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All season long, the Oklahoma City Thunder have responded to adversity. From its rising star shattering his hip in November, to playing center-less basketball, to getting down 2-1 in the second round against the best player in the world on a battle-tested crew, the Thunder have earned a reputation of being a resilient bunch.
Once again, the OKC Thunder will need to battle back with its back against the wall down 2-1 in the NBA Finals to the Indiana Pacers after dropping Game 3, 116-107.
This Game was an opportunity to earn control of the best-of-7 set, and bucking the trend of Game 3 losses piled up over the course of this NBA Postseason. Coming into tonight, the Thunder were 1-2 in Game 3 with a -15 Net Rating. Now, they are 1-3.
In this contest the OKC Thunder were out hustled, the 50/50 plays went 80/20 Indiana's way. The Pacers played a more desperate style of basketball.
Indiana's defensive unit flew around with its hair on fire, attacking closeouts and swarming superstar Shai Gilgeous-Alexander to play in a crowd all night without letting anyone get into a good groove. So much so that the Pacers held the Thunder to one made bucket in the last five minutes of this game.
Offensively, the Pacers were the more forceful team, making up for their lackluster 3-point shooting. Indiana owned the paint, created advantages coming off screens and seeing its bench unit step up to provide a big boost, winning that battle 49-18.
The Indiana Pacers out Thunder'd the Thunder.
This has been a trend for this young Oklahoma City Crew. Yes, the Thunder were the heavy favorites in this series and still have a shot to win their first NBA title, but this is the infancy stage for the Bricktown Ballers. They are still learning what it takes to win at this level, even after a historic 68-win season.
The Thunder didn't play in many close games this season –– a historically low amount of tilts entered what the NBA calls clutch time –– This is just OKC's second-ever playoff run. The next developmental story from Oklahoma City has to be its mentality.
OKC has been excellent all season long at responding. Even in these Playoffs, the Thunder had a great second-half response in Game 3 against Memphis, a huge bounce back in Games 2 and 5 against Denver, Game 4 against Minnesota and Game 2 of this Finals series all comes to mind.
However, the next step for this Thunder team is being able to play with that sense of urgency and desperation every single night, not needing to take a game on the chin to be able to back up against the wall before peeling themselves off it.
Oklahoma City was the team without the juice tonight; the Thunder didn't look desperate for every play and keyed in on every possession. The Thunder yet again got trounced in the final frame for the second time this series, both losses.
The Thunder are unbeaten off of losses this postseason and are expected to respond in Game 4 of this series. But at some point, Oklahoma City has to shift its identity from being the team that has to bounce back to being a tone-setting force that strangles its opponents.
OKC has shown flashes of that mindset throughout these very playoffs but that line of thinking is a consistent requirement to get over the hump and win the team's first NBA championship in club history.
The Thunder had plenty of answers to keep this game within ten points but completely stalled out in the last seven minutes of this game to earn themselves a 2-1 seires hole. The three in bound giveaways, the shot clock violation, the poor paint shooting and the inconsistent defense did them no favors.
Now, Oklahoma City is in a familiar spot, a must-win Game 4 to stop this series from being placed on life support in Bricktown. The saving grace for the Thunder? Bench Boss Mark Daigneault is 5-0 in Game 4s in his career.
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