On the Pacers bringing their best against the league's best

In what was a Finals rematch, on how Bennedict Mathurin and Pascal Siakam both erased and embraced familiar aspects of Game 4 that were arguably more familiar to the Thunder

By: Caitlin Cooper I @C2_Cooper

It wasn't Game 8 of the NBA Finals. Tyrese Haliburton wasn't playing for the Pacers, Jalen Williams wasn't playing for the Thunder, and neither were a few other key contributors on both sides. And yet, while all of the faces in play may not have been quite as familiar (i.e. rookie Taelon Peter was one of the first subs off the bench and also ended up playing meaningful minutes in double-overtime), the overarching plot of being disappointed in the outcome but proud of the effort while battling against significant adversity surely was. In June, Haliburton ruptured his Achilles in the first half of Game 7. By the second half of the regular-season opener, all three of the point guards from last season's rotation watched the game from the sidelines, as Andrew Nembhard (shoulder) joined a mounting injury list that already included T.J. McConnell (hamstring), who's been ruled out until at least the first week of November.

Similar to the series that ended four months ago, the Pacers ultimately came up just short (again), despite staying in the hunt longer than expected (again), falling 141-135 in double-overtime. The similarities didn't stop with that broader narrative, either. There were also plenty of comparisons to be found in the finer details, not only with regard to the Pacers in reference to themselves, but also in relation to the Thunder.

Just think back to the end of Game 4. Rather than searching for the weakest link on defense, the Thunder took a chance on playing best versus best, repeatedly involving their two stars, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Jalen Williams, in high, two-man screening actions, even if it meant tangling with Nembhard and Nesmith as the two strongest perimeter players for the Pacers. Turns out, the tangling ultimately worked to their benefit. With the Pacers switching instead of going with a hedge-and-recover to keep Nembhard on Gilgeous-Alexander, Nesmith picked up his sixth foul with 44 seconds left to play.

His replacement in the closing lineup was Bennedict Mathurin, who somehow went on to miss three free throws while also committing two away from the play fouls in less than a minute of action as the Thunder surged late to even the series, 2-2. Four months later, however, Mathurin was indispensable, executing a similar strategy to that of the Thunder, even as he also finished the game in a similar manner to Nesmith, fouling out against Gilgeous-Alexander with 4:11 to play in double overtime.

As predicted prior to the start of the season, the Pacers relied heavily on screening with and for Siakam with a guard spaced in the dunker spot to open wider gaps on the perimeter to attack into during closing time. As definitely wasn't predicted prior to the start of the season, though, was that the closing lineup would include Ben Sheppard, Jarace Walker, and Obi Toppin along with Siakam and Mathurin. For frame of reference, that five-man grouping never logged a minute of action in 105 games last season, let alone during crunch-time against the reigning champs. After all, Walker wasn't even available against the Thunder in the Finals. He got the nod to provide more length with Toppin finishing the game at the five, and Sheppard entered when Nesmith fouled out, yet again, with over six minutes to play.

As such, without a traditional point guard nor a traditional center on the floor, the Pacers took a page from OKC and opted to play best versus best, flattening out the defense with Mathurin and Siakam screening for each other, even if it meant tangling with Lu Dort and Chet Holmgren as the two top defenders available for the Thunder.

With Mathurin playing like an all-terrain vehicle, revving up, over, and around any and all lumps and frequent bumps in his route to the basket, he amassed a team-high nine of his 36 points, earning seven of his 17 free throws, during the final five minutes of regulation and overtime. Over and over again, Siakam screened for Mathurin and Mathurin screened for Siakam, including on Siakam's game-tying bucket at the end of regulation, as he powered the team forward by gracefully extending himself backward.

In that way, even when there was motion that preceded the two-man action between Mathurin and Siakam, the Pacers still stuck with sticking to their spots, lining up along the baseline with Sheppard in the dunker. Eventually, as can be seen above, OKC started searching for spots to off-ball switch Hartenstein onto Sheppard in order to maintain length at the basket. Naturally, as the Pacers became more reliant on jump-shots, not every shot went down. Siakam misfired from the elbow against Dort, and Mathurin came up empty rising up from deep against Holmgren.

Meanwhile, the downside to playing best versus best was that, in contrast to Mathurin at the other end of the floor, OKC's best scorer, Gilgeous-Alexander, spent several possessions doing not much of anything on defense, even as he was doing basically everything on offense, amassing 55 points for the game, including 26 free throw attempts. That changed during overtime. With the Pacers trailing by two with 20 seconds to play, Siakam made a quick exit for the corner so that Toppin could screen SGA into the action for Mathurin.

The result was another big, game-tying shot, as Mathurin stepped around SGA for a creative finish with a second thrust to force a second overtime. In contrast to what unfolded at the end of Game 4 when Mathurin was pressed into action after Nesmith picked up his sixth foul, the Pacers were pressed to carry on without him, as they were outscored 17-9, after he fouled out grazing SGA's path with less than a minute to play. Given his importance to the offense, it's probably fair to ask whether someone else should've been guarding SGA once Mathurin had five fouls. For the game, whereas Mathurin defended SGA for a team-high 36 half-court match-ups, resulting in 50 player points per 100 match-ups, SGA only defended Mathurin for a total of nine and never found himself opposite from Siakam during crunch-time.

Additionally, after doubling on 24.0 percent of SGA's touches during the Finals, with Game 6 marking a series-high at 33.3 percent, when the Pacers made the surprise adjustment to dial back their full-court pressure in exchange for timely doubles in the half-court, Indiana only sent extra bodies on 19.8 percent of his touches in the regular-season opener. That said, there were certainly some possessions where they at least gave a second thought to doubling more frequently, as Siakam can be seen here motioning for Sheppard to clamp down on the post-up before Walker ended up falling into SGA after falling for the shot-fake.

Then again, once the team ended up closing with second-round pick Taelon Peter in place of Mathurin (and later, Johnny Furphy in place of Sheppard) they also got burned for doing exactly that, as Sheppard strayed too far from the perimeter without anyone to help him as the helper while Siakam was occupied controlling traffic for yet another lineup that never played together last season, let alone during overtime against the reigning champs.

In that way, with multiple players fouling out and/or biting on pump fakes, the Pacers provided plenty to chew on, not only with regard to doubling or not doubling but also as it pertains to the prior point on guarding SGA by forcing him to guard. On a night when they were down by multiple bodies, there was a case to be made for giving it their best by playing best versus best while also attempting to stick their match-ups, even if it meant that the ball stuck a little bit more. After all, McConnell wasn't available to turn the court into a whirlpool while maintaining his dribble against OKC's swarming help coverages, and Nembhard also wasn't available in the second half to process the floor on defense or handle any of the handling.

As a result, the Pacers finished with 39 isolation possessions, marking the most of any game in the Haliburton-era, including the playoffs. Granted, this game included two extra periods, which means there was extra time to isolate, but they also recorded 75.6 isolations per 48 minutes, which also marked the highest frequency in the Haliburton-era -- notably in the absence of Haliburton. Not all of that was Mathurin and Siakam, who combined for 26 of the 39 isolations. Despite going 2-of-9 from the field for the game, Nesmith made a tough, turnaround fadeaway at the end of the clock against Isaiah Hartenstein. Obi Toppin twisted and twirled into a pull-up two against Jaylin Williams, and Jarace Walker also got a few, timely shots to go down when pressed into creating from the middle of the floor, although he unfortunately lost the ball out of bounds on a potential opportunity to attack baseline out of a double-team against Pascal Siakam, after the lanky forward had run out of avenues to score.

And yet, for a team that ranked 29th in turnover rate during preseason, the Pacers only committed 14 turnovers in 58 minutes against last season's most effective team at forcing turnovers, who leveraged the Pacers into a turnover rate of 18.4 percent during the Finals, compared to 13.2 percent over the prior three rounds of the playoffs. In fact, the Pacers posted a turnover rate of just 11.2 percent in the regular-season opener, which would've been their second-lowest rate in the Finals. Granted, the Thunder were without some of their peskiest defenders, but the Pacers were also without Tyrese Haliburton as the immaculate exception when it comes to keeping the ball safe without playing it safe.

And maybe, that was the key. Don't get it twisted, they definitely weren't better without Haliburton. But, without Haliburton, or any starting-caliber point guard for that matter, they isolated more and moved the ball less, at least relative to themselves per 100 possessions in the Finals (there were still a lot of passes by comparison to league-average!), which meant there were fewer opportunities for the Thunder to take the ball in flight. In essence, in holding on for more one-on-one opportunities without completely stalling out the offense, the Pacers found a way to hold on against a familiar opponent, albeit with a formula that was more familiar to their opponent than themselves.

For the game, Siakam outperformed his expected effective field-goal percentage by 12.3 percent, and Mathurin also nudged above his by 5.5 percent. Notably, Siakam's shot quality was 41.7 percent -- which would've been his second-lowest mark in any game last season. He and Mathurin were both spectacular in making the most out of what they had with who they were playing with, as the latter certainly provided quite the juxtaposition in the way in which he left everyone wanting more when he fouled out of the regular-season opener by comparison to what happened after he entered when Nesmith fouled out in Game 4.

Overall, the Pacers didn't exactly play like the Pacers with regard to form and function in what was another Pacers-Thunder classic, and there should probably be some reason to question the sustainability of what forms they were forced to take on in the absence of Haliburton, Nembhard, and McConnell. Even so, the spirit of continuing to fight by whatever means necessary is no doubt emblematic of this match-up as well as what this team, as problem-solvers, has come to be known for at their core, perhaps providing a glimmer of how, like in this game, they can still potentially manage to hold on longer than expected while continuing to play to their best with whatever version of their best remains.