Three(-ish) Things I Noticed in Game 6
Hit the jump for the Game 6 edition of Three Things, starring the Pacers doing almost everything right and the Thunder doing almost everything wrong.
Pascal Siakam, back door
I love a good baseline out of bounds set, and I especially love when you have to pursue a secondary option after the first one gets shut down. That's what happened with the Pacers late in the second quarter, and of course, it was Siakam taking advantage.
The first option here is obviously Aaron Nesmith coming through the elevator doors for a corner three. Teams love targeting the corner with their out of bounds plays, and the Thunder sniffed that out and shut it down with the quickness.
But then Siakam caught Jalen Williams peeking toward the corner for just a split second too long and headed back door, and Tyrese Haliburton spotted him out of the corner of his eye and delivered a great pass, and Siakam spun back over J-Dub for the hook shot.
Ben Sheppard, side-tapping
On of my favorite things in basketball, because I am a very, very strange person, is when a screener in the pick and roll taps the ball-handler's defender on one side of his hip while setting a "screen" and then slips out to the other side. A lot of times it just causes a momentary second of confusion, and it results in an open look.
Ben Sheppard did this to Alex Caruso on back-to-back possessions late in the third quarter on Thursday, and it resulted in six Pacers points. (Admittedly in a roundabout way on the second shot, but Sheppard himself was the one who took advantage.)
Ironically, nobody does the side-tap thing on screens more often than the Thunder, at least in my anecdotal opinion. But they got burned by it here.
Tyrese Haliburton, late clock
Haliburton could barely move in Game 5. He looked like a different guy in Game 6, particularly in late-clock situations where he had to create something out of nothing.
He had absolutely no push-off for this type of stuff in the previous game. It seemed like he hadn't hit that floater at all previously in this series, actually. And he got two of them here — one in solo creation and one off a gorgeous give-and-go after an up-fake to get Chet Holmgren off the ground.
The Thunder, into crowds
I lost count of how many times the Thunder just lost their dribble by taking the ball into a crowd of defenders and just leaving it out there for a Pacers defender to steal. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander was the biggest offender but it was definitely not limited to him.
These were just the turnovers before the extended gar-bage time of the fourth quarter. This was an uncharacteristically sloppy game for a team that has generally limited turnovers as well as anybody in the NBA. (OKC finished the regular season with the league's lowest turnover rate and that rate has gone up by only 0.7% in the playoffs.) But it's also a credit to the Pacers' defense, which was swarming in a way that we usually see from the Thunder themselves.
The Pacers, on the run
Speaking of Thunder sloppiness that was at least in some way forced by the Pacers, behold the transition attack. Indiana relentlessly pushed the ball off of missed shots and steals, and OKC was, again, uncharacteristically sloppy when it came to matching up and finding shooters or cutters or even just getting back on defense at all.
But again, a lot of this is about the Pacers putting their foot on the gas, running the floor hard, filling the right lanes, and creating opportunities by darting their way into passing lanes in the first place.
