The Indiana Pacers, abused the whole meeting, overthrow the Oklahoma City Thunder Thursday on a Tyrese Haliburton shot at the last second and lead 1-0 in the NBA final.
Finally, the storm was you. After seeing their plane diverted Tuesday evening, Then a deluge falling on the city on Wednesday afternoon, the Pacers took the storm for a long time in the hell of the Paycc Center, finally reduced to silence by Tyrese Haliburton.
The Pacers’ leader, who had similarly extinguished the Madison Square Garden in New York in match 1 From the East Conference final, continues to forge a reputation for super-films in the warmest rooms of the NBA.
Specialists in situation reversals and improbable ends, the Pacers won this first meeting in a series at the best of the seven matches having been in the lead for a total of three tenths of a second, the last three.
The Thunder, which still led 15 points to 9 minutes from the siren, seemed to have taken a perfect start in the wake of its stifling defense, which forced pacers also a little balourd with 24 losses of the ball, including 19 before the break.
Above all, the MVP of the regular season Shai Gilgeous-Alexander seemed on a cloud, he who compiled 38 points, 5 rebounds and 3 passes, and had marked the first basket of a match which was to be his. But “SGA” missed, as it rarely happens to him, a shot in halfway which could have given 3 points to the Thunder in 11 seconds from the siren.
– «have ‘ –
Tyrese Haliburton did not miss this golden opportunity.
“We just had to hold on. Our first period was hard with 19 lost bullets, fortunately we were only 9 points behind “at the break, commented the coach of the Pacers Rick Carlisle at a press conference.
“We lived a lot of these kinds of matches. The guys know what to do to give themselves a chance. We had a little success. »»
This unprecedented final will offer a first NBA title to one of the two franchises, even if the ancestors of the Thunder, the Seattle Supersonics, had been crowned in 1979.
The Pacers thus took control before match 2 Sunday, still in Oklahoma, where the Thunder settled in 2008, bringing together a faithful audience around a jewel that little had seen coming, Gilgeous-Alexander.
Collective prayer
But the dragster supports of the Canadian leader, helped by Jalen Williams (17 points) and Luguentz Dort (15 points, all from afar), were not enough Thursday, several teammates not showing up in attack as Chet Holmgren (6 points).
Despite the pre-match pre-match prayer at the stadium microphone, punctuated by a collective “amen”, despite the backlight of the 18,200 Titanium spectators of David Guetta and Sia in the 4th quarter, the Pacers ended up returning thanks to their address from afar (18 out of 39 to 46.2 %).
Pascal Siakam (19 points, 10 rebounds), already a champion with Toronto in 2019, also held the shock, before shooting from Obi Toppin (17 points), Myles Turner (15 points) and Andrew Nembhard (14 points) do not bring Indiana closer before Haliburton’s last shot (14 points, 10 rebounds, 6 passes).
