Hoops Tonight - Thunder-Pacers Finals Prediction: SGA & OKC defense will OVERWHELM Tyrese Haliburton & Pascal Siakam

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For additional terms and responsible gaming resources, see DKG dot co. Slash audio. All right, welcome to hoops tonight. You're at the volume. Happy Monday, everybody. Hope all of you guys are having a great start to your week. Well, we've made it to the NBA Finals. So today we're gonna start with our very basketball centric x's and O centric series preview. We're gonna do the same format we've been using for all our series. We'll talk about the season

series and the regular season off the top. Then we'll talk about our gambling odds presented by DraftKings. We'll look at Indiana on offense, we'll look at Oklahoma City on offense, and then I will get to my prediction. You guys know the drill before we get started. Subscribed to Hoops Tonight YouTube channels. You don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at underscore JCNLTS. You guys don't miss ShW announcements. Don't forget about our podcast feed wherever

you get your podcast under Hoops Tonight. It's also super helpful if you leave a rating in a review on that front. Jackson's doing great work on our social media feeds on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and TikTok. Make sure you guys follow us there. In the last but not least, keep dropping mail back questions in our chats after our shows. Who can get to our mail bags throughout the remainder of the series. All right, let's talk some basketball. So the Thunder one the season series two to oh. The

first game was back onto Zember twenty sixth. It was in Indiana, Indiana actually held a four point lead with a couple of minutes left. Those of you guys who hang out with us on playback, we actually rewatched the entire crunch time sequence of this particular game, and the Thunder just walked him down. Ja Dubb had a couple really nice attacks out of ball screens, one where he got a nifty kind like up and under a layup,

another one where he drew a foul. Shay had a kind of a guard guard screen with case on Wallace. That's a big way that they look to attack Tyrese Haliburton when he was hiding on guards was just kind of having guards slip out of screens. When Haliburton hedges,

they hit Kase on Wallace for another opportunity. He drew a fout and then Shake Gills Alexander hit this ridiculous hesitation pull up three off the top of the key while coinciding with a bunch of Oklahoma City stops on the other end of the floor, and they just walked the Pacers down and got a big win in Indiana. Their second matchup was much more recently on March twenty ninth, down in Oklahoma City, and the Thunder just blew him out. The Pacers jumped out to a little bit of an

early lead. There's an interesting trend in this matchup where when Isaiah Hartenstein's on the floor, the Thunder just look a little bit slow and the Pacers are able to kind of get into the flow of their offense and cause some problems. But at the start of those games you'd see that bear out. Then they'd go a lot

more small. Chet didn't play in either game, so we'd see very different versions of the Thunder later in games where they just kind of matched speed for speed and they were able to cause more problems for the Pacers. Now so worth mentioning. The Pacers went out to big leads in each game. They jumped out twenty two to seven in the December game, and they jumped up nineteen to nine in the March game. But again that kind

of falls into that Hartenstein stuff. Very interesting on off splits with Isaiah Hartenstein in the regular season versus when he was off the floor. And as is always the case with the regular season, key players missed games for both teams right like Aaron E. Smith and Ben Matherin each missed the game. Aaron Wiggins and Alex Caruso each missed a game, and then Chet Holmgrin missed both games.

And I think that's gonna be the interesting one because while Hartenstein caused problems on the defensive end for the Thunder, he also caused problems for the Pacers when the Thunder were on offense with his vertical spacing and ball screens, as they used a lot of at the level coverages and let the roller get behind. So Chet is theoretically

the solution to both of those problems. A faster, more defensively versatile big that won't give you the issues that Hartenstein gives you on that end of the floor, but a legitimate vertical spacer who also can pick and pop, and that causes all sorts of problems. So obviously Chet missing both games is a huge deal, and it didn't matter as the Thunder went to another Our gambling odds again, all of our odds are presented by our partner, Draft Kings.

Oklahoma City is right now minus seven hundred on DraftKings to win the title. Feels are out right to me. I would be absolutely stunned if Indiana found a way to win this series. We're going to go through the specific pathway that exists for them to try to toe that line and somehow find a way to win this series. But I have a really hard time seeing it, and I think it's a particular tough personnel matchup for them, even above and beyond any talent differential that exists within

this series. So to me, Oklahoma City being around minus seven hundred seems about right. There are other series where they had odds in the similar range where I felt like, if I remember correctly, that's right about where it was for the Denver matchup, And I'm like, Eh, this doesn't make sense to me. Like Denver clearly can cause some serious problems for the Thunder with Jokic and with all of their size and just their veteran experience, this to me feels like a more natural line for this type

of matchup. Let's start with Indiana on offense. As far as matchups go, again, a lot of this depends on how Oklahoma City decides to start games. If they start Hartenstein, he'll guard Myles Turner, Chet will likely guard Pascal Siakam, j Doubill guard Andrew Nemhard, lou Dort will guard Tyrese Haliburton,

and Shake Gildes Alexander will guard Aaron Nee Smith. A couple of specific things to keep an eye on there, Like Pascal Siakam in this matchup consistently in the regular season, was really aggressive downhill versus Oklahoma City's bigs, even Hartenstein. Obviously we're gonna talk about attacking Smalls. That's gonna be

a big theme in this series. But if Chet guards Siakam, be ready to watch Siakam try to cave his chest in early and often in the series, like just aggressive drives from the top of the key where he sees Chet in front of him and he just tries to go through him and get all the way to the rim. That's something to keep an eye on. And then again Shay guarding Nie Smiths. Shay as a tendency to linger into the paint. He like basically operates as a roamer in the Oklahoma City defense. It's how he gets a

lot of steals in a lot of cases. So obviously Aaron Nee Smith's ability to knock down catch and shoot threes and beat him crashing to the basket is key if they go small, and if they start Alex Caruso, I think we'll see check guard Myles Turner. Very different type of matchup obviously there. I think I'd go with Caruso on Siakam in that case, just because Caruso has

had success in this playoff run dealing with Biggs. He had a little bit of a problem with Julius Randall in the first game of that series, and then then he just figured out that Julius Randl can't dribble and just attack the basketball and caused a lot of proper in that way. So I would just have Caruso guard Siakam if that's the case. He's just had a lot of success against those bigger forwards, including even Jokic briefly

in that second round series. The rest of the matchups would be the same obviously, Loudord on Tyres Halliburton, shakil As Alexander on, Nie Smith and j dubb On injur and m Hard. But again, as it pertains to Oklahoma City in particular, even with like Keason Wallace coming in off the bench, Caruso coming in off the bench of Hartenstein starts Aaron Wiggins. All these guards are interchangeable, and they're all gonna spend a lot of time guarding a

lot of different players. Both of these teams play in transition a ton, and so even talking about these matchups kind of comes with a certain amount of like, it doesn't necessarily matter as much as you would think, simply because so many of these situations are gonna involve transition cross matches. Again, transition cross match is pretty simple the principles and transition defense or stop the ball, protect the rim,

then spray out to shooters. So it's not about guarding your man in that case, it's about guarding the nearest man, right, And so you're gonna see a lot of situations where dudes get cross match, and so everyone's going to kind of have to figure out how to guard in their respective random matchups that they end up in. In the regular season, Tyre's Halliburton was a non factor relative to

other matchups. Tyrese is generally a low usage player because he's more of an advantage hunter than an assist hunter.

The difference to me there is like Tyres Haliburton gets rid of the ball earlier than most people do, and it's usually when as soon as he sees the slightest bit of a mismatch, whichcuse me, not even mismatch, but advantage like this guy lingers in a little bit too far on a ball screen, leaving two on the ball, or this guy's sinking just a bit too far in in nail help, or this guy's open up the floor. Tyree's gets rid of the ball quickly. That leads to

a lot more hockey assists and fewer regular assists. So even as a high assist player, his usage rate is relatively low because of how often he gets rid of the ball quickly in possessions. But even within that context, his usage plummets in this matchup. So for instance, Tyre's Halliburton has this like you know, offense engine only had a twenty one percent usage percentage in the regular season against the whole league, but that dropped all the way

down to twelve percent against the Thunder. That's how uninvolved Tyrese Haliburton looked in this matchup, and that is We're going to get into it a little bit more later, but that's gonna be something Tyre's has to avoid in the sense that he needs to make sure that he remains a threat even when he's not involved in the action. The two starters for the Pacers that saw an increase in usage relative to what they did versus the rest of the league. Among their starters was andren Emhart. Obviously,

that's not too hard to figure out. He's the next best ball handler in the lineup after Haliburton, and so if he's gonna end up running the show while Haliburton stands around, he's the obvious guy that slides into that spot. The second guy's Miles Turner, and it's not too hard to figure out that either, because of the switches that lead him that leave him in a lot of matchups with guards underneath the basket. Oklahoma City went small in

this matchup quite a bit in the regular season. I consider going to chat at center small for the sake of this matchup because how skinny he is, and so Turner and Siakam, even a little bit of Thomas Bryant. Maybe just these guys, these bigger players, even obi topping a little bit, these guys attacking Smalls is gonna be arguably the biggest pivot point of the series, which we'll get into hearing a little bit. Everything starts with ball pressure.

There are these pivot points I just talked about one involving Turner and Siakam attacking smalls. These pivot points, to me are these like tests that Oklahoma City's defense makes you pass. And at any one of these pivot points, Indiana's offense could break. And if Indiana's offense breaks at any of these pivot points, this thing is so over it's not even funny, like we're talking. Could be a sweep if any of these pivot points ends up breaking

for Indiana. So the first pivot point is just getting the ball up the floor. In the regular season, again, the Pacers, we were a very good team at taking care of the basketball. Here are some basic stats to kind of demonstrate that for you guys. The Pacers were the third best team in the NBA taking care of the basketball overall, turning the ball over just thirteen point two times per game. The Pacers actually did a little bit better even against Oklahoma City worth mentioning just twelve

turnovers per game in those two games. Among all teams who played against the Thunder this season, only the Sacramento Kings did a better job of taking care of the basketball against the Thunder, but this is a playoff matchup. In the regular season, the Thunder averaged seventeen forced turnovers and twenty one point eight points off of turnovers. In the playoffs, that goes up to eighteen turnovers and twenty three point eight points off of turnovers. They have stepped

it up. Minnesota averaged nineteen point three turnovers again in the four losses, nineteen point three turnovers and twenty three point three points allowed off of turnovers. Denver in their four losses eighteen point five turnovers twenty six point three points off of turnovers. Oklahoma City has been winning games in this postseason by turning teams over and getting out in transition. That is the first breaking point of this series. Whether or not they can handle ball pressure and get

the ball up the floor. I expect Oklahoma City to come out with a very aggressive ball pressure scheme with the added layer of denying Tyrese Haliburton whenever they can between Nemhard, Nie Smith, Halliburton, McConnell, Siakam, any guy who could theoretically bring the ball up the floor, they have to be sharp using their body to protect the ball and prevent the easy pick sixes that can occur out at half court. There are a couple of tricks that they can use to help handle ball pressure on the

way up the floor. The obvious one is kick ahead passes. If you ever see like Indiana runs their lane so religiously, if you see an opportunity to throw a kick ahead, make it because then you don't have to bring it up against pressure. But the trick there is again you have to be cognizant of Oklahoma City playing those transition passing lanes in forcing turnovers in those situations. The less obvious one is target the Oklahoma City defenders that aren't

as good at forcing turnovers. So like chet Chats on the floor, Let's say they do go big and Hartenstein's on the floor guarding Turner and Chets guarding Siakam, have Siakam bring the ball up the floor against chet Chats, not as good at applying full court pressure and ripping the ball away from a live ball handler. Right a couple other perimeter guys Aaron Wiggins Isaiah Joe These are two guys that get far fewer steals compared to the other primary defenders for Oklahoma City Shay Shay gets a

lot of steels, but primarily in off ball situations. You could have Nie Smith bring the ball up the floor Shay wants to waste a bunch of energy trying to turn his man five times on his way up the floor. That's his prerogative. He's also not as good as just getting those live ball steals as some of those other guys that they have, So those are simple ways to try to alleviate that full court pressure. The second breaking point in terms of the pressure defense from Oklahoma City

is high and low post entries. We talked about this a lot in this postseason run after the Denver series. In the Minnesota series, Oklahoma City in the regular season actually did quite a bit of switching with Hartenstein in ball screens. There were traditional coverages, but switches were mixed in.

And then, as we mentioned earlier, Oklahoma City went small a lot, which means in this series there will be a lot of situations where Turner or Siakam is matched up against a small just like Julius Randall got, just like Nasred got, just like Aaron Gordon got, just like Nikola Jokic got. And what did we see in those series turnovers on post entries over and over again. Even for Nikola Jokich, one of the best positional bigs in

terms of creating passing angles. Game seven literally turned on the inability to get Jokic the because of Alex Caruso

and his disruption on post entries. And guess what in the film session, Indiana had similar turnovers against Oklahoma City in this regular season, there's a play where Miles Turner had a deep seal against Kayson Wallace under the basket and Kaison's trying to three quarter front around the left side and Miles is trying to back him down to create that passing angle, and right as he's backing him down, obi top and throws the pass and it's kind of

in that gap right as Myles Turner's backing, and it just goes out of bounds. Turnover. You see a play where Pascal Siakam is posting up on the right block and the defender's full fronting the post and he's creating that over the top passing angle. Pass goes up, dude comes shooting in from behind that post bracket that we always talk about with the Miami Heat where that window just suddenly disappears as a defender comes flying in from

behind and steals that ball. Even on plays when they get the ball into the post, the immediate swarre can cause turnovers as well. This is the second breaking point. If they can't actually get the ball to their size advantages, then they have very little chance of scoring against Oklahoma City when they start to switch. And so again step one getting the ball across half court into their offense. Step two actually getting the ball in their post entries

and high post entries to their size advantages. Now, before we talk about the third breaking point, it's at least worth mentioning the statistical performance of Oklahoma City's previous playoff opponents. Denver, in Minnesota, and Memphis were all in the bottom half of the NBA this year in turnovers per game. These are all high turnover teams. Indiana was third. They're just better at taking care of the ball. So it's very possible that these dynamics that we're talking about are less

impactful in this series. But again, it doesn't matter what you do in the regular season. It's more physically, it's more intense. This is a way better defense than anyone Indiana has played to this point. They still need to pass that test. No one gets to hold up the NBA dot com page and just be like, hey, look, we don't get any turnovers in the finals because we didn't turn it over for the first six months of the season. You gotta do it in this series, in

these stakes, in this physicality. The third breaking point of the series will be what happens if Indiana doesn't turn the ball over. I'd break this down into two categories. It's all play finishing, one on one, scoring, in contested catch and shoot, shooting, and this will depend on what coverages Oklahoma City uses. Throughout the series. We're gonna see a lot of everything. We saw both teams run zone against each other in the regular season. We saw traditional coverages,

we saw switching. I think Oklahoma City will start aggressive and in traditional coverages, I'll be at the level in those situations. If Indiana cannot turn the ball over and pass the ball through the defense, it will be on everyone to knock down contested catch and shoe jumpers. This Thunder team is extremely fast and they are excellent with their closeouts. They will use their speed to make you uncomfortable, so guys are gonna have to hit shots anyway under that

sort of defensive pressure. And then if Indiana can pass and shoot Oklahoma City out of their baseline coverage and Oklahoma City starts switching and starts staying home off ball. In that case, it will be on guys like Halliburton and Siakam and to a lesser extent, Miles Turner, Ben Matherin, Andrew Nemhar TJ. McConnell for those guys to either beat their man off the dribble and draw help or to

score the basketball one on one. If Indiana can survive the main breaking points of the series again getting the ball across half court, not fucking up their post entries, and knocking down ketch and shoo shots when they're open, will degenerate down into a one on one contest and everything will come down to those guys in their ability to score there. Siakam is going to be the huge key here. We're gonna talk about it in our prediction. But any chance Indiana has to win this series I

think depends on Pascal Siakam being Finals MVP. A lot of four or five ball screens to try to get him switched on specifically Chet. I like him on Hartenstein as well, but getting into these situations where he has a chance to attack a big in space away from the rim or a small close to the rim. Those are his major advantages. And then with Tyres Halliburton in the second game in particular, he was actually able to hit quite a few threes and that unlocked some more

of his dribble drive game. Everything's going to be about him hitting enough of those threes to where he can actually get dribble penetration. A lot of the usual damage that Indiana's offense does will be substantially less effective in this series. The relentless transition pushes those kick aheads. We just showed a whole video and playback on Saturday Night of how they killed the Knicks with that kind of stuff.

Oklahoma City was the second best transition defense in the NBA in the regular season per cleaning the glasses transition catch all metric. They're super athletic playing in that plane of existence, and they just have such good floor balance. They're always ready to get back all of that whirling half court action that Indiana runs. The thunder will boch switches. They'll miss rotations, but far less often than other teams, and their speed closes gaps way quicker than other teams.

They won't get as many of the easy runouts that they get from their ball pressure turnovers that flow into those transition sequences. Why, Because Oklahoma City is literally the best team in the league at taking care of the basketball, Indiana will have to rely on individual greatness more in this matchup than they have in any other series to this point, and I would argue that's far from the

strength of this particular basketball team. Last thing I want to talk about before we get to Oklahoma City on offense is Tyre's Halliburton in what happens when he goes passive. We talked about it earlier, but his usage rate in this series is about half what it was against other matchups in the regular season. We watched in the crunch time video on playback when it's a consistent theme throughout

both of these games. He just isn't very aggressive, and there's a lot of him standing around off the ball, and in those situations he just has to find a way to stay more involved in the offense. He had a layup in crunch time of the game that they almost won, the one where they were up one o

seven to one oh three. The shot that he hit to put them up one o seven to one oh three with like it was like three minutes left before Oklahoma City, walked him down, came out of a stack pick and roll where he was the screener that was starting underneath the basket, so it was Nemhard up top, and I'm pretty sure Turner was the one setting the screen.

And as Turner set the screen, and as Nemhard came off, Haliburton backscreen for the role man and then relocated out to the left wing, and in the process he generated himself a closeout opportunity. In that closeout opportunity, he was able to beat his man off the dribble and make a little floater that crawled over the front of the rim, and that put the Pacers up by four. That a dynamic and not just in three man action, but even

in two man game. Keeping himself involved as a screener is going to be key because when he sets screens, he forces his man to actually react, and if he doesn't, then you have a different kind of opening that occurs. Pascal Siakam hit a pull up three. I've watched so much film this morning that I can't even remember which game it was in. But one of the games, Tyres Haliburton goes and he's getting kind of hugged by lou Dort, and when he goes and sets a screen for Pascal Siakam,

lou Dort just stays hugged up on Haliburton. And so as Siakam comes off of the ball screen, all of a sudden, he's wide open because Haliburton set the screen and his man didn't want to help, and so he rows up into a wide open dribble off the dribble three at the top of the key and he knocked it down. So again, when Halliburton is being played out of the game by ball pressure, which that's a whole other separate thing that he needs to not allow that

to happen. But let's say he loses his confidence dribbling in this matchup, He's gotta stay involved as a screener. He cannot allow himself to become a spectator in this matchup. All right, let's move on to Oklahoma City on offense. Matchups once again are going to depend on the lineup that Oklahoma City starts with. If they start Hartenstein, we'll see Turner on Hartenstein, Siakam on Chet, Halliburton on lou Dort.

Indy interestingly likes nemhard on Shae more than Nie Smith I've been super excited to see Niesmith get reps on Sheha, and we will inevitably see that because obviously they're going to try different looks over the series, but not a ton of examples of it in the regular season. A lot of Nemhard on Sga. We'll see how that works out. They match athleticism with Nie Smith going on Jay Dubb as his primary match. If the Thunder start sheet at the five, I think we'll see Turner on Shet. I

think we'll see Siakam on Dort. That's based on their second matchup this season. Haliburton on Caruso as like kind of like guarding that like pick and pop guy that ended up being Kase on Wallace in the regular season. A lot of damage done to the Pacers defense using Haliburton in screens and having case On Wallace just slip out and he got a big dunk in an important sequence during the regular season out of that type of play. But Cruso, obviously, as we know, can do similar things

out of that spot. So regardless of whether it's Caruso or case On Wallace or whatever it is that they decide to decide to start, it'll be a guard that I expect the Thunder to attack Haliburton in hedges with and again with those hedges, a lot of teams try to take ghost screen threes out of hedges, meaning slipping out towards a three point line. One of the things that the Thunder did in this matchup, which I found really fascinating is they attacked Haliburton's hedges with cuts like rolls.

And the fascinating thing there is like Haliburton has a relatively easy method for defending ghost screens, where like when the guy slips out of the screen, he gets super high with his hands as he gets out of the hedge, and that forces like an over the top pass that is way more difficult for the guy to get a

nice clean catch and shoot. Look out of these guys are just slipping right to the basket and Shay's just you know, throwing a little quick bounce pass into the gap or a little floating pass over the into the gap, and Haliburton doesn't really have a chance to rotate there because he's already going downhill towards the rims. So something to keep an eye on there. And then again, the same matchups outside of that Nemhart on SGA and Nie

Smith on Jay Dubb. But as we mentioned with Oklahoma City, with all the cross matches and stuff that's gonna occur, and just with the depth of perimeter guard defensive talent, you're gonna see all sorts of different sorts of matchups in this series. Now, Indiana also brings a great deal of full court ball pressure. As we know, the trick here for Indiana is to not lose control of the ball in those situation. We saw this a lot in Minnesota where a ball pressure can actually backfire if Shae

ends up just getting downhill. Shaye attacks ball pressure by making a quick move, getting you pinned on his side and then just using it as the initial attack of the possession and getting into the teeth of the defense. He's not trying to survive ball pressure, He's trying to

punish ball pressure. As a team. In this regular season, we've also seen Oklahoma City attack Indiana's ball pressure with extended ball screens, sometimes out as far as half court, where they'll basically run a pick and roll with Hartenstein screening. Because again Chet didn't play in the regular season, but we'll see Hart and Sign run out instead of screen for Shay way out at half court, which then just

creates this massive runway for both players. Shay's now rolling or driving really hard down one side, and here comes Hart and Sign rolling really hard down the other side. They've had a lot of success with ballscreen attack in this matchup, Shae straight line drives are literally death. They end up in so many layups and so many foul calls.

Indy has to find a way to contain the ball, and one of the biggest kind of like subplots of this series will be if either team can break the other team of their primary defensive aggression game plan just by not turning the ball over, getting the ball into the teeth of their defense, and making the appropriate passes and knocking down shots. If you can break either team's base scheme, that's where things can get pretty interesting. Now

in ball screens, Indiana's generally loading up. They're at the level most of the time to try to stop the guard from getting downhill. That doesn't work as much when the ball screens are extended out at half court, But when they can get the ball screens in more of a traditional spot closer to the rim, they can come up to the level, and as long as the guard doesn't reject the screen, they can contain the ball there. But what is that what happens when you end up

bringing your big up to the level. That's when you start letting the role man get behind. And even though Hartenstein struggled on defense in this matchup, he did get several lob dunks in ball screens because Turner was up at the level. We talked a little bit about this earlier in the show. Even if Hartenstein has played off the floor, Chet brings that same conundrum to the table. Albeit he's not as good as a screener hart and Stein's a better screener out on the perimeter getting those

initial bits of separation. But watch out for Chet as a roleman in the series. He can pop. He certainly can. I think that would be more useful his shooting ability in those like spacing situations when other players are involved. I think vertical spacing is going to be a key in this series with the way that Indiana's guarding and ball screens, and so Chet's ability to roll and finish will be big. Now the pacers will pinch from the weak side, nail help low man help to try to

shrink the floor. As has been the case for Oklahoma City all season, it will come down to them passing the ball effectively through that aggression and role players knocking down threes. In their two regular season matchups, tell me if you can see the difference. In the December game, Oklahoma City got zero point eighty six points per catch and shoot jumper. They got just zero point nine to one points per play when they passed out of pick roll, and they managed just a one oh seven half court

offensive rating. That was the game that Indiana held a late lead and almost won. In the late March game, Oklahoma City got one point three to six points per catching cheo jumper, They scored one point three to eight points per play when they passed out a pick and roll, and they had a one fourteen offensive rating in the half court. That was the game they blew the Pacers out. So once again, it's the same dynamic that has existed

throughout this postseason run. When you look back through the other losses that Oklahoma City has had in this postseason, all four of them the Thunder dropped below a ninety offensive rating in the half court. They are rickety on

that end of the floor. Compared to their defense, and Indiana does, in theory, have the personnel better equipped to keep the ball in front and rotate out to shooters and do all that sort of stuff, right, so they if Indiana wins games in this series, that's what it'll look like, loading up on the ball, Oklahoma City missing shots, them not having a successful half court offense game it

being close slate, Indiana having a chance. Shay absolutely torched these guys in the regular season thirty nine points per game, seven rebounds and eight assists, fifty six percent from the field, sixty four percent from three twelve free throw attempts per game. He just absolutely fried him. The main catch and shoot guys that burned him Lou Dort and Isaiah Joe. Those guys hit fifteen threes in the two games. Now, what's interesting there is those are two guys that have been

way less effective as shooters in this postseason. Isaiah Joe's role has been marginalized a little bit. Lou Dort is still taking a lot of threes. He's actually leading the team and made threes per game in this postseason, but he's doing it at a clip that's like barely over thirty percent. Right, So like those are the two guys that burned him in the regular season, Lou Dort, It's actually funny you go back and watch him in the

regular season. He was just so much more aggressive and confident as a catch and shoot guy than he looks in this particular postseason, a little more hesitant to take contested threes in the postseason, and obviously just shooting them at a lower percentage. Something to keep an eye on. The trick for Indiana is going to be finding a coverage that doesn't require them to leave shooters open, because, as mentioned, there have been games where Oklahoma City's offense

has cracked. But here they are. They're twelve and four in this postseason, and their offense has looked pretty fucking great outside of that, and in big moments like Game four Minnesota, Minnesota alters their game plan, starts loading up in the paint, forcing them to knock down catch and jew jumpers. What did they do? They made them all right?

So can in dey find a coverage that doesn't require them to leave shooters open when Shae is let's say they switch, Well, Shane and Jay Dubb torched bigs on switches in this matchup in the regular season, even Siakam Shae was going right by Siakam whenever he wanted to, so I'm not sure switching necessarily covers the bases. And then we talked earlier about how they lost control of the role man when they defended ball screens two on two.

They could try running a deeper D, but now you're running to drop against Sga, who's one of the more gifted mid range shot makers in the league. So I don't really see a combination for Indiana that could hold up in one on one situations or two on two situations. So honestly, it feels to me like Indiana's only chance on defense is to basically load up and hope guys miss shots. And that's where you cross your fingers and say,

it's the NBA Finals, it's June. These guys are young Chet and j dub again, two co stars that have become demonstrably more comfortable for Oklahoma City as the playoff run is progressed. Totally different vibe, totally different vibe in the finals. Everything is so different, the media presence, just the pomp and circumstances, the pomp and circumstance, the pressure everything is just tougher in this setting, and so I like that that really is the pathway. I view this

as an extremely poor matchup for the Indiana Pacers. We've talked so much about how good the Pacers and Thunder are at cap on the low hanging fruit and basketball. If you guys remember, we spent a lot of time talking about that over the last couple weeks. Through ball pressure, playing with pace and transition, just like taking advantage of

simple advantages and extending advantages and finishing plays. These teams are two of the most well coached teams in the league that play modern basketball in a way that maximizes your talent. But neither of these teams are very susceptible to that sort of thing because of how sharp they are. So this series has a high probability of coming down

to athletic superiority and superstar play. And I think the Thunder are the more athletic team, and I think Shay Gilgers Alexander is far and away the best player in the series. I think we'll see Indiana's offense break in many different ways. I think we'll see games where Tyres Haliburton is a complete non factor. I think we'll see games where they can't get the ball into the post. I think we'll see game where they can't hit a jumper to save their lives. We could see each of

those things in different losses in this series. I'm picking Oklahoma City in five. I'm guessing the home crowd in Indiana and that game plan of sagging in and packing the paint and forcing guys in knockdown shots will lead to a relatively comfortable win for Indiana in Game three. I'll say by around ten to fifteen points. But I think Oklahoma City wins games one, two, four, and five all in pretty comfortable fashion, probably with a blowout or

two mixed in there. Indiana does have a path. It starts and ends with their defense, if they can successfully load up on Shay and j Dubb and force the game to be played through Oklahoma City's young players off ball, and if they can be sharp enough with their closeouts to make them uncomfortable, which again is the key. If you let it doesn't matter if it's the NBA Finals. If you let dudes just take open threes all series, they will eventually get comfortable. But if you can press

them just enough to make them uncomfortable. There will be games where Oklahoma City misses. From there, all roads lead back to Siakam. I think he has to be finals MVP for Indiana to win. He's gonna have more favorable matchups than Halliburton. He's going to be the most reliable option that Indiana has when Oklahoma City starts switching everything. And his ability to quickly score and manage double teams

because again Oklahoma City will swarm him. That will be the key to their ability to score and the half court. When things slowed down, guys got to hit catch and shoot shots. When Oklahoma City loads up, I think they need to dominate the offensive glass as well. This is a team. In the regular season Oklahoma City did not

do too poorly on the offensive glass against Indiana. I think Indiana rebounded twenty eight percent of their own misses, but Oklahoma City is allowing an offensive rebound on thirty three percent of opponents misses. In this playoff run, Indiana can do some damage there, but to be clear, I

just don't see that as a super realistic path. I think this is every bit as lopsided a series as Denver versus Miami in twenty twenty three, the talent gap isn't necessarily as wide, but I think the matchup is just particularly brutal for the Pacers. So again, it's gonna be a showcase for some young talent in the NBA. Should be a fun series for all of us basketball nerds out there. But I just think Oklahoma City has everything they need to dismantle this Indiana team, and I

expect them to do so relatively quickly. All Right, guys, That's all I have for today is always to sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting the show. Tomorrow we have Sam Vassini coming on the show to do a deeper dive into the finals. Then on Wednesday, we're doing a video on just some of the major storylines in this particular series. That's our coverage before we load up into Thursday Night Live on YouTube. After the final buzzer of Game one, I will see you guys then,