Pacers give 45 points to Thunder’s Shai Gilgeous-Alexander

On By Littum

INDIANAPOLIS — There wasn’t much Benedict Mathurin should have or even could have done better.

The Pacers appeared to be in a 2-3 zone down 111-109 as the fourth quarter clock wound down toward 1:00 left. Mathurin and guard Andrew Nembhardt was at the top of the zone, with Mathurin effectively manning the left half of the floor above the free throw line extended and Nembhard manning the right half. With 1:04 left, Oklahoma City’s first-team All-NBA point guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander tried to drive down the middle of the paint, but Mathurin and Nembhard squeezed into the lane to deny him. He sent back to Thunder forward Jalen Williams at the left elbow and Nembhard to step out to protect him. Williams threw it right back to Gilgeous-Alexander and Mathurin stepped beyond the 3-point arc to pick him up.

Gilgeous Alexander took one dribble and two steps up to the 3-point line before pulling up to shoot. Mathurin gave him a little cushion — trying to clear the drive — and that allowed Gilgeous-Alexander to step into the shot, but Mathurin was right there to contest. When Gilgeous-Alexander released his shot, Mathurin’s hand was up in the air level with the ball and it was close enough to force Gilgeous-Alexander to change his shot and even slightly change his landing.

It didn’t matter, though, because Gilgeous-Alexander was still swinging it. The 3 put the Thunder up by five with 58.2 seconds left, and he then hit six free throws to preserve a 120-114 victory Thursday night at Gainbridge Fieldhouse, snapping the Pacers’ five-game winning streak and extending their own to nine games . The two-time All-NBA selection and current second-leading scorer in the NBA matched a season-high with 45 points, 16 of which came in the fourth quarter to close out a game the Pacers had led by as many as 15 points.

“It was really something going down the stretch,” Pacers coach Rick Carlisle said. “The 3 that he hit up top was a heck of a shot. Mathurin was right in his face. That was probably the deciding shot.”

The Pacers walked away from Thursday’s game feeling, for the most part, that they had taken a loss in which there is little shame. They were simply beaten by an excellent team on a night that saw a sublime performance from one of the league’s very best players. They’re still on a generally positive trajectory after winning their previous five games, including three as part of a West Coast tour, and their overall level of connection is still dramatically stronger than it was even two weeks ago, when they were 10-15 and came out. an inexplicable loss to an injury-plagued Hornets team.

The Pacers are 15-16 and in eighth place in the Eastern Conference. The rising Pistons are hot on their heels, but they look a safe bet to at least stay in play-in position, with the teams in places 11-15 starting to fade. The Thunder, meanwhile, have the best 3 1/2-game record in the Western Conference at 24-5, and they haven’t lost a game that counts since Dec. 1 — their NBA Cup Final defeat at the hands of the Bucks doesn’t – – and having won 13 of their last 14 games.

That said, Thursday’s loss may sting more at the dawn of 2025 than it does now. Thursday’s game marked the beginning of an impossibly brutal four-game stretch that includes games against the defending champion Celtics on Friday and Sunday in Boston and then a New Year’s Eve game against NBA Cup champion Milwaukee. The Pacers may have missed their best chance in that stretch to steal a win Thursday, and they missed it in part because on a night when the Thunder’s franchise player scored 45 points, their — All-Star point guard Tyrese Haliburton — scored four.

Of course, Gilgeous-Alexander was as good as advertised. Carlisle noted in the pre-game how difficult a cover he is, and the 26-year-old Canadian and former Kentucky star lived up to every superlative the Pacers coach used.

The Pacers started the game on a 10-0 run, but Gilgeous-Alexander was the first Thunder player to score with a spin move out of a back-down post up by Nembhard for a layup.

Gilgeous-Alexander made just 2 of 8 field goals in the first quarter, but after that he was nearly perfect on 13 of his last 14 shots – 7 of 7 in the second quarter, 3 of 4 in the third and 3 of 3 in the fourth — to finish 15 of 22 for the game. He made 4 of 5 3-pointers and was a perfect 11 of 11 at the free throw line. He also dished out eight assists against just one turnover and grabbed seven rebounds, two blocks and a steal, posting a +10 plus-minus figure in just under 38 minutes of action. His 23 points in the middle two quarters helped the Thunder dig out of a significant first-half hole, and his 16 points in the fourth capped a 37-point period in which the Thunder made 10 of 19 shots and scored 1.50 points per possession.

The Pacers didn’t make all those buckets difficult. In fact, he made three straight layups in the final 1:20 of the second quarter, which helped dramatically shrink a Pacers lead. But Gilgeous-Alexander still had to see their breakdowns to exploit them.

“He’s a great player, there’s no doubt about that,” Carlisle said. “He’s going to be an MVP, maybe this year. I thought that stretch at the end of the first half where we were just not organized when he took us on was a killer. We had a 12-14 point lead. I think we had it up to 15 at one point in the first half. We went straight through to score at the end of the half. That gave him juice, too.”

Gilgeous-Alexander got a number of his buckets on Nembhard, who just came off holding Stephen Curry to 10 points on 2-of-13 shooting in San Francisco against the Warriors on Monday night. Nembhard and Gilgeous-Alexander are both Ontario natives, and Nembhard was Gilgeous-Alexander’s backup at the Olympics for Team Canada this summer, so he knows him well, but that knowledge only helped so much.

“It’s his size, his physicality, his pace, his ability to make shots pretty much anywhere on the court,” Nembhard said. “That makes him a tough guard.”

For the most part, the Pacers did enough to keep up with him and took a big lead early to force him to dig out. The Pacers won the rebounding game 51-45, they turned the ball over a record 11 times while registering 28 assists and they put six scorers in double figures. Forward Pascal Siakam posted 22 points and 10 rebounds, and while center Myles Turner had a rough shooting night, he still finished with 12 points, 11 rebounds and five blocks. They held Thunder players not named Gilgeous-Alexander to 39.7% shooting.

“We won the boards and we had 11 turnovers,” Carlisle said. “Those two numbers come into it and you want to say they’re going to give you a real chance. And they did.”

But they could have used more from their superstar on a night when the Thunder got so much from theirs. Haliburton is still averaging 17.9 points on 48.8% shooting, including 39.2% from 3-point range to go with 9.1 assists per game. was still a bad night to get a quiet night from him.

Part of the reason the Pacers didn’t get more points from Haliburton was the design. The Thunder have the NBA’s best defense in terms of defensive rating, and their 103.5 points allowed per game. matchup with the Magic for the best league figure. They have strong defenders at all positions, but 6-4 wing Luguentz Dort is one of the most physical perimeter defenders in the league, and he had Haliburton tasked for most of the game. an early fast-break layup attempt, but he still ended up playing 34 minutes. There was therefore some wisdom in looking for other opportunities to score.

“A lot of it has to do with matchups,” Carlisle said. “Coming into this game, it was the kind of game where we really knew the best chance for us was to keep the game as casual as possible, keep the pace and movement of the game. When you do that, it’s hard gauging exactly where the ball is going. Ty ended up with just four points and six shots, but they committed Lu Dort to him, and Lu Dort is as good a defender as there is in the league right now.”

In many cases, Haliburton managed to take Dort out of the game and let others work. Each of the Pacers’ other four starters had at least 13 field goal attempts and scored in double figures. Nembhard had 23 points, seven assists and nine rebounds. Mathurin had 18. Point guard TJ McConnell had 13 and forward Jarace Walker had 12 off the bench. Haliburton had eight assists against one turnover and his gravity certainly helped produce more buckets.

That said, there were times when the Pacers could have used some Haliburton aggression. In the first half, he took only two shots. He didn’t score until he hit a floater with 6:50 left in the third quarter. At the 3:42 mark of the fourth quarter, he had another floater fall. However, he missed both of his 3-point attempts and did not attempt a shot after the second floater. In the same stretch, Gilgeous-Alexander scored 11 points and the Pacers went 2 of 7 from the floor with two turnovers.

“Sometimes games get condensed into very short periods of time,” Carlisle said. “They made some great plays and we didn’t make enough.”