Oklahoma City – The game plan was obvious. He only moves away, the Indiana Pacers said, because there was no other option that would have made any meaning at that time.
They were low by 15 with 9:42 remaining. They were turning the ball for approximately once three possessions, they could not stop Shai Gilgous-Alexander, and they had the crowd of the city of Oklahoma in a deafening fury.
We simply said:” Hey, let’s continue breaking the rock, “said Pacers coach Rick Carlisle.
With remaining 0.3 seconds, there was no more rock to Libra.
Not for game 1, anyway. Tyrese Haliburton scored with so much time and the Pacers surprised Oklahoma City Thunder 111-110 in the first game of this year’s NBA finals on Thursday night.
The race
The Pacers surpassed Thunder 32-16 in the final 9:42, with only six accustomed players for those final minutes and all of them appear in the score column.
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Myles Turner and Andrew Nembhard each scored eight points to lead the duration of Indiana in the burst. Aaron Nesmith led the Pacers with four rebounds in that section. And Haliburton provided the exclamation point with the bridge at the end.
“I have worked all my life to get to this stage, so you don’t have to stop,” Turner said.
The collapse
The Thunder shot 4 by 16 in that closing section. Gilgous-Alexander was 2 for 4; All the others in the Thunder combined to shoot 2 by 12. The MVP had 10 points; All others in thunder combined for six.
The reasons for all that?
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“A little of everything,” said Thunder Mark Daigneault coach. “They made some plays. In some of those plays they made some shots. They obtained a couple to return. We had bonus faults, which were expensive. Then we did not move the score all this and the ground.
The reactions
There was no sign of Haliburton’s strangulator, no famous dance, only a lot of hugs with teammates and a big hug with his father John Haliburton in the hall near the palers’s locker room later.
The Pacers, coach Rick Carlisle, said, have dedicated himself to a ton of hard noise of the victory after the game this playoff race.
“This is going to be a long journey and many things happening,” Carlisle said. “Then, we will have to watch the ball and keep focusing on the other.”
The big plays
-Carlisle climbed five new players-haliburton, Nembhard, Nesmith, Toppin and Turner-with 9:42 left and Indiana following 94-79.
-Turner hits a triple with the remaining 7:47, cutting the advantage to 96-88 and forcing an OKC waiting time.
-Toppin and Turner made triple in consecutive possessions (Turner keeping the second live with an offensive rebound) to obtain Indiana within 98-94 with 6:16 remaining.
-The free-lexander-free free throws with 2:52 pushed the advantage of thunder at 108-99. Nesmith and Nembhard connected in consecutive 3s, and Indiana was inside the tea with 1:59 remaining.
– The Pacers stopped with 11 seconds and did not call time, having the advantage of a challenge of a detention of a challenge 11 seconds before to map scenarios. The clock continued working and Haliburton hit the winner with 0.3 remaining seconds.
The last word
“I don’t know what you say about it, but I know that this group is a resistant group and we don’t give up until it is 0.0 on the clock.” – Haliburton.