{"id":87930,"date":"2025-06-10T00:43:12","date_gmt":"2025-06-10T00:43:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/87930\/"},"modified":"2025-06-10T00:43:12","modified_gmt":"2025-06-10T00:43:12","slug":"pacers-back-home-in-indiana-have-some-things-to-figure-out-before-game-3-vs-thunder-in-nba-finals-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/87930\/","title":{"rendered":"Pacers, back home in Indiana, have some things to figure out before Game 3 vs. Thunder in NBA Finals"},"content":{"rendered":"

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) \u2014 The Indiana Pacers<\/a> simply couldn\u2019t wait to get home early Monday.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a slew of possible reasons for that. Maybe they just wanted to get out of Oklahoma City with their split of the first two games in the NBA Finals<\/a>. Maybe they couldn\u2019t wait to see what finals fever will look like in Indianapolis after a 25-year wait to get back to the title round. Or maybe they just wanted to get back to work.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s probably a little of everything \u2014 especially the last part.<\/p>\n

Yes, the Pacers are tied with the Thunder<\/a> 1-1 after two games of the NBA Finals. For the lower-seeded team, that\u2019s huge; the Pacers took home-court advantage away by winning Game 1. But they know that if they don\u2019t take care of their own business at home, starting with Game 3 on Wednesday night, it\u2019ll be advantage Thunder<\/a> again, just like that.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re going to have to be a lot better on Wednesday,\u201d Pacers coach Rick Carlisle said.<\/p>\n

That might sound like coaching hyperbole, but really, it isn\u2019t. The Pacers have yet to have anyone score 20 points in a game in these finals. They\u2019ve led for a total \u2014 a total! \u2014 of 1 minute, 54 seconds in this series, or just under 2% of the time. (That\u2019s a major improvement over the 0.0001% that they led Game 1 for, in a winning effort, somehow.) And in Game 2<\/a>, the Thunder held the Pacers without a point in the paint for the entirety of the first quarter.<\/p>\n

Points in the paint isn\u2019t a stat that tends to jump off the page. It\u2019s possible that a lot of people didn\u2019t even notice. But consider this: Before Sunday night, more than nine years had passed since the Pacers didn\u2019t manage a single paint point in the first quarter of a game.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have to do a better job of getting to the paint,\u201d Pacers guard Tyrese Haliburton said. \u201cIt\u2019s a lot easier said than done. … Our offense is built from the inside-out, and we have to do a better job getting downhill. They collapse and make plays from there. I thought we could improve a lot there. But yeah, man, they are flying around. They have got great point-of-attack defenders and great rim protectors.\u201d<\/p>\n

For a team that has now won 81 of its 100 games this season (not counting the NBA Cup final loss, since that doesn\u2019t figure into any records), the Thunder somehow tend to get overlooked on the defensive end. Oklahoma City handcuffed the Pacers in the first two games, daring Indiana to take 3-pointers and barely giving up anything easy around the rim.<\/p>\n

It starts with bothering Haliburton, which the Thunder have managed to do for the majority of the first two games.<\/p>\n

\u201cMost of the guys I guard have the ball most of the time,\u201d said Thunder forward Luguentz Dort, who has drawn the assignment on Haliburton for much of the first two games. \u201cMy main thing is to stay in front of him and make everything tough. He\u2019s a great player. He is going to make some tough shots and great reads, so I just have to stay in front of him.\u201d<\/p>\n

No team gave up fewer paint points in the regular season than the Thunder. It truly is a clash of styles; the Pacers are averaging 46 paint points in their 13 wins in these playoffs as opposed to averaging 36 paint points in their five losses.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we have been one of the better teams scoring in the paint all year and we have to establish that early,\u201d Pacers forward Myles Turner said. \u201cI think we only had four or six points in the paint in the first half (of Game 2) and that\u2019s not Pacers basketball. When you live and die by that three or mid-range shots, it doesn\u2019t always fare well for you.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maybe at home, things will be easier. The Pacers got a split in Oklahoma City; things could be much worse. And now, the Pacers have two days to try to find a way to respond to what the Thunder defense is taking away.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll watch the film, see where we can get better,\u201d Haliburton said. \u201cWe know that the paint is our emphasis and the paint is our friend. The more that we\u2019re able to attack the paint, usually better things happen for us.\u201d<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

AP NBA: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/NBA<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"INDIANAPOLIS (AP) \u2014 The Indiana Pacers simply couldn\u2019t wait to get home early Monday. There\u2019s a slew of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":87931,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[7,588,113,126,2624,183,367,6,446,1220,586,310,179,1714,66,278],"class_list":{"0":"post-87930","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-luguentz-dort","14":"tag-myles-turner","15":"tag-nba","16":"tag-nba-basketball","17":"tag-nba-finals","18":"tag-ok-state-wire","19":"tag-oklahoma","20":"tag-oklahoma-city-thunder","21":"tag-rick-carlisle","22":"tag-sports","23":"tag-tyrese-haliburton"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/114656300567036797","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87930","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=87930"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87930\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/87931"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87930"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87930"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87930"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}