Game 6 Observations from the NBA Finals: Thunder vs. Pacers
Not done yet
I had a plan. A plan to write about the end. And new beginnings.
About the wild NBA, where the next season always seems to start before the current one is even finished. Where change, hype, and transactions often feel bigger than the game itself.
Because we’re seeing the magnitude of transactions like never before. The Buss family is selling majority ownership of the Lakers to Mark Walter at a $10 billion valuation — the highest ever for a U.S. sports franchise. One of the biggest, and potentially most impactful, changes in the NBA in the past 20 years, unfolding right before a crucial Finals game. The trade machine spun to life few days ago, sending a wave of picks and players across the league. On top of that, just a couple of months ago, we witnessed the most shocking trade in league history, with Luka Dončić on the move. We’ve seen the Mavericks doomed and reborn in a matter of weeks, as one of my NBA insider friends so vividly put it. The speculation, the chaos, the cycle. It never stops.
But the Indiana Pacers and Rick Carlisle had other plans. Again.
So, for this penultimate Finals recap, I’ll write about the game. A game that was not that exciting, because it was decided long before the final buzzer. But it’s not just about this one — it’s about what it gave us. The next game. The two best words in basketball: Game 7.
The wildest possible ending to a wild season. Or maybe the beginning of the next one. With the NBA, it’s hard to tell where one ends and the other begins.
Today’s notes:
Out of sorts Thunder
If OKC has a weakness, it's this
The master adjuster: Rick Carlisle strikes again
How will it all end?
1-Out of sorts Thunder
If you watched this game with no context and I told you one of these teams was the most aggressive, ball-hawking defense in recent memory, you’d swear it was the Pacers. Because somehow, in a moment that begged for their trademark chaos, the Thunder looked nothing like that swarming, “always in your jersey” unit. Their defensive turnover rate — just 9.9% — was their lowest of the entire postseason, while their own offensive turnover rate spiked to a playoff-high 19.8%. For once, they weren’t the disruptors. They were the ones being sped up.
The Thunder offense plays off rhythm, created by the chaos of their defense, by getting loose on the break and in transition. In this game, there was none of that. Meanwhile, the Pacers, for the first time in this series, looked like the team that had run opponents off the floor all postseason with their pace, flow, and barrage of transition threes.
2-If OKC has a weakness, it's this
Thunder’s non-garbage time output on offense was just 82.7 points per 100 possessions, by far their lowest mark not just of the playoffs but of the entire season. They shot only 17.4% from three in those minutes.
It’s easy to file this one away under the familiar cliché: one team played with desperation, the other with the comfort of knowing they’ve been a different beast at home. Oklahoma City is 10-2 with a +21.7 point differential this postseason when playing in front of their own crowd, where they’ll now have a chance to redeem themselves and reach the promised land in Game 7.
But this game offered a glimpse of a weakness we’ve seen from OKC in flashes throughout the playoffs. It’s the same one that led to their downfall against the Mavericks last year. If (and it’s a big if) a team can take care of the ball and keep the Thunder out of transition, their halfcourt offense tends to stall. They rely heavily on Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Jalen Williams to create in isolation and attack crowded lanes. And while both have been elite scorers in this series, neither is the kind of playmaker like Luka Dončić, Nikola Jokić, or Tyrese Haliburton who can win a game by breaking a defense with passing rather than scoring. A two-assist game marked the fourth time this Finals that SGA finished with four or fewer assists. That number is definitely tied to his teammates' poor shotmaking, but many of the three-point attempts last night felt rushed or out of rhythm — not the kind of clean, in-rhythm looks they usually generate. And we’ve seen this Thunder supporting cast — Holmgren, Dort, Wallace, Caruso — a group so locked in on defense, go cold and struggle to make shots when there’s half a second less to shoot or when the looks come from spots they’re not fully comfortable with, especially on the road.
3-The master adjuster: Rick Carlisle strikes again
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