Never Too Late: Haliburton's Last Second Game Winner Stuns Thunder, Lifts Pacers to 1-0 NBA Finals Lead
The Indiana Pacers did not enjoy the lead once in the first 47:59.7 of game one of the NBA Finals versus the Oklahoma City Thunder--but they very much enjoyed having the lead for the final :00.3 after Tyrese Haliburton drained the game-winning jump shot in a stunning 111-110 victory. This is the fifth time in the 2025 playoffs that the Pacers won after trailing by at least 15 points, and they have accomplished that feat at least once in each of their four playoff series versus Milwaukee, Cleveland (twice), New York, and now Oklahoma City. The Pacers trailed 94-79 at the 9:42 mark of the fourth quarter versus the Thunder, and were still behind 108-99 with 2:52 left in the fourth quarter, but they kept chipping away until Haliburton delivered the dagger after Shai Gilgeous-Alexander missed a shot with 11 seconds remaining that could have given the Thunder a three point cushion.
Six Pacers scored in double figures, including all five starters. The 2025 Larry Bird Eastern Conference Finals MVP Pascal Siakam had a team-high 19 points on 7-15 field goal shooting while grabbing 10 rebounds. Obi Toppin added 17 points off of the bench, and Myles Turner contributed 15 points, nine rebounds, and three blocked shots. Haliburton had 14 points, 10 rebounds, and a game-high tying six assists. Andrew Nembhard scored 14 points while dishing for a game-high tying six assists. Aaron Nesmith made his presence felt with 10 points plus a game-high 12 rebounds.
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander poured in a game-high 38 points on 14-30 field goal shooting in his first career NBA Finals game. The moment seemed a little big for Jalen Williams, who finished with 17 points on 6-19 field goal shooting. The Thunder forced 25 turnovers and had 14 steals, but they scored just 11 points off of those extra possessions; the Pacers deserve credit for not just giving up after they turned the ball over, but the Thunder also missed a lot of high quality shots from all over the court.
Even though the Thunder led most of the way, they failed to deliver the killer third quarter blow that is their trademark. Why was this game different? The answer, as is often the case in an NBA game, is found not in the third quarter or even in the fourth quarter, but rather in the first quarter. The Thunder went 12-4 during the 2025 playoffs with a starting lineup of Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Lu Dort, Jalen Williams, Chet Holmgren, and Isaiah Hartenstein, and they went 2-0 versus the Pacers in the regular season with that starting lineup--but Coach Mark Daigneault replaced Hartenstein with Cason Wallace in the starting lineup for game one. Wallace finished with six points on 3-9 field goal shooting in 33 minutes, posting a game-worst -13 plus/minus number, while Hartenstein had nine points and a team-high nine rebounds in 17 minutes while notching a +2 plus/minus number. Sometimes the best "adjustment" is to not overthink things but to just stay the course and show confidence that your team's league-leading record is not a fluke; it will be interesting to see if Daigneault concedes his error and reinstates Hartenstein in the starting lineup for game two, or if he doubles down by keeping Wallace in the starting lineup.
The Pacers outrebounded the Thunder 56-39, and the Thunder shot just 39-98 (.398) from the field, so it is evident that going small and changing the rotation backfired in multiple ways: Wallace was not productive as a starter, limiting Hartenstein's minutes hurt the Thunder on the glass, and the Thunder were much less efficient than usual offensively. Players are creatures of habit, so changing the starting lineup can have a downstream effect on the entire roster--not to mention that the favorite team should not show any sign of weakness, including suggesting that their starting lineup is not good enough to beat the opposing team's starting lineup. Daigneault's questionable move is reminiscent of how Avery Johnson outcoached himself 18 years ago in the first round of the 2007 playoffs; the 42-40 Golden State Warriors upset Johnson's 67-15 Dallas Mavericks after the Mavericks changed their starting lineup prior to game one, going small to match up with Golden State's small lineup. The Warriors won game one, and later won the series 4-2.
This game's ending provided an example of Rick Carlisle's evolution as a coach; he has always been a smart and strategic coach, but in his early years he could be inflexible and he tended to micromanage game situations; young Carlisle would probably have called a timeout after Nembhard's defensive rebound with 6.9 seconds remaining, but veteran Carlisle trusted his team to play out the final seconds, and they rewarded his trust by getting the ball to Haliburton, who coolly delivered the dagger.
The series is not over, and momentum does not carry over to the next game, but game one winners go on to take the series more than 77% of the time so the Pacers are in command of this series unless the Thunder not only tie the series but also win a game in Indiana.
Labels: Cason Wallace, Indiana Pacers, Isaiah Hartenstein, Jalen Williams, Oklahoma City Thunder, Pascal Siakam, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Tyrese Haliburton
posted by David Friedman @ 4:03 AM
5 Comments:
This is just unbelievable how every team the Pacers have played has melted down at least once after having huge leads. Pacers obviously deserve some credit, but this should still almost never happen if the team who is ahead plays reasonably smart the rest of the game. The Pacers have no top 20 players in the league, but getting it done collectively.
Maybe the Thunder can take solace in the fact that they dominated for 40+ minutes, even though they lost. They are the better team for sure, too. Daigneault's move not starting Hartenstein and also playing him only 17 minutes(he could've still played him 25-30 minutes off the bench too) is a head scratcher for sure. It doesn't even make sense either as the Pacers start 2 bigs and then OKC has Holmgren as their only starting big who is a stick figure and can't handle physical play well. But, honestly it worked out fine. That wasn't the reason at all why OKC lost as they were up 15 with less than 10 minutes left. Can't meltdown like that especially at home.
Anonymous:
The Pacers have become mentally and physically tougher than they were earlier this season, and their refusal to surrender even when they are down by double digits separates them from many other teams. The fast pace that they utilize and their ability to make three pointers are two factors that make large comebacks more feasible for them than they are for other teams.
I think that changing the starting lineup had a destabilizing effect for OKC, which was evident throughout the game in terms of OKC's low field goal percentage. It seemed like they would get away with it, but in the end they did not get away with squandering so many possessions with missed layups and other missed shots.
Maybe to an extent, but we could many similar things about a lot several teams each season. There's more things happening here. There's really nothing the Pacers could've done when down as much as they were with as little time left if OKC did what they should've done. Obviously there's a lot of luck involved when these things are happening. When one, or two, or three guys are having bad games, one or two other guys who normally wouldn't then magically do it seems for the Pacers. But basically everyone was off in game 1 until about 8 minutes in the left, and then somehow everything falls into place. If the Pacers somehow win this series, this would be one of the very rare 'team' championships we almost never see in the NBA and the first since the 2004 Pistons, or even the 2015 Warriors could fit this mold.
I agree the lineup change was bizarre, but disagree it had an effect on the outcome of the game. Nobody on OKC is thinking about the lineup change with 9 minutes left in the game, and at that stage it doesn't matter who started or not for OKC. Regardless of OKC's low FG % or not, when it was 94-79, they were on pace to win by 19 and and score 118 points, which is great offensive output and domination overall. The reason they lost was a complete meltdown after that. We can look at a lot of other stats, too, such as turnovers. The Pacers committed 24 turnovers to OKC's 6. I've never seen such an absurd difference. And somehow the Pacers won. The Pacers overall played an awful game, but then did an extreme 180 in a small period of time which changed the outcome.
Anonymous:
OKC's new starter, Cason Wallace, had the worst plus/minus on the team; starting him and then playing him 30-plus minutes was suboptimal, to put it mildly. OKC went small and got killed on both the boards and in field goal percentage. If OKC had shot their "normal" field goal percentage throughout the game then they would have been up 30 instead of 15 and the comeback would not have happened. Changing the starting lineup threw the Thunder off enough to make the collapse possible. I never said that their players were thinking about it; I said that the change affected them. I can't prove that the change affected them, but it is evident that something caused the Thunder to be out of whack from the standpoint of rebounding, shooting a high percentage, and converting points off of turnovers, and it is at least plausible to surmise that (1) going small and (2) changing the normal rotation had an impact in those areas.
in team games players do stuff half-automatically, expect usual teammates in certain positions, doing certain things... such abrupt change, even if practiced before disrupts the team... OKC is great team and almost won anyway, but I agree it tipped the balance
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