Purnell\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n (William Purnell via Getty Images)<\/p>\n \u201cI go into every matchup the same \u2014 just trying to take them out,\u201d Wallace said. \u201cJust trying to take the ball from them.\u201d<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n Wallace and the Thunder defense have been exceptionally good at that. Oklahoma City led the NBA in steals<\/a>, deflections<\/a>, loose balls recovered on defense<\/a> and points scored off of turnovers<\/a> this season. The Thunder landed two players on the 2024-25 All-Defensive Team \u2014 on-ball pitbull Luguentz Dort and do-it-all forward Jalen Williams \u2014 and they might not even be the third-best defenders on the court at any given point in a Thunder game, depending on how head coach Mark Daigneault is juggling his lineups and what kind of night Wallace, Alex Caruso and big men Chet Holmgren and Isaiah Hartenstein are having.<\/p>\n Their style is suffocation. Their brand is brutality. Their business is stuffing you in a locker and taking your lunch money \u2026 and brother, business is booming.<\/p>\n \u201cThey’re super physical \u2014 they’re annoying,\u201d Pacers forward Obi Toppin said with a smile during Indiana\u2019s media availability. \u201cBut they’re young. They’re young and they’re just in your \u2026 mess. Like, I don’t want to say S-H, but y’all know what I want to say. They’re just in you, the whole game. It’s annoying.\u201d<\/p>\n [NBA Finals preview: Pacers-Thunder key matchups, schedule, X-factors and prediction]<\/a><\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n The Pacers like to push the ball up the court after makes or misses, hunting leakouts and hit-aheads at every opportunity. When they can\u2019t advance the ball with touchdown passes, they just sprint with the dribble, looking to get into their first action as early as possible. Cover that up, and they\u2019ll run you through three more before the shot clock\u2019s even halfway gone, leveraging center Myles Turner\u2019s shooting prowess to spread you out with a true five-out attack \u2014 Haliburton\u2019s the only member of Indiana\u2019s starting five shooting under 40% from 3-point land in the postseason \u2014 to create passing angles and driving lanes through which to bury you in buckets.<\/p>\n \u201cIt really opens up the floor,\u201d said Holmgren, who knows a thing or two about how powerful it can be for an offense to feature a floor-spacing 7-footer. \u201cIt’s not even so much about opening up the floor and being able to attack just the 5 \u2014 it comes down to opening up the floor for everybody else to be able to attack as well. [Defending it] really comes down to being able to play solid \u2014 kind of defeat the point of attack.\u201d<\/p>\n OK, so: Don\u2019t let Haliburton or Andrew Nembhard get loose off the dribble. And don\u2019t get mismatch-hunted or exploited by versatile Eastern Conference finals MVP Pascal Siakam, whom Daigneault praised Wednesday as \u201ckind of a matchup problem, quite frankly.\u201d<\/p>\n Oh, and don\u2019t lose track of the always-relocating Aaron Nesmith, who\u2019s become fantastic shooting on the move in addition to being nails from the corners. And make sure you\u2019re closing hard on Turner all the way to 25 feet out. And don\u2019t get lost in the sauce when the ball starts popping all over the place \u2014 which it will, considering Indiana has the second-fastest average touch time<\/a> in the postseason and throws the second-most passes per game<\/a> \u2014 both well, well above the likes of the Grizzlies, Nuggets and Timberwolves.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n \u2026 That\u2019s kind of a lot of stuff to not mess up.<\/p>\n \u201cIt’s one thing to understand what they’re doing. It’s one thing to understand what you need to do. It’s quite another to execute it,\u201d Daigneault said. \u201cThat’s what makes them really hard to play against. They pump a 99-miles-an-hour fastball at you. You can prepare all you want for that. When you’re in the batter\u2019s box, it’s different when it’s time to hit it.\u201d<\/p>\n Especially when the last few pitchers you\u2019ve seen more consistently sat in the high-80s.<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019re really pushing the ball, playing with pace even in the halfcourt, which is something that has kind of been the opposite … maybe besides Memphis that we played so far this postseason,\u201d said Thunder super-sub Caruso. \u201cMemphis did a lot of that \u2014 drive-and-kick, play early \u2014 where the other teams (Denver and Minnesota) we played [ran] more sets. Just adjusting back to that, and making sure we’re ready to run.\u201d<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n It\u2019s certainly something the Thunder are capable of doing; by a number<\/a> of pace<\/a> and possession<\/a> metrics<\/a>, Oklahoma City has actually played faster than Indiana in these playoffs, on balance. But simply being ready to run with these Pacers doesn\u2019t necessarily mean you\u2019re ready for what they\u2019re going to do while they\u2019re sprinting all over the place \u2014 what Turner called Indiana\u2019s \u201crandom movement\u201d on offense, which, when combined with Haliburton\u2019s tendency toward egalitarian table-setting, makes everybody in navy blue and gold a live threat at all times.<\/p>\n \u201cEvery team has their strengths and their weaknesses,\u201d said Thunder superstar Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. \u201cThey’re a very fast team. I think, like, above all, they understand how they’re playing, and they’re very stubborn in their approach. They kind of grind you with the way they play. \u2026 They know their identity and they stick to it, no matter what.\u201d<\/p>\n That clarity of vision and purpose, combined with Haliburton\u2019s peerless playmaking, Carlisle\u2019s tactical acumen and a boatload of talent, helps make these Pacers an incredibly dangerous offensive team, and a complex problem to solve \u2014 the kind of challenge that Holmgren has found himself loving to wrestle with in the postseason.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n \u201cYou’re also seeing the same team for two weeks, rather than playing a new team every single night,\u201d Holmgren said. \u201cSo you’re really able to take a deep dive, get into things, and really try to \u2026 it’s really like a puzzle. You know, you got to take the time to figure it out.\u201d<\/p>\n The first step in solving any puzzle: singling out one piece from the pile and separating it from the rest. So which Pacers piece do the Thunder plan on starting out with?<\/p>\n At that, Holmgren paused.<\/p>\n \u201cThat puzzle is also a secret, you know?\u201d he said, a grin spreading across his face. \u201cThat’s my answer. Sorry. I wish I could give you more of it.\u201d<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n Whatever the Thunder\u2019s plan of defensive attack, they\u2019ll need to be ready to match Indiana\u2019s intensity from Thursday\u2019s opening tip. Because if the unique brand of offensive pressure that the Pacers apply can make Oklahoma City blink, just once, in one of these first two games \u2014 as it did against Milwaukee, Cleveland and New York \u2014 then the tenor of a series that all us pundits seem to think we have pegged changes dramatically.<\/p>\n \u201cWe know this is a great team. If we were to win a championship, I don’t want to win any other way. I don’t want to go around or over. I want to go through,\u201d Haliburton said. \u201cYou want to go through the best team, the best challenge. This is the best challenge. This is the best team in the NBA.\u201d<\/p>\n And the Pacers are going to make the Thunder prove it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"OKLAHOMA CITY \u2014 On the court, Cason Wallace doesn\u2019t do anything slow. Seated at a podium at the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":77754,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[280,328,1784,7,205,366,305,301,113,949,364,183,1622,293,102,307,367,6,1220,11,302,3308,475,114,279,209,4683,308,278],"class_list":{"0":"post-77753","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba-playoffs","8":"tag-aaron-nesmith","9":"tag-alex-caruso","10":"tag-andrew-nembhard","11":"tag-basketball","12":"tag-cason-wallace","13":"tag-chet-holmgren","14":"tag-cleveland","15":"tag-denver","16":"tag-indiana","17":"tag-isaiah-hartenstein","18":"tag-jalen-williams","19":"tag-luguentz-dort","20":"tag-mark-daigneault","21":"tag-memphis","22":"tag-milwaukee","23":"tag-minnesota","24":"tag-myles-turner","25":"tag-nba","26":"tag-nba-finals","27":"tag-nba-playoffs","28":"tag-nuggets","29":"tag-obi-toppin","30":"tag-oklahoma-city","31":"tag-pacers","32":"tag-pascal-siakam","33":"tag-shai-gilgeous-alexander","34":"tag-the-thunder","35":"tag-timberwolves","36":"tag-tyrese-haliburton"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/114628661375927524","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77753","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=77753"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77753\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/77754"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77753"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77753"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77753"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"OKLAHOMA](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/a3db3c40-41b7-11f0-a4e6-710a16bda6c2.jpeg\"\/)
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