INDIANAPOLIS — Tyrese Haliburton was hurt.
Tyrese Haliburton was great.
Indiana 108, Oklahoma City 91 on Thursday.
Are you ready for a Game 7?
What a game. What a series. After back-to-back losses to Oklahoma City, Indiana was on the ropes. The Thunder’s defense kicked it into gear in Game 5, forcing 23 turnovers and holding the Pacers to 36.7% from three. Worse, Indiana left Bricktown with Haliburton hobbled by a calf strain that contributed to his worst shooting game of the postseason.
Haliburton started on Thursday, with Pacers coach Rick Carlisle warning the team “will watch and monitor things very closely.” There was no need. Haliburton got off to a rocky start, missing his first four shots. He knocked down his fifth, a 27-footer, late in the first quarter, and took off from there. He scored eight points in the second quarter. Another 12 in the third. Pascal Siakam added 16 points and 13 rebounds of his own. By the start of the fourth, the Thunder had emptied their bench as scores of media members overloaded Orbitz for one more flight to Oklahoma.
“I wanted to be out there to compete with my brothers,” Haliburton said. “These are guys that I’m willing to go to war with and we’ve had such a special year, and we have a special bond as a group. I think I’d beat myself up if I didn’t give it a chance.”
Said Obi Toppin, “He led us to a win. He’s a soldier.”
What a wild postseason it’s been for Haliburton. He has had brilliant games and awful ones. He has made improbable game-winning or game-tying shots in each round and had just as many moments as he’d like to forget. He’s been called overrated and underrated, proclaimed a franchise player by some and decried for lacking the tools to be one by others. There have been better playoff runs. Few have been weirder.
“I think every experience you go through as an athlete is a lesson,” Haliburton said. “You can learn from everything, learn from the wins, learn from the losses and all those things are important. My journey has been fun.”
Haliburton paused. “I’m not necessarily trying to give you guys a journey talk,” he said. But really—how could he? How is Indiana doing any of this? How is Toppin scoring 20 off the bench in an elimination game? How is Andrew Nembhard starting and scoring a series-best 17? How did a team that committed 23 turnovers in Game 5 force 21 (committing just 11) in Game 6? On Thursday, Indiana became the first team in NBA history to have eight players score 200 points in a postseason.
“I think we played to exhaustion,” T.J. McConnell said. “But we have to do it again on Sunday.”
Oh yeah, McConnell. In 24 minutes McConnell scored 12 points, collected nine rebounds and handed out six assists. Watch McConnell shoot threes—it looks like he learned how last week. But he gets in the paint and is Stephen Curry–esque from midrange. He had four steals on Thursday and is averaging 2.3 per game in the Finals. The team that has won the bench battle has won every game in this series. The feisty McConnell was a big reason why Indiana took this one.
“I think in the Finals, especially in our series right now, all these games are coming down to the margins,” Haliburton said. “That’s what’s important, can you win the rebound battle, can you win the turnover battle, can you set the tone from a physicality standpoint? Those are all what’s been very important through all these games and I feel like whoever has done that has won the game.”
Oklahoma City must regroup. As brilliant as the Thunder were in Game 5, they were equally as awful in Game 6. Jalen Williams scored 40 points in Game 5. He was an astonishing -40 on Thursday. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander committed five turnovers combined the last two games. He coughed up eight in Game 6. Chet Holmgren had a four-point stinker, while Alex Caruso went scoreless.
“The way I see it is,” Gilgeous-Alexander said, “we sucked tonight.”
The Thunder downplayed the oversized challenge of a Finals-clinching game. But they felt it on Thursday night. Oklahoma City played tight. It forced shots. It looked uncomfortable taking others. It was 1 of 11 from three-point range in the first half. At the end of the third quarter, it was 3 of 20.
“We got exactly what we deserved, what we earned,” Gilgeous-Alexander said. “We have to own that.”
It’s back to Oklahoma City now, and the Thunder have vowed to be ready. Haliburton, too. Haliburton had round-the-clock treatment to get ready for Game 6—hyperbaric chamber, electrical stimulation, heat packs to keep his calf loose—and will do the same things again. He warned that the narratives around the team would be “poison” to the locker room. There is no time to think about what the team accomplished in keeping its season alive or what an NBA title could mean to a city that has never seen one.
“We’ve got one game,” Haliburton said. “One game. It’s nothing that’s happened before matters, and nothing that’s going to happen after matters. It’s all about that one game.”
On the other side of Gainbridge Fieldhouse, Gilgeous-Alexander offered a similar sentiment. There’s experience Oklahoma City can lean on. The Thunder won Game 7 against Denver in the conference semifinals. They battled back from a 2–1 deficit in this series to take the lead. It won’t be about doing anything different, said Gilgeous-Alexander. It will be about everyone being the best version of themselves.
“We just have to bring what we bring to the table, what we’ve brought to the table all year,” said Gilgeous-Alexander, “[and] bring our best come Sunday.”
For the 20th time an NBA Finals will go to a Game 7, and it’s fitting that it’s two small-market teams competing on the biggest basketball stage you can play on. For six games, the Pacers and Thunder have traded haymakers, and on Sunday one of them will land the knockout punch.
“One game for everything you ever dreamed of,” Gilgeous-Alexander said. “If you win it, you get everything. If you lose it, you get nothing. It’s that simple.”
More NBA Finals on Sports Illustrated
This article was originally published on www.si.com as Tyrese Haliburton Overcomes Injury in Pacers’ Blowout Win to Force NBA Finals Game 7.