Game 3 Bolts: Buckle Up
We've got ourselves a series. After the Game 2 analysis was saturated with "Indy is screwed" sentiment, it's shifted to "we believe" after they took Game 3 to go up 2-1 for the Finals.
Mike Schearer on Myles Turner. It's bittersweet watching a player I've long admired perform well against OKC in the Finals:
There are better big men in the league, but few would fit this team better. Versatility is the vanguard of creativity. Turner’s ability to do a little bit of everything makes for a convenient canvas for Haliburton and coach Rick Carlisle’s respective brands of genius, but he’s more than capable of outputting art himself, like when he out-Holmgren’d Holmgren with this tasty little pull-up.
The Pacers turned the Thunder’s most reliable source of offense into a spectator at times. It was a remarkably effective strategy and now Indiana is two wins away from the most improbable NBA championship of my lifetime. Even when SGA did get his hands on the ball, the Pacers made his life hell. The chart below shows how far up the court, on average, SGA was picked up by a defender in each game in the playoffs. The logos represent OKC’s opponent and the numbers indicate the game number from that corresponding series. Last night, in Game 3, Indiana picked up SGA on average 68 feet from their own hoop.
Dan Devine (Yahoo!) on the Pacers' role players showing out in Game 3:
Mathurin’s downhill aggressiveness, McConnell’s mix of defensive playmaking and pedal-to-the-metal attacking, Obi Toppin’s exceedingly athletic two-way contributions (which included a couple of slick passes in the second quarter) and what Carlisle praised as Ben Sheppard’s “absolute, full-capacity effort all the time” in teaming with Andrew Nembhard to guard Gilgeous-Alexander gave the Pacers exactly what they needed on Wednesday to bounce back in a big way from their Game 2 loss, get back on top in this best-of-seven series — and put Oklahoma City in an exceedingly uncomfortable position heading into Game 4 on Friday.
Anthony Slater (The Athletic) on the turnover tables turning on the Thunder:
