The Oklahoma City Thunder, fueled by an efficient 34 points from Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, thumped the Indiana Pacers 123-107 on Sunday, punching back hard to level the NBA Finals at one game apiece.
NBA Most Valuable Player Gilgeous-Alexander connected on 11 of 21 shots and added five rebounds, eight assists and four of Oklahoma City’s 10 steals as the Thunder bounced back from an agonizing game one defeat on their home floor.
Jalen Williams added 19 points, and center Chet Holmgren bounced back from a lackluster six-point Game 1 to score 15 points with six rebounds for the Thunder, who limited Pacers star Tyrese Haliburton to 17 points, three rebounds and six assists with five turnovers.
Photo: Matthew Stockman via Imagn Images/USA Today
Haliburton, who drilled the last-gasp game-winner for Indiana in their 111-110 series opening triumph, had just five points through the first three quarters.
Despite his 12 points in the fourth, the Pacers never looked like mounting the kind of comeback that saw them erase a 15-point fourth quarter deficit in Game 1.
“We know with them [defense] is where it starts,” Gilgeous-Alexander said. “They’re a high-powered offense, they play fast, score a bunch of points and if you don’t get stops you end up running all game, and they can beat you that way.”
With their latest bounce-back performance, the Thunder denied the Pacers the 2-0 lead they had grabbed in their three prior series, climbing back on even terms as the best-of-seven championship showdown heads to Indianapolis, Indiana, for games 3 and 4 tomorrow and Friday.
“We did some good things tonight,” Gilgeous-Alexander said. “We did some things bad, and we’ve got to be able to get better, get ready for game three.”
Alex Caruso scored 20 points off the bench, and fellow reserve Aaron Wiggins made five three-pointers on the way to 18 for the Thunder, who closed a back-and-forth first quarter on a 9-0 run to lead 26-20.
Holmgren punctuated the period with a three-pointer, and Oklahoma City only ramped up the pressure in the second.
Another 9-0 run included a three-pointer from Williams off a feed from Holmgren and a Holmgren dunk.
After Wiggins drilled a step-back three-pointer, Gilgeous-Alexander drove for a reverse layup that pushed the Thunder lead to 52-29.
The turnovers that bedeviled the Pacers in Game 1 began to creep up again, but Indiana offered a glimpse of just how dangerous they can be as they reeled off 10 unanswered points to slice the deficit to 13 before Oklahoma pulled away again to lead 59-41 at halftime.
The Thunder took a 93-74 lead into the fourth and were up by 22 after a three-pointer from Wiggins on a possession kept alive by three offensive rebounds.
Haliburton finally started to heat up, making three straight Pacers baskets, but his driving dunk with 8:12 remaining only cut the deficit to 20.
Myles Turner added 16 points and Pascal Siakam had 15 as seven Pacers players scored in double figures, but the Thunder maintained their record of not losing back-to-back games in these playoffs.
“Basketball, it’s a game of ups and downs,” Gilgeous-Alexander said.
“The season’s full of ups and downs. The series is full of ups and downs,” he said. “The team that can stay levelheaded and get better throughout the experiences is going to come out on top.”
‘DEVASTATED’: Argentina’s win was a reversal of their 28-24 defeat last week, with Australian forward Fraser McReight adding that ‘we did the same thing last week’ Argentina flyhalf Santiago Carreras punished an undisciplined Australia with 23 points off the tee as the Pumas held on grimly for a 28-26 win in Sydney yesterday to breathe new life into their Rugby Championship campaign. A try-fest beckoned in afternoon sunshine at Sydney Football Stadium, but Argentina needed only one through captain Julian Montoya, with Carreras doing the damage with seven penalties and a conversion in front of a sell-out crowd. A week after letting a 14-point lead slip in a 28-24 defeat to Australia in Townsville, Argentina saw most of a 21-point advantage erased in the final quarter as the
Captain Vijay Kumar led the way yesterday as the Hsinchu Titans claimed the Taiwan Premier League title at the Yingfeng Cricket Ground in Taipei’s Songshan District (松山), beating PCCT by 27 runs. The weather was a topic again, but not the rain that played a role in previous matches in the often-delayed tournament. Kumar, who made 80 not out from 63 deliveries, and teammate Vishwajit Kumar (58 from 43) rescued the Titans from a precarious state at the end of the power play in the T20 match. The visitors were put in to bat and struggled to 26-3 as PCCT
China’s state-run People’s Daily newspaper on Monday published an essay about Chinese basketball it said was written by LeBron James, but a representative for the NBA star said on Thursday that the article was based on a series of interviews. The paper, better known as the mouthpiece of the Chinese Communist Party, had said James authored the essay, “Basketball is a Bridge that Connects Us,” a tribute to Chinese players and fans of the sport written in the first person. “LeBron James Pens an Article in the People’s Daily,” read a post published on the newspaper’s official WeChat account. On Thursday, a representative
San Francisco Giants pitcher Teng Kai-wei impressed against the Arizona Diamondbacks on Monday despite an 8-1 loss in the opener of the team’s nine-game road trip. Teng, the only Taiwanese pitcher active in MLB, struck out five while allowing two hits and one walk over four innings at Chase Field to finish with a no decision, as the teams were tied 1-1 when he finished his outing. He surrendered the lone run of his outing in the bottom of the first, which began with a walk, a hit-by-pitch and two strikeouts. Diamondbacks leadoff hitter Geraldo Perdomo advanced to third on
RSS