Perhaps it was only appropriate that an NBA postseason no one would have predicted could not end without yet another plot twist.
Despite star point guard Tyrese Haliburton’s playing with a calf injury, the Indiana Pacers staved off elimination Thursday to win Game 6 of the NBA Finals, 108-91, and push the best-of-seven series against Oklahoma City to its limit.
For the first time since 2016, the Finals are going to a seventh and final game.
Game 7 is Sunday in Oklahoma City. It became necessary after Indiana’s 3-point shooting quickly dug Indiana out of an early 10-2 hole in the first quarter; its signature up-tempo pace and tireless reserves blew open the game and turned this series back into a coin flip.
“The way I see it is we sucked tonight,” said Thunder star Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, who scored 21 points. “We have to learn the lessons and we have one game for everything we worked for. The better team on Sunday will win.”
Andrew Nembhard, best known for his defense on Gilgeous-Alexander all series, was no longer asked to pressure the guard nearly the length of the court as was his custom earlier in the series. The strategic switch preserved some of his energy, and he came alive offensively to score 17 points. Pascal Siakam scored 16 and Obi Toppin scored 20 off the bench for the Pacers.
One game after scoring a career-high 40 for the Thunder, Jalen Williams was held to 16 points, and the Thunder were outscored by 40 during his 27 minutes.
“It was uncharacteristic, it was disappointing, it was collective,” Thunder coach Mark Daigneault said. “It wasn’t one guy. Just we were not where we needed to be on either end of the floor for much of the game. We have to be a lot better before Game 7.”
Leading by just one point early in the second quarter, the Pacers outscored Oklahoma City by 21 points over the half’s final eight minutes to lead, 64-42, in yet another example of Indiana’s refusing to fold under difficult circumstances — just as it had to win improbable games against Milwaukee, Cleveland and New York earlier in the postseason.
That dramatic second-quarter turn was sparked by Pacers reserve Aaron Nesmith, then given an exclamation point by Siakam, who dunked over Thunder star Williams 40 seconds before halftime and then, following a scoreless Oklahoma City possession, sank a turnaround jump shot as time expired in the quarter. Daigneault called the breakdowns the result of an “offensive issue.”
Haliburton underwent a pregame strength test under the watch of Indiana’s medical staff and was deemed ready to play, and he suited up with a compression sleeve covering his lower right leg. His effectiveness was questionable after he was seen hobbling after interviews in the days after Game 5, when he had failed to make a single field goal.
Pacers coach Rick Carlisle, already known as one of the NBA’s most inventive coaches, said before tipoff that facing elimination he would not hold back on any possible adjustment that might extend his team’s season.
“We’re down to a two-game season,” Carlisle said. “With two days in between [games 6 and 7], tonight everything is out there.”
Yet Haliburton, who had been Indiana’s engine all postseason during its odds-defying run to the team’s first Finals since 2000, was no decoy. His team outscored Oklahoma City by 24 points when he was on the floor.
After he failed to make a single field goal in Game 5, he scored 12 points in the first half and finished with 14. The best news for Indiana was that he needed to play only 23 minutes.
Despite the injury, he showed a burst when he jumped in the air from the top of the 3-point arc and passed to the corner, then sprinted into the paint before he received a pass back and softly banked a shot into the rim for a 24-point lead with 20 minutes remaining in the game. Oklahoma City quickly called a timeout, but the pause did not stop the onslaught, with its deficit quickly ballooning to 28 within minutes.
Over the previous week, the Thunder had wriggled out of difficult positions before, and they wrestled control of the series by limiting their own mistakes. For the second-youngest roster ever to play in the Finals, it was a sign of maturation. Yet all of that cool efficiency melted away in Game 6. They committed 12 turnovers before halftime and made only one of their first 16 3-point attempts.
The gulf between the teams on this night was so wide that Gilgeous-Alexander, the NBA’s newly crowned MVP, had tied his career-high for turnovers, eight, with 12 minutes still to play in the game.
Oklahoma City finished with 10 more turnovers than Indiana and 21 fewer points on 3-pointers.
Decked out in yellow T-shirts, Indiana’s home crowd rarely went from triumphant to tense watching Oklahoma City reduce its deficit to 18 with 4 minutes to play in the third quarter. Yet Indiana did not wobble, answering the attempted rally with a devastating close to the third quarter capped by a 27-foot heave by reserve Ben Sheppard that pushed Indiana’s lead to its largest of the night, at 90-60, entering the fourth quarter, and Daigneault, the Thunder coach, pulled his starters.
Only Oklahoma City has Game 7 experience during these playoffs, having advanced out of the second round by winning at home over Denver. In Finals history, road teams are 4-15 in seventh games. The most recent Game 7 was in 2016, when the Cleveland Cavaliers defeated the Golden State Warriors on the road.
“You could ask every team in the NBA, every team would take that opportunity” to play Game 7 at home, Oklahoma City’s Chet Holmgren said. “We’re no different, and it’s on us to go out there and make the most of it.”
The Pacers’ title hopes now hinge on doing something that has happened only two times before this season — forcing Oklahoma City into consecutive losses.
“This,” Carlisle said, “will be a monumental challenge.”
