INDIANAPOLIS — Indiana Pacers Coach Rick Carlisle sounds like a nature lover at times, when he describes his team as an “ecosystem.” It starts with Tyrese Haliburton, the player whose gestures and quotes this postseason have been canonized by the fan base, who might be the sun that smiles on everyone. Any time there’s a variation in him, when Haliburton swings hot and cold — sometimes from game to game — the rest of the roster feels it, too.
Haliburton decided to shine his light again Wednesday night in the Pacers’ 116-107 win over the Oklahoma City Thunder in Game 3 of the NBA Finals, and this basketball biosphere in Indiana found its beauty everywhere and from just about everyone. Like from T.J. McConnell, producing energy for a ravenous lot of 17,274 consumers who hadn’t celebrated a Pacers home win in the Finals in 25 years. And from Bennedict Mathurin, the new organism planted into this current playoff environment. While Haliburton contributed 22 points, 11 assists and nine rebounds, the role players (Mathurin, who led all scorers with 27 points, and McConnell, with 10 points, five steals and five assists) dictated the night.
The Pacers had trailed for the majority of the previous two games, but when McConnell and Mathurin checked in Wednesday, the game changed in the second quarter. They also helped change the series, giving Indiana a 2-1 lead and a chance to get greedy in Game 4 on Friday back inside Gainbridge Fieldhouse.
“This was a great win. [But] we’ve got to turn the page quickly,” Carlisle said late Wednesday night. “There’s another game in 36 hours.”
Carlisle is not one to linger too long in a win. He’s also not at all loquacious when it comes to sharing his game plan.
“I’m not going to talk about strategy,” he said hours before tip-off for probably the 38th time this postseason.
Maybe Carlisle just didn’t want to state the most obvious strategy: unleash Mathurin and McConnell off the bench and get out of the way.
McConnell disrupted inbounds plays (he had three steals in his first six minutes on the floor), zipped passes to open three-point shooters (Mathurin drilled a pair of threes off his assists) and acted like a madman in firing up the crowd.
“This series features so many special players on both sides. You know, T.J. brings some unique elements to our team, and he brings unique elements to the game in general,” Carlisle said. “We need all of our guys to bring whatever is their thing to our thing and have it be part of our thing, you know. But he’s a guy that inspires a lot of people. He inspires our team a lot.”
When a reporter teed up a question about McConnell after the game, Haliburton couldn’t contain his grin. Just as McConnell seems ready at any moment to step onto the court and cause chaos, Haliburton appeared all too eager to share his punch line.
“I think his energy is unbelievable. You guys know he’s definitely a crowd favorite. I joke with him: I call him the ‘Great White Hope,’” Haliburton said.
For the informal fan, this year’s Finals might feel like a starless exhibition — unless viewers really want to see what that guy from the AT&T commercials does for his day job. But in the heart of basketball country, McConnell (hopefully more because of his skills than his skin color) embodies the kind of player who becomes legend here: undrafted, undersized, son of a coach who shoots every midrange jumper as though his father’s instructions still ring in his head. Pacers teammate Thomas Bryant has shared the story that when he played on a different team, it was McConnell’s name on the top of the scouting report.
“We had a whole shootaround dedicated to T.J. McConnell. Literally,” Bryant said. “Make sure he doesn’t get into the paint. Make sure he doesn’t spray. Make sure he doesn’t get up into us and we throw away an easy pass.”
Besides lurking around the baseline after a made basket and surprising someone who is about to throw a lazy pass, McConnell’s favorite move is to wait until the opponent has called a timeout so he can raise his arms and scream LET’S GO until he is red in the face at the home crowd. Early in the second quarter, McConnell went to his signature pump-up routine even as the Thunder held a slight lead.
“He does a great job of bringing energy in this building. And I think people feed off that. And he had a couple unbelievable steals. I think in a series like this what’s so important is the margins. You have to win in the margins,” Haliburton continued. “It’s not necessarily who can make the most shots or anything. It’s taking care of the ball, rebounding, little things like that. I thought he does a great job of giving us energy plays consistently and getting downhill and operating. I mean, nobody operates on the baseline like that guy. I thought he did a great job of consistently getting there and making hustle play after hustle play, and sticking with it, and I thought we did a great job of just feeding off of what he was doing.”
Mathurin, perhaps the next Great Canadian Hooper, missed all of the Pacers’ playoff run a year ago with a torn labrum in his right shoulder. This year, as the Pacers make clutch-time moments look casual, he has played as the missing variable off the bench. And as the Pacers closed out their ninth “clutch” win of this postseason, Mathurin remained on the floor in the closing seconds.
“I think that the state of Indiana is about basketball, and that’s the first time that I really felt it,” Mathurin said. “As much as this is a dream right now, I’m not trying to live in my dream. I’m trying to, like, live in the present and make sure the dream ends well, which means winning the next game and winning a championship.”
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