2025 NBA Finals: Oklahoma City Thunder vs. Indiana Pacers

Can't stand Burke and Jefferson. Breen is the only one that is decent.

 

they were aggressive on the trade market to build up the current team that they have now, and I wouldn’t classify making a conference finals as having a very meh year…that’s something the Rockets have only done twice in almost 30 years

without the Pascal trade and other trades they’ve made, they don’t make any conference finals last year and certainly not the Finals this year

 

Both OKC and Pacers made the trades necessary to get to the Finals. I can respect that.

 

They may win the next game
but they WILL NOT win game 7
I said at the beginning .. .they had to win it in 6
Winning in 7 will be impossible . . . . It maybe a Scott Foster / Tony Brothers game
The
Touch fouls will be spectatular on one end

The NBA will NOT ALLOW IT!

If they hang their heads they may lost Game 6

Rocket River

 

At this point, I just want a game 7.

 

Give that shooting coach a blank check and for the love of god have them work with our entire roster.

 

This was a solid game, but honestly: this was on Carlisle, Haliburton & Nembhard for the most part.

Carlisle: leaving in Hali when he’s hurt and Nembhard for all his mistakes should’ve placed way less.

Haliburton: we get it, you want to play, but you hurt the team way too much with no ability to get past anyone, no lift on your shot and basically being a big net negative out there.

Nembhard: a bad pass once, fine. Another one fine, but 3,4,5,6 of which at least 4 UNFORCED turnovers on top of not giving anything on offense, playing jittery all night. Yeah inexcusable play. He shrunk harder than Hali.

It’s crazy they are even in this as OKC clearly have the 2 best players and then some. Plus that front court of Turner who shows up every 3 games or so and Siakam who dribbles so off balance and doesn’t establish any sort of rhythm in 4 out of 5 games.

Miracle how Pacers are in this really, but they could’ve won even if Hali & Nembhard brought it from the get go, Turner would show up as a rim protector which he can be and Carlisle gives TJ more burn. I give OKC credit, the refs were bad both ways, but man Indiana was really frustrating to watch.

 

I agree wit this, I guess my point is that some of these key players they have now, had a lot of doubts surrounding them. Mainly Hali and Turner, man Turner been in trade rumors for the past few seasons.

My thing is, like during the season, sometimes the best trade is no trade. I think the Rockets are doing well for themselves, they can't help where they were drafted, that they couldn't get Cade or Paolo or Wemby, they had nothing to do with that, and everyone here loved the picks they made when they made.

I can't get mad at trades that weren't there, I don't see the move they should have made, and with Suns asking price for Durant, we now see why they didn't make this trade at the deadline.

I think people are too willing to blow things up on a team that had no playoff experience and had to go against their worst matchup when they vastly exceeded expectations in the first place. Running things back isn't an insane idea when your core is all under 25 and you have a 20 year old #3 pick who you're still not sure what he even is yet and a incoming #10 pick.

 

This is probably as far as the run goes for the Pacers. They needed to seize it this year. But it ain't looking too good now. Without Haliburton, the ship goes down.

I also didn't mind them going all in with Haliburton last night. You gotta go down with your horse. It's too bad that's exactly what happened.

 

Wtf game 6 is on Thursday? Another 3 day break?

 

Adam Silver has to plan the rigged game

 

Scott Foster has casino duty on Wednesday, so the 3rd day gives him time

 

They should have rode out TJ the rest of the game and let Hali get extra rest for game 6. TJ was on fire.

 

win game 6 and game 7s have tons of pressure, adding unpredictability.

The Pacers won a playoff game 7 on the road last year (Knicks). I know, OKC isn't the Knicks, but the Garden is also a tough environment.

At times a comeback / Pacer run can get OKC rattled, especially in the 4th Q, and make them revert to iso ball. If the Pacers had managed to get the lead last night rather than just get it to 2, at 95-93, it would have been interesting to see if OKC would have played the same way or if the sphincters would have tightened up.

 

I didn't mind giving Hali a chance early in the 4th (TJ gets gassed, since he plays so hard).

But after 2-3 minutes it was clear that Hali couldn't do anything and that TJ should have come back in. Disappointing that Carlisle didn't have the stones, apparently, to pull his max player. Another issue is that Nembhard was still having success guarding SGA, at least better than anyone else, and due to size, Nembhard and TJ rarely play together. Still going small with TJ/ Nembhard/Mathurin/Nesmith/Siakam would have been interesting though