Game 2 Observations from the NBA Finals: Thunder vs. Pacers

OKC turns it on and wins in Thunder style, SGA wins the star battle convincingly

Photo by Matthew Stockman / Getty Images

Many of you said you liked the Game 1 Finals Observations, so I’ll try to keep them going for the rest of the series, time and travel schedule permitting. I’m also still working on more in-depth offseason deep-dives, and hopefully another one will be ready later this week before Game 3.

Game 2 didn’t have the same level of drama or chaos as the opener and Tyrese Haliburton’s buzzer beater, it felt much more like the Finals most experts expected. After all, 29 of ESPN’s 32 experts picked the Thunder to win the title.

Still, with the series tied 1–1, it’s already more competitive than many predicted. The first two games have also given us two very familiar blueprints: either OKC presses, turns it on, and swarms Indiana with defense in a convincing win, or the Pacers hang around just long enough to steal one late in the clutch. Game 2 followed the first script almost exactly.

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Today’s notes:

1. It starts and sometimes ends with the stars (🎞️VIDEO)

2. OKC playing bigger 📊

3. What to watch for going forward?

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1-It starts and sometimes ends with the stars (🎞️VIDEO)

These playoffs have shown—maybe more than ever—that NBA basketball is truly a team sport. Every player on the floor matters, and the better team is often the one with fewer weak links on both ends. And I know Haliburton isn’t your typical high-usage, scoring-first star. But even with that context, the gap between the two superstars in this series has been too stark to ignore. While Shai Gilgeous-Alexander has been dominant, averaging 36 points across the first two games, Haliburton has mostly struggled outside of his late-game heroics in Game 1. Haliburton finished with 17 points in Game 2, but 12 of those came in the fourth quarter when the game was already slipping out of reach.

Game 1 and Game 2 were Haliburton’s lowest games of the playoffs in terms of percentage of touches in the paint. He addressed that post-game, praising the Thunder’s on-ball and help defense, while also admitting he’ll need to step up for his team to have a better chance. Haliburton isn’t the first star to struggle against this historically good Thunder defense. We’ve seen it frustrate Anthony Edwards, even Nikola Jokić at times in these playoffs, and to a lesser extent Luka Dončić and Kyrie Irving last year. The Pacers have received a lot of praise for their equal-opportunity, ball-sharing, egalitarian offense—but in games like this, against a defense like OKC’s, there are moments when you need a star who can assert himself by either scoring or putting enough pressure on the defense to force help and create rotations.

SGA, on the other hand, had no trouble getting into the paint and collapsing the Pacers’ defense. He looked even more comfortable than in Game 1, constantly manipulating and often splitting screens against Indiana’s hedge or show coverages, which simply weren’t sharp enough last night. One adjustment Mark Daigneault made was setting the screens for SGA even higher. The average pick distance from the hoop in Game 2 was 30.2 feet, up from 29.4 feet in Game 1. For context, the previous playoff high had been 28.6 feet in Game 2 against the Timberwolves. That adjustment gave SGA more space to operate and extended the recovery distance for the scrambling Pacers defense after they showed two bodies on his pick-and-rolls.

The other adjustment from Daigneault was giving SGA more opportunities to operate from the block, using post-ups to force double teams and put the Pacers into rotation.

2-OKC playing bigger 📊

A lot was made of Daigneault’s Game 1 adjustment, swapping out big man Isaiah Hartenstein for Cason Wallace in the starting lineup to add speed and better match up with the ultra-fast Pacers. Some questioned whether it was too early to tweak a formula that had worked so well through 16 playoff games. OKC stuck with that strategy, and not only did the smaller Thunder lineup put the clamps on Haliburton, they also effectively erased most of the Pacers’ signature transition game.