a massive, stepback 3 over Shai Gilgeous-Alexander<\/a> \u2014 his teammate on Canada Basketball \u2014 with 1:59 to play.<\/p>\nHis most significant contribution, however, might have been on defense. For much of the fourth, Nembhard served as the primary defender on Gilgeous-Alexander. Nembhard limited SGA to four shot attempts in the period, and his physicality on Gilgeous-Alexander\u2019s final attempt with 11 seconds left helped set up Haliburton\u2019s game-winner.<\/p>\n
The Pacers clear the glass<\/p>\n
In the regular season, the Pacers were tied for 27th in rebounds, hauling in just 41.8 per game. The Thunder were tied for 11th (44.8). Yet, in Game 1, Indiana outworked OKC and claimed a 56-39 edge, or a +17 differential.<\/p>\n
The Pacers did turn the ball over much more, and Oklahoma City did attempt 16 more shots, which in theory diminished the number of defensive rebounds available for the Thunder. This is an area of relative weakness for Indiana, one the Thunder should try to exploit.<\/p>\n
Thunder finishing in the fourth<\/p>\n
Oklahoma City isn\u2019t a team that typically squanders leads late in games, especially at home. Yet, the Thunder got outscored by 10 in the final period and faltered on both sides. Not only did OKC go cold in the fourth, with seven misses coming within the paint, but the Thunder also lost defensive intention and focus and let Indiana shoot 50% from the floor. In fact, the Pacers drilled 6-of-10 from 3, while the Thunder did not make any of their five attempts from beyond the arc.<\/p>\n
In the final 2:38, the Thunder, who held a nine-point lead inside the final 3 minutes of the game, allowed the Pacers to score 12 points.<\/p>\n
Pacers turnovers<\/p>\n
The Pacers have grit, at this point there can be no question. But Indiana should also consider itself to be quite fortunate. That\u2019s because, simply put, there is no way the Pacers can win this series if they turn the ball over anywhere near the way they did in Game 1. Indiana committed 25 turnovers Thursday night, which, for most of the game, played right into Oklahoma City\u2019s hands.<\/p>\n
The Pacers, though, did improve as the game went on; 20 of those turnovers came in the first half.<\/p>\n
Chet Holmgren<\/p>\n
In a game in which Shai Gilgeous-Alexander dropped 38 and Lu Dort added 15 on five made 3-pointers, center Chet Holmgren underwhelmed. His six points marked his lowest output of the postseason, as did his two made field goals. And then, defensively, Holmgren also struggled at times to find Pacers center Myles Turner, who went 3-of-4 in the fourth quarter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pacers and Thunder NBA Finals is better than it\u2019s \u2018small-market\u2019 billing USA TODAY Sports\u2019 Jeff Zillgitt breaks down…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":83021,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[740,2540,1784,7,618,366,311,1501,623,257,619,113,126,636,367,70,85,6,1220,11,2541,62,67,310,179,61,81,114,258,279,34,65,622,209,259,66,83,64,312,63,82,637,256,278],"class_list":{"0":"post-83020","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba-playoffs","8":"tag-analysis","9":"tag-andrew","10":"tag-andrew-nembhard","11":"tag-basketball","12":"tag-chet","13":"tag-chet-holmgren","14":"tag-city","15":"tag-finals","16":"tag-gilgeous-alexander","17":"tag-haliburton","18":"tag-holmgren","19":"tag-indiana","20":"tag-indiana-pacers","21":"tag-myles","22":"tag-myles-turner","23":"tag-national","24":"tag-national-sports","25":"tag-nba","26":"tag-nba-finals","27":"tag-nba-playoffs","28":"tag-nembhard","29":"tag-neutral","30":"tag-news","31":"tag-oklahoma","32":"tag-oklahoma-city-thunder","33":"tag-overall","34":"tag-overall-neutral","35":"tag-pacers","36":"tag-pascal","37":"tag-pascal-siakam","38":"tag-playoffs","39":"tag-point","40":"tag-shai","41":"tag-shai-gilgeous-alexander","42":"tag-siakam","43":"tag-sports","44":"tag-sports-news","45":"tag-the","46":"tag-thunder","47":"tag-to","48":"tag-to-the-point","49":"tag-turner","50":"tag-tyrese","51":"tag-tyrese-haliburton"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83020","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=83020"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83020\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/83021"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=83020"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=83020"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=83020"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/83995137007-usatsi-25065770.jpg\"\/)
![\"play\"](\"https:\/\/www.gannett-cdn.com\/appservices\/universal-web\/universal\/icons\/icon-play-alt-white.svg\"){kind=icon}
<\/p>\n