Pascal Siakam making doubters who wouldn't trade for him look silly in NBA Finals
Pacers stepped up when Raptors couldn't find many bidders and it has paid off spectacularly well.
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Hands up if you expected this NBA Finals to go seven games.
If you did, you’re in select company because most thought the Oklahoma City Thunder would prevail in five games.
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Pascal Siakam making doubters who wouldn't trade for him look silly in NBA Finals Back to video
Sure, there were some Thunder-in-six picks too (and even a sweep for Shai Gilgeous-Alexander’s squad was a popular play in Vegas), but seven games, nah, wasn’t going to happen.
Well, the Indiana Pacers had something to say about that and it’s winner-take-all on Sunday.
In a Willis Reed-like performance, Pacers all-star Tyrese Haliburton, rumoured to have an injury that would have kept him out of a couple of weeks of regular-season action, not only played in Thursday’s shocking blowout win, but performed well and inspired his teammates in the process, much like Reed did back in the day for the New York Knicks.
The Pacers fed off a raucous crowd that hasn’t seen a team reach these heights since the ABA years, when Indiana was the class of the now-defunct league, winning three championships and repeatedly reaching the final.
The team has gone 8-3 at home, but that massive advantage is now gone and they’ll have to win in Oklahoma City, where the Thunder has gone 10-2 in the playoffs.
An impossible task? No, but it’s hard to imagine all of the Thunder’s best players stinking the way they did in Game 6. Then again, who would have thought this would go seven games!?
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WHAT WENT WRONG?
Gilgeous-Alexander, Jalen Williams (coming off a ridiculously impressive 40-point performance), Chet Holmgren (who also starred in Game 5) and Lu Dort (excellent pretty much all series) did not look like themselves. They played like they hadn’t been in a game as big as this before (as if big tests by Denver in Round 2 or the big comeback against Indiana earlier never happened).
Gilgeous-Alexander tied his career regular-season-high with eight turnovers, Holmgren couldn’t hit anything while Williams and Dort also went cold.
They didn’t move the ball, unlike the Pacers, who didn’t even shoot all that well, but were zinging the ball around the court with aplomb and generated 12 more three-point attempts than the visitors. It was a ‘your turn, my turn,’ sort of performance and that wasn’t going to work.
The Thunder must get back to sharing and not forcing, and that should lead to better offensive work. (The starters went just 1-for-13 from three so it can’t get any worse) and fewer turnovers would help, too.
None of the mistakes or results from Game 6 will matter if the Thunder closes its season with a win Sunday.
“It’s one game for everything you’ve dreamed of. You win it you get everything,” Gilgeous-Alexander said late Thursday.
AN ODE TO PASCAL
Part of the reason the Raptors couldn’t get much for a player as good as Pascal Siakam was the fact the rest of the NBA simply didn’t believe in him. Indiana was one of the only teams — maybe the only one — willing to trade and then offer Siakam a max contract.
Whether it was the looming new restrictive salary-cap system or just not thinking Siakam could be a 1A or second-best player on a title contender, teams just wouldn’t play ball when the Raptors finally offered him up.
Clearly the league was undervaluing Siakam and he has proven all of the doubters wrong during these playoffs (plus he helped the Pacers reach the conference final a year ago, as well).
He arguably was the best player on the floor in the first half and demoralized the Thunder by throwing down one of his fiercest dunks ever, on the head of Williams after a great setup from Haliburton.
If the Pacers do the unthinkable and win Game 7, that dunk will probably be the moment most remembered from this series.
Siakam had 26 points and 10 rebounds when the Raptors closed out the Golden State Warriors in 2019 (and 32 points in Game 1) so it’s not like what he’s doing is new.
ONE OF THESE IS NOT LIKE THE OTHER
Indiana backup point guard T.J. McConnell had another monster outing. He had 12 points in 24 minutes, plus nine rebounds, six assists and four steals.
McConnell is only the ninth player to have two games with at least five assists and four steals in the Finals. He’s quite the outlier, as other than Maurice Cheeks — a good player but not an all-time great — the list includes Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, Isiah Thomas and Scottie Pippen. That’s some good company.
STATS PACK
Some of our top stats picks from a shocking Pacers statement game:
How close has this battle been? OKC has scored just seven more points than Indiana over the first six games.
Indiana’s 13 steals were the fourth-most in a Finals game. The Thunder set the record of 15 just one game ago. If you like steals, this is the series for you.
Eight Pacers are averaging at least 10 points in the series. No team has ever had as many players do that.
Siakam’s 13 rebounds were his most in his 12 Finals games. He did it in his fewest minutes and his +13 was his second-best in the 12 games.
This will be the 20th Game 7 in NBA Finals history, but only the sixth since 1989. It’s the first since Cleveland completed a 3-1 series comeback against Golden State in 2016.
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