The Indiana Pacers season on the brink comes to a head in Game 3 of the NBA Finals. Their series with the Oklahoma City Thunder is tied at one game apiece as it heads to Indianapolis. The Pacers, while young and exciting, are lucky to be tied in this series. They were down 15 points in the 4th quarter of Game 1 in Oklahoma City. In fact, they never led until Tyrese Haliburton hit the game winning shot for Indiana with .3 of a second left.
The Thunder domination has continued behind the steady performance of NBA MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. As Pacers coach Rick Carlisle noted SGA can fall out of bed and score 34 points. The Thunder have led 92 minutes of this series. And as we enter Game 3, no Pacers player has scored 20 points in a game yet. That is remarkable.
SEASON ON THE BRINK
Tonight I have no doubt the home crowd in Indy will be amazing and get its team fired up. I also have no doubt that SGA will exceed 30 points tonight for the Thunder. So what can the Pacers do? For starters they can make SGA work for those 30 points. He is a high volume scorer. But most nights he is a high volume shooter. That means he takes a lot of shots to get his points. In Game 2 he scored an efficient 34 points on 11-21 shooting plus he made 11 of 12 from the free throw line.
In Game 1 he scored a whopping 38 points but needed 30 shots to do it. That's what the Pacers need to do. They need to make SGA take a lot of shots to get his points. And while they shore up their defense maybe a player or two can top 20 points for Game 3. They will need that because it's the Pacers season on the brink. If they win tonight we may have a great series. If they lose it feels like this may be a short series.
For more NBA talk and analysis tune in each weekday to Craig Shemon and Company from 2-6pm on ESPN Southwest Florida.
