NBA late: Thunder’s plan to avoid a 2-0 disadvantage
The Thunder is against the strings. Here is everything OKC needs to destroy the second game of the Sunday of the NBA finals.
He Oklahoma City Thunder forced 25 ball losses in the first game of the NBA endsthe greatest amount in any end of this century. His star base scored 38 points, 24 more than the star base of his opponent. They lost the score for just 0.3 seconds of game time.
However, the Indiana Pacers They arrived in Oklahoma City, overcome a lousy start and took the first game for a score of 111-110. While the Pacers continue a postseason full of miraculous comebacks, the Thunder wonders what went wrong and how they can prevent it from happening again in the second game of Sunday (8 PM ET, ABC).
Oklahoma City remains the best team in this series and, therefore, remains the great favorite despite the 1-0 disadvantage. But the Thunder used a large part of his margin of error in game 1. Here are his five steps to recover, to match the finals and recover the advantage beyond.
1- A rapid mental recovery
The most important requirement of Thunder has nothing to do with the basketball strategy, but with the mentality. They must leave the first game behind, regardless of how it has ended; They cannot afford to lose the second game at home, as happened to the New York Knicks In the East Conference final after its own calamity in the first game.
Fortunately, with the serene and serene Shai Gilgeous-Alexander In front, the Thunder has experience in this type of matches. After an amazing collapse in the first game against the Denver Nuggets In the second round, Oklahoma City arrived at the second game with a mission, scoring 87 points in the first half on the way to a 149-106 victory. And after losing the third game against Denver in the extension, the Thunder demonstrated enough temper and strength to overcome as a visitor in the fourth game.
That effort should be vital in the finals, because Indiana will also be better prepared for the future. In the first half of the first game, the moment seemed too strong for the Pacers, who committed 19 ball losses. But they calmed down in the second half, with only six losses, which raided the way for the comeback.
Gilgeous-Alexander scored 38 points in the first game, but his teammates did not follow the same path. Holmgren and Williams are a reference for their team: when they are on a streak, OKC is almost unbeatable, but when they cannot load with the usual load of the second and third scorers, the Thunder is vulnerable to a surprise.
The latest version of both players was present in the first game. Williams led 6 of 19 shots, including 1 of 10 in shots from the basket. Holmgren scored only six points with 2 of 9 in shots, and was sent to the bank during the final stretch, while coach Mark Daigneault closed with a small game alignment.
That disappointment was especially problematic because the Thunder changed its titular alignment for the first time in the postseason, inserting Cason Wallace by Isaiah Hartenstein To eliminate your double figure. That adjustment put more pressure to Holmgren, who did not live up to his first game of the finals.
(Hartenstein, on the contrary, was effective in 17 minutes from the bench, with nine points and nine rebounds. The lack of a blunt pivot in Indiana means that this is not the best confrontation for him, in theory, but it could well deserve more minutes of play in the future).
It wasn’t just that Holmgren was invisible in attack. He also had an unusual bad defensive night, losing his man in multiple triples that helped Indiana shorten distances in the last quarter. While Holmgren finished six points and six rebounds, Indiana’s high men shone: 15 points and nine rebounds for Myles Turner, in addition to 17 points (and five crucial triples) for the Obi Toppin reserve.
If we add to this the superiority of Pascal Siakam On Williams in the battle for the second options, Indiana’s support team did just to shorten the distance between Gilgeous-Alexander and Tyrese Haliburtonwho had difficulties all night until his victory goal in the last second.
3- Most agile ball movement
Indiana reached the finals with a clear defensive strategy: let Gilgeous-Alexander throw difficult shots, but not compromise the rest of the defense to help against the MVP.
That approach forced Oklahoma City to an unprecedented offensive stagnation. The Thunder launched only 208 passes in the first game, according to Geniusiq’s follow -up, the least amount for any team in any game of the entire season, regular season or playoffs. Adjusting the rhythm, it is the second smallest amount of passes in a playoff match in the monitoring era (since 2013-14).
The previous performances in playoffs this season with the least amount of passes adjusted to the rhythm were those of the Cleveland Cavaliers In the first match against Indiana and the Cavaliers in the fifth match against Indiana. This makes sense, since the Pacers used a similar strategy against Donovan Mitchell and against SGA. While Gilgeous-Alexander, like Mitchell, assumed most of the responsibility that fell on his shoulders, his teammates had little game capacity. The Thunder registered only 13 assists in the first game; Its previous minimum in the playoffs was 19 (its previous minimum in the regular season was 16, when the headlines played in the 82nd match).
To be fair, the Thunder would have counted more assists if he had thrown better (we will talk more about this topic shortly). But they should take advantage of the days prior to the second game to identify ways of counteracting this strategy of the Pacers, increasing their offensive flow, which could help SGA partners participate more and maintain the pace of the team in future decisive moments.
4- Better definition near the hoop
In retrospect, Oklahoma City lost the first game in the first half, when the premises failed to expand their advantage despite forcing 19 ball losses. Thunder’s defense looked as impregnable as ever, but the attack slowed them down.
This is because Oklahoma City’s definition was, to put it in some way, lousy. According to Cleaning The Glass, the Thunder led 20 of 36 hoops to the hoop in the first game (which places it in the 14th percentile of all matches of this season) and a lousically incredible 3 of 18 in floats (Percentile 2).
The inability to define within the hoop is the main reason why they had difficulty converting all these ball losses into points. The Thunder scored only 0.4 points for theft in the first game, according to Cleaning The Glass. During the rest of the season, to put it in context, they averaged 1.4 points per robbery, more than triple.
Much of the merit is from Turner, who ended with three caps and diverted many more attempts. The Thunder only sport 1 of 9 against the pivot of the Pacers in the painting, according to Geniusiq; After Gilgeous-Alexander scored an acrobatic tray for the first points of the game, the Thunder failed all the shots at a short distance the rest of the night when Turner was the closest defender. Many of those failures, to summarize, were loose balls of Holmgren in traffic.
– Zach Kram (@Zachkram) June 6, 2025
Even so, the Thunder can, and must, end better in the next games. Based on factors such as the identity of the shooters and the location of the defenders, Geniusiq estimates that the Thunder would have been expected to score eight more points in the painting of those who really scored. If they had only finished as their history suggests that they should, the Thunder would have won the first game.
5- Most meditated prevention of the triples from the open corners of the Pacers
The Thunder would also have won the first game if he had not let the paers get out of the corners. This is the greatest vulnerability of the other dominant defense of Thunder: in exchange for cutting the hoop, they allowed the greatest number of triples from the corners of any team this season, according to Cleaning The Glass.
The Pacers took advantage of the first game, with their greatest frequency of triples since the corners of any game this season. They noted 10 of those 16 attempts (63%), with 7 of 9 in field shots (78%) in the second half, and needed each of those baskets to complete their comeback.
When reviewing the videos, Oklahoma City will probably accept some of those attempts of high value, which were played or result of diverting help to other teams. Indiana also exceeded its three -point shooting quality by a wide margin, according to Geniusiq.
– Zach Kram (@Zachkram) June 6, 2025
But on other occasions, a misunderstanding of Thunder left a completely unmarked pacher from a corner, which is an unsustainable error at this point.
Although the indefatigable paers do not make it easy, the Thunder can correct those errors.
They will have to do it, in any case, since they are losing and must solve their problems of the first game if they want to win the first NBA title in the history of Oklahoma City.
