INDIANAPOLIS — For Indiana Pacers guard Tyrese Haliburton, one good leg was more than enough to deny the Oklahoma City Thunder its first chance to win the NBA championship.
Haliburton gutted through a right calf strain that limited his mobility and pop to spark Indiana’s 108-91 Game 6 victory over Oklahoma City at Gainbridge Fieldhouse on Thursday night, pushing the NBA Finals to Game 7 for the first time since 2016. The Thunder will host the winner-take-all series finale Sunday night.
After suffering the leg injury in a poor Game 5 showing in which he scored just four points and missed all six of his shot attempts, Haliburton started tentatively with the Pacers’ season hanging in the balance. The two-time All-Star wasn’t alone: Indiana missed its first eight shots and quickly fell into a 10-2 hole.
But the Pacers pulled themselves together during an early timeout and erased the Thunder’s advantage in a matter of minutes. Haliburton, who finished with 14 points and five assists in 23 minutes, then proceeded to blow open the game in the second quarter with a series of highlights to help Indiana build an insurmountable 64-42 halftime lead.
After nabbing a steal and finding Aaron Nesmith for a corner three-pointer, Haliburton drilled a three-pointer of his own and dropped in a left-handed runner in the paint. With Oklahoma City seeking to pull back within striking distance shortly before halftime, Haliburton grabbed another steal and dished a no-look pass to Pascal Siakam for a transition dunk.
Siakam, who posted 16 points and 13 rebounds, capped Indiana’s 36-17 second-quarter blitz by draining a turnaround jumper at the halftime buzzer to send the Thunder to the locker room looking for answers.
Oklahoma City never found any and instead learned a simple lesson in excruciating fashion: No points, no title. Thunder stars Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Jalen Williams combined for 31 points in the first half, but their teammates managed just 11 points on 5-of-18 shooting. That offensive imbalance was made worse by an uncharacteristically sloppy night for Gilgeous-Alexander, who committed five first-half turnovers while struggling to read the Pacers’ defensive schemes.
The Thunder couldn’t muster a single point in the first five minutes of the third quarter, robbing the proceedings of any late-game drama. Gilgeous-Alexander finished with 21 points and Williams added 16 points, but it wasn’t enough to overcome Oklahoma City’s 8-of-30 three-point shooting and 21 turnovers. Thunder Coach Mark Daigneault sat his starters for the entire fourth quarter as the Pacers’ lead ballooned to 31 points, allowing Haliburton to rest for the game’s final 17 minutes.
Haliburton’s heroic showing came after several days of uncertainty about his availability. Pacers Coach Rick Carlisle was noncommittal at Wednesday’s practice when asked about Haliburton, while Haliburton suggested that his injury might sideline him for weeks if it had occurred during the regular season and that his comprehensive treatment included “massage, needles, a hyperbaric [chamber] … and the right tape.”
Some media commentators even suggested that Haliburton should sit out Game 6 to prevent the risk of a more serious injury, noting that then-Golden State Warriors star Kevin Durant had suffered a torn Achilles tendon in Game 5 of the 2019 NBA Finals, his first game back after missing nine games with a calf strain. The Indiana crowd sat anxiously through the opening minutes, seemingly worried that the Pacers’ exhilarating playoff run was going to sputter out because of the unfortunate timing of Haliburton’s injury.
“I have to be as smart as I want to be,” Haliburton said Wednesday. “I have to understand the risks, ask the right questions. I have a lot of trust in our medical staff. I have a lot of trust in our organization to make the right decision. I think there’s been many situations through the course of my career where they’ve trusted me on my body. They trust me to make the right decision on my body when the power is in my hands.”
Haliburton pledged that he would play if he could walk, and Carlisle finally provided official confirmation during his pregame news conference Thursday that his franchise guard would play without a specific minutes restriction.
“He was strength-tested at 5 p.m. and did very well,” Carlisle said. “He went through walk-through. We will watch and monitor things very closely from the beginning of the game through the entirety of the game.”
The Thunder has no choice but to lick its wounds and return to Paycom Center, where it went a league-best 39-6 during the regular season and has posted a 10-2 record in the postseason. Oklahoma City’s two home losses during the playoffs both came in the closing seconds, with one coming courtesy of a Haliburton game-winning jumper in Game 1 of the Finals.
Despite its unnerving no-show in Game 6, the Thunder is 18-2 after a loss, including 6-0 during the playoffs. One of those six victories came in Game 7 of the Western Conference semifinals against the Denver Nuggets, and two others came against the Pacers in Game 2 and Game 4 of the Finals.
Sunday’s stakes are clear as day: The heavily-favored Thunder must conjure another bounce-back victory to claim its first championship, or the Pacers will cap their never-say-die postseason run with one last unexpected hurrah.
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