Jason gives his series preview of the 2025 NBA Finals between the Oklahoma City Thunder and Indiana Pacers. He breaks down the dynamics from each team on both ends of the floor and how they can exploit matchups. How will Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Jalen Williams, Chet Holmgren, Alex Caruso, Lu Dort, and all of OKC’s athletes perform against Tyrese Haliburton, Pascal Siakam, Myles Turner, Aaron Nesmith, and all the Pacers' speed? Jason answers that and gives his prediction for the series.
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(01:47):
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
(02:07):
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
(02:28):
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
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helpful if you leave a rating in a review on
that front. Jackson's doing great work on our social media
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guys follow us there. In the last but not least,
keep dropping mail back questions in our chats after our shows.
(02:49):
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
(03:10):
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,
(03:34):
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,
(03:55):
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
(04:16):
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
(04:40):
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,
(05:05):
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,
(05:27):
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
(05:47):
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
(06:08):
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
(06:28):
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
(06:50):
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
(07:13):
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
(07:34):
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
(07:56):
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
(08:16):
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
(08:38):
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
(08:58):
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
(09:20):
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
(09:41):
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
(10:04):
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
(10:27):
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
(10:48):
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.
(11:09):
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
(11:29):
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
(11:50):
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
(12:12):
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
(12:35):
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
(12:57):
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
(13:17):
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
(13:39):
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
(14:01):
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
(14:23):
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
(14:44):
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
(15:09):
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
(15:29):
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
(15:51):
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
(16:13):
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
(16:34):
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
(16:57):
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.
(17:18):
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,
(17:39):
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
(18:00):
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
(18:20):
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
(18:40):
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
(19:03):
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
(19:23):
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
(19:44):
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
(20:06):
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
(20:26):
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
(20:48):
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
(21:11):
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.
(21:34):
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
(21:54):
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
(22:17):
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
(22:38):
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,
(23:00):
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
(23:22):
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
(23:43):
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
(24:03):
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.
(24:24):
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
(24:46):
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
(25:08):
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.
(25:31):
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
(25:51):
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
(26:13):
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
(26:34):
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
(26:56):
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
(27:19):
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
(27:41):
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,
(28:03):
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
(28:26):
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
(28:47):
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
(29:07):
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
(29:29):
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,
(29:50):
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
(30:13):
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,
(30:36):
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
(30:57):
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,
(31:18):
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
(31:39):
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
(32:02):
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
(32:24):
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
(32:47):
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
(33:09):
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
(33:29):
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
(33:53):
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
(34:15):
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
(34:38):
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.
(34:59):
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.
(35:22):
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
(35:42):
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
(36:07):
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
(36:29):
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
(36:51):
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
(37:15):
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
(37:35):
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,
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(01:47):
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
(02:07):
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
(02:28):
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
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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.
(02:49):
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
(03:10):
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,
(03:34):
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,
(03:55):
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
(04:16):
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
(04:40):
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,
(05:05):
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,
(05:27):
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
(05:47):
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
(06:08):
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
(06:28):
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
(06:50):
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
(07:13):
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
(07:34):
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
(07:56):
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
(08:16):
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
(08:38):
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
(08:58):
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
(09:20):
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
(09:41):
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
(10:04):
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
(10:27):
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
(10:48):
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.
(11:09):
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
(11:29):
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
(11:50):
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
(12:12):
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
(12:35):
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
(12:57):
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
(13:17):
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
(13:39):
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
(14:01):
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
(14:23):
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
(14:44):
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
(15:09):
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
(15:29):
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
(15:51):
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
(16:13):
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
(16:34):
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
(16:57):
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.
(17:18):
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,
(17:39):
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
(18:00):
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
(18:20):
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
(18:40):
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
(19:03):
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
(19:23):
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
(19:44):
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
(20:06):
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
(20:26):
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
(20:48):
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
(21:11):
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.
(21:34):
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
(21:54):
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
(22:17):
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
(22:38):
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,
(23:00):
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
(23:22):
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
(23:43):
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
(24:03):
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.
(24:24):
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
(24:46):
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
(25:08):
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.
(25:31):
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
(25:51):
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
(26:13):
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
(26:34):
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
(26:56):
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
(27:19):
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
(27:41):
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,
(28:03):
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
(28:26):
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
(28:47):
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
(29:07):
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
(29:29):
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,
(29:50):
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
(30:13):
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,
(30:36):
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
(30:57):
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,
(31:18):
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
(31:39):
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
(32:02):
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
(32:24):
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
(32:47):
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
(33:09):
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
(33:29):
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
(33:53):
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
(34:15):
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
(34:38):
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.
(34:59):
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.
(35:22):
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
(35:42):
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
(36:07):
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
(36:29):
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
(36:51):
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
(37:15):
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
(37:35):
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,
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