INDIANAPOLIS — Jalen Williams swished a tough pull-up 3-pointer at the third-quarter buzzer to give the Oklahoma City Thunder a five-point lead. Not much went right for them after that point.
“We just had a lot of unforced errors,” Williams said after Oklahoma City’s 116-107 loss to the Indiana Pacers in Wednesday’s pivotal Game 3 of the NBA Finals. “They capitalized on them because they’re a good team.”
The Thunder were outscored 32-18 in the fourth quarter. It was the second time this season Indiana outscored Oklahoma City by a double-digit margin in the final frame. That is the difference in the series, as the Pacers rallied from behind in the fourth quarter in both of their wins.
“In the fourth quarter, I just thought they really outplayed us on both ends,” Thunder coach Mark Daigneault said. “I thought they were in character in terms of their physicality, their pressure on defense. Then they were in character in terms of their pace on offense.”
The Pacers improved to 9-1 in clutch games this season, the most clutch wins in a single postseason since the Miami Heat went 11-3 in such games in 2020, according to ESPN Research.
This is a familiar predicament for the Thunder, who fought back from a 2-1 deficit against the Denver Nuggets in the Western Conference semifinals, eventually winning in seven games.
“We have a great opportunity here,” said Oklahoma City center/power forward Chet Holmgren, who scored 20 points but struggled in the fourth quarter, when he was 1-of-5 from the floor and had his shot blocked by Pacers big man Myles Turner three times. “The great thing is we have another game coming up, Game 4. We can’t be thinking about frustration or anything. No matter how good it’s going, how bad it’s going, the focus can’t be on your emotions. It has to be on what we’re trying to accomplish, the task at hand.”
Oklahoma City, often playing against full-court pressure after allowing the Pacers to score, missed nine of its final 10 shots from the floor. That ugly stretch started after a Williams floater pulled the Thunder within a point of the Pacers with 5:58 remaining.
The Thunder’s only bucket down the stretch was a midrange pull-up by Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, but that was the MVP’s only field goal in the fourth quarter. He was held to three points on 1-of-3 shooting with no assists in the final frame.
“They were aggressive,” Gilgeous-Alexander said of the Pacers’ defense. “They were heavy in the crowd. I’m not sure how many points they had, but it felt like when they scored, we’re going against a set defense, and it’s always harder against a set defense.”
Gilgeous-Alexander finished with 24 points on 9-of-20 shooting, his lowest-scoring performance since a lopsided Game 3 loss to the Minnesota Timberwolves in the West finals. He had four assists and six turnovers, the first time this postseason that he had a negative assist-to-turnover ratio.
“It goes back to a little bit more force,” Gilgeous-Alexander said. “If we’re more aggressive in the pick-and-roll and setting it up, then we get a better angle. Things like that usually comes down to who throws the first punch.”
The Thunder’s two losses in the Finals have come down to the Pacers landing a flurry of punches at the end.
“To win games of this magnitude, at this level, we have to be better,” Holmgren said. “We need to close games, close quarters, close possessions. It doesn’t just come down to the end of the game. We got to figure out how to put ourselves in a better position for the whole 48 minutes.”
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