Watching Tyrese Haliburton’s latest miracle – a wing jumper with less than a second left that lifted his Pacers over Oklahoma City in Game 1 of the NBA Finals – had me thinking about the original “Rocky,” and one scene in particular.
Small exaggeration, but only a small one. Of course the Pacers are in it to win it. Of course they know it’s not a damn show (a line delivered brilliantly by the late Tony Burton, who played Apollo Creed’s cornerman, Duke). At the same time the Thunder entered the series as heavy favorites, and led Game 1 until Haliburton’s shot splashed through the net with .3 of a second showing on the clock.
You would still expect OKC to beat Indiana, just as Apollo prevailed over Rocky. The Thunder has won 80 games this season, for goodness sake, going 68-14 in the regular season and 12-5 in the playoffs. At the same time, the Pacers now have their full attention. And you would have to give Indiana – wait for it – a puncher’s chance.
As well as the Thunder played in the opener, they could never quite shake the Pacers. For a long stretch the lead hovered between nine and 12, and then, with 9:42 left, Jalen Williams turned T.J. McConnell’s errant inbounds pass into a breakaway dunk, giving OKC a 94-79 cushion.
Game over? Nope. Indiana outscored the Thunder 32-16 thereafter, drilling six 3-pointers while doing so. Obi Toppin, terrific off the bench with 17 points, nailed two. So did Myles Turner, one of them a banker with 6:16 to play that cut the gap to four and made you think that something magical might again be in the works.
Oklahoma City pushed it back out to nine, but the Pacers weren’t done. Aaron Nesmith sank a triple of his own with 2:38 left, and Andrew Nembhard did the same with 1:59 to play.
Incredibly, the Thunder did not score in the final 1:27. Particularly notable were point-blank misses by Shai Gilgeous-Alexander – great otherwise with 38 points – and Williams. And when SGA came up empty on a contested turnaround with 11 seconds remaining and OKC up one, everybody in the gym knew who was gonna take the last shot for Indiana.
Sure enough, Haliburton delivered, just as he had in the closing seconds of Game 5 of the Milwaukee series, Game 2 of the Cleveland series and Game 1 of the New York series.
And as we head into Game 2 Sunday night, you get the feeling that Indiana can, if nothing else, go the distance with a heavyweight like Oklahoma City. That this will be far more interesting than the oddsmakers foresaw. That the Pacers can indeed eat lightning and, well, crap Thunder.
Sorry. I’ll see myself out.