INDIANAPOLIS — Since January, the Indiana Pacers have shown their strength in clutch scenarios. They’ve outscored the Oklahoma City Thunder by more than 20 points in fourth quarters in the NBA Finals, but they fumbled away a seven-point lead in Game 4.
For much of Friday night, Indiana looked close to taking a commanding 3-1 series lead against OKC. But self-inflicted wounds — missed free throws, poor rebounding and a second-chance point deficit — along with a stagnant offense helped the Thunder pull out the 111-104 win and even the series at 2-2.
“They had 38 free throws, and that was a problem,” Indiana coach Rick Carlisle said. “They missed four. We missed eight. The difference of four is significant.
“There’s a lot of little things going on, but this series is going to come down to the basics, and our inability to effectively rebound when we needed to is the biggest thing. (Getting outrebounded) 43 to 33 and a bunch of second-chance points made it difficult, and in the end, impossible.”
Indiana made 25 of 33 free throws in a game with 71 combined attempts. Oklahoma City went 34 of 38 from the stripe.
“It definitely changed the rhythm of the game,” Andrew Nembhard said of the number of free throws taken. “We probably want to foul less.”
Pacers guard Bennedict Mathurin, typically an 80 percent free-throw shooter, couldn’t replicate his Game 3 heroics and missed three key free throws down the stretch when Indiana had a chance to re-take the lead.
“I think it’s very tough. It’s a very tough time,” Mathurin said. “I’ve made those free throws, and I love making tough free throws, but the only thing I can do is to knock them down next time.”
Mathurin also committed two fouls away from the ball, and the Thunder were awarded a free throw plus possession each time.
Indiana lost the offensive rebound battle 12-7 and was outscored 23-11 in second-chance points. The Pacers also turned the ball over 15 times.
“Their second shots were a big problem,” Carlisle said. “When you’re unable to rebound, it’s hard to continue to play with pace and tempo. … But give them credit. They kept attacking, kept attacking, and their defense was great down the stretch.”
Pascal Siakam scored a team-high 20 points with eight rebounds and had five steals, four of which came in the first quarter. Tyrese Haliburton added 18 points with seven assists but committed five turnovers. Obi Toppin contributed 17 points and seven rebounds. Indiana finished the game with five players in double figures, but it wasn’t enough to close the game.
“They made shots. They went to the free-throw line a lot of times,” Siakam said. “And we just didn’t execute at the end of the game. Rebounding, turnovers … there’s so many things in the game that we just didn’t do right, and it came at the right moment and they made the right play.”
In the final period, the Pacers went ice cold and scored just 17 points, managing only five points over the final four minutes. Indiana made just 5 of 18 field goals, missing all eight of its 3-pointers, and shot just 27.8 percent during the final quarter. The Thunder played with desperation, and Oklahoma City guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander scored 15 of his 35 points in the final five minutes of the game.
“Fouls were an issue,” Carlisle said. “He’s a great player. That’s the other issue. He’s the MVP, and we had a couple good stands against him. We had some terrific opportunities that we did not cash in on. Hey, you’re up seven at home. You have to dig in and find a way, and we were unable to do it tonight.”
As the series shifts to OKC for Game 5, the Pacers have a tough road in a hostile environment and plenty of mistakes to clean up. After dominating for much of Game 4, they let the game get away from them and appeared out of sorts as they missed shots and struggled to play their brand of basketball for the full 48 minutes.
“We gotta do a better job. I gotta do a better job of keeping pace in the game,” Haliburton said. “I did a much better job of that last game, especially down the stretch keeping pace, getting rebounds, and really pushing. So we gotta do a better job of when we do get stops, get down running. A lot of times in that fourth, we were fouling too much, taking the ball out, having to kind of run something versus just random basketball.”
After the loss, though, the Pacers seemed confident in their ability to bounce back, as they’ve done since March.
”We’ve won some games on the road before, so I think we just gotta go out there with our confidence,” Siakam said. “We’ll watch (film on) what we did wrong and try to get better at those things. We just gotta go out there and do things that we’ve done in the past.
“And we have that confidence that we can do it. It’s gonna take a lot, and it’s gonna be hard, but I think we have the group capable of doing that again.”
(Photo of Tyrese Haliburton: Maddie Meyer / Getty Images)
