Inside the Comeback: How the Pacers pulled off a stunner in Game 1 of the NBA Finals

By TIM REYNOLDS

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — The game plan was the obvious one. Just chip away, the Indiana Pacers said, because there was no other option that would have made any sense at that point.

They were down by 15 with 9:42 remaining. They were turning the ball over about once every three possessions, couldn’t stop Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, and had the Oklahoma City crowd in a deafening fury.

“We just said, ‘Hey, let’s just keep chipping away at the rock,‘” Pacers coach Rick Carlisle said. “Got to keep pounding the rock and just chip away and hang in.”

With 0.3 seconds left, there was no more rock left to pound.

Not for Game 1, anyway. Tyrese Haliburton scored with that much time left and the Pacers stunned the Oklahoma City Thunder 111-110 in the opener of this year’s NBA Finals on Thursday night.

A look inside the comeback:

The run

The Pacers outscored the Thunder 32-16 in that final 9:42, with only six players getting used for those final minutes and all of them figuring into the scoring column.

Obi Toppin took two shots. Both were 3-pointers. Both connected.

Myles Turner and Andrew Nembhard each scored eight points to lead Indiana during the flurry. Aaron Nesmith led the Pacers with four rebounds in that stretch. And Haliburton provided the exclamation point with the jumper at the end.

“I’ve worked my entire life to get to this stage, so there’s no holding back,” Turner said.

The collapse

The Thunder shot 4 for 16 in that closing stretch. Gilgeous-Alexander was 2 for 4; everyone else on the Thunder combined to shoot 2 for 12. The MVP had 10 points; everyone else on the Thunder combined for six.

The reasons for all that?

“A little bit of everything,” Thunder coach Mark Daigneault said. “They made some plays. On some of those plays they made some shots. They got a couple that you wish you’d get back. We had bonus fouls, which were costly. Then offensively we didn’t move the scoreboard as well as we could have. So you just add all that up and that’s how you get that sort of comeback.”

The reactions

There was no choke sign from Haliburton, no celebratory dance, just a bunch of hugs with teammates and a big hug with his father John Haliburton in the hallway near the Pacers’ locker room afterward.

The Pacers, coach Rick Carlisle said, haven’t engaged in a ton of raucous postgame victory laps during this playoff run.

“This is going to be a long journey and a lot going on,” Carlisle said. “So, we’re just going to have to keep our eye on the ball and keep focusing on one another.”

The big plays

Here were some of the key moments:

— Carlisle subbed in five new players — Haliburton, Nembhard, Nesmith, Toppin and Turner — with 9:42 left and Indiana trailing 94-79.

— Turner hits a 3-pointer with 7:47 left, cutting the lead to 96-88 and forcing an OKC time-out.

— Toppin and Turner made 3-pointers on consecutive possessions (Turner keeping the second one alive with an offensive rebound) to get Indiana within 98-94 with 6:16 left.

— Gilgeous-Alexander’s two free throws with 2:52 left pushed the Thunder lead to 108-99. Nesmith and Nembhard connected on back-to-back 3s, and Indiana was within thee with 1:59 left.

— The Pacers got a stop with 11 seconds left and didn’t call time, having taken advantage of a challenge stoppage 11 seconds earlier to map out scenarios. The clock kept running and Haliburton hit the winner with 0.3 seconds left.

The final word

“I don’t know what you say about it but I know that this group is a resilient group and we don’t give up until it’s 0.0 on the clock.” — Haliburton.

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