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B (22:57)

It's at least Worth mentioning, the statistical performance of Oklahoma City's previous playoff opponents. Denver and Minnesota and Memphis were all in the bottom half of the NBA this year in turnovers per game. These are all high turnover teams. Indiana was third. They're just better at taking care of the ball. So it's very possible that these dynamics that we're talking about are less impactful in this series. But again, it doesn't matter what you do in the regular season. It's more physical, it's more intense. This is a way better defense than anyone Indiana has played to this point. They still need to pass that test. No one gets to hold up no one the NBA.com page and just be like, oh, hey look, we don't get any turnovers in the finals because we didn't turn it over for the first six months of the season. You got to do it in this series, in these stakes, in this physicality. The third breaking point of the series will be what happens if Indiana doesn't turn the ball over. I'd break this down into two categories. It's all play, finishing one on one scoring and contested catch and shoot shooting. And this will depend on what coverages Oklahoma City uses throughout the series. We're going to see a lot of everything. We saw both teams run zone against each other in the regular season. We saw traditional coverages, we saw switching. I think Oklahoma City will start aggressive and in traditional coverages up at the level. In those situations, if Indiana cannot turn the ball over and pass the ball through the defense, it will be on everyone to knock down contested catch and shoot jumpers. This Thunder team is extremely fast and they are excellent with their closeouts. They will use their speed to make you uncomfortable, so guys are going to have to hit shots anyway under that sort of defensive pressure. And then if Indiana can pass and shoot Oklahoma City out of their baseline coverage and Oklahoma City starts switching and starts staying home off ball. In that case, it will be on guys like Halliburton and Siakam and to a lesser extent, Miles Turner, Ben Matheran, Andrew Nemhardt, T.J. mcConnell. For those guys to either beat their man off the dribble and draw help or just score the basketball one on one. If Indiana can survive the main breaking points of the series, again getting the ball across half court, not fucking up their post entries and knocking down catch and shoot shots when they're open, it will degenerate down into a one on one contest and everything will come down to those guys and their ability to score there. Siakam is going to be the huge key here. We're going to talk about it in our prediction, but any chance Indiana has to win the series I think depends on Pascal Siakam being Finals mvp. A lot of four or five ball screens to try to get him switched on. Specifically Chet. I like him on Hartenstein as well. But getting into these situations where he has a chance to attack a big in space away from the rim or a small close to the rim, those are his major advantages. And then with Tyrese Halliburton in the second game in particular, he was actually able to hit quite a few threes and that unlocked some more of his dribble drive game. Everything's going to be about him hitting enough of those threes to where he can actually get dribble penetration. A lot of the usual damage that Indiana's offense does will be substantially less effective in the series. The relentless transition pushes those kick aheads. We just showed a whole video in playback on Saturday night of how they killed the Knicks with that kind of stuff. Oklahoma City was the second best transition defense in the NBA in the regular season per cleaning the glasses transition catch all metric. They're super athletic playing in that plane of existence and they just have such good floor balance. They're always ready to get back all of that whirling half court action that Indiana runs. The Thunder will botch switches, they'll miss rotations, but far less often than other teams. And their speed closes gaps way quicker than other teams. They won't get as many of the easy runouts that they get from their ball pressure turnovers that flow into those transition sequences. Why? Because Oklahoma City is literally the best team in the league at taking care of the basketball. Indiana will have to rely on individual greatness more in this matchup than they have in any other series to this point, and I would argue that's far from the strength of this particular basketball team. Last thing I want to talk about before we get to Oklahoma City on offense is Tyrese Halliburton and what happens when he goes passive. We talked about it earlier, but his usage rate in this series is about half what it was against other matchups in the regular season. We watched in the crunch time video on playback, but it's a consistent theme throughout both of these games. He just isn't very aggressive and there's a lot of him standing around off the ball and in those situations he just has to find a way to stay more involved in the offense. He had a layup in crunch time of the of the game that they almost won the one where they were up 107, 103. The shot that he hit to put them up 107, 103 with like, it was like three minutes left before Oklahoma City walked him down. Came out of a stack, pick and roll where he was the screener that was starting underneath the basket. So it was Nemhard up top. And I'm pretty sure Turner was the one setting the screen. And as Turner set the screen and as Nemhard came off, Tyrese Halliburton back screen for the roll man, and then relocated out to the left wing. And in the process, he generated himself a closeout opportunity. In that closeout opportunity, he was able to beat his man off the dribble and make a little floater that crawled over the front of the rim and that put the Pacers up by four. That dynamic in not just in three man action, but even in two man game, keeping himself involved as a screener is going to be key because when he sets screens, he forces his man to actually react. And if he doesn't, then you have a different kind of opening that occurs. Pascal Siakam hit a pull up three. I've watched so much film this morning that I can't even remember which game it was in. But one of the games, Tyrese Halliburton goes and he's getting kind of hugged by Lou Dort. And when he goes and sets a screen for Pascal Siakam, Lou Dort just stays hugged up on Halliburton. And so as Siakam comes off of the ball screen, all of a sudden he's wide open because Halliburton set the screen and his man didn't want to help. And so he rose up into a wide open dribble, off the dribble three at the top of the key, and he knocked it down. So again, when Halliburton is being played out of the game by ball pressure, which that's a whole other separate thing that he needs to not allow that to happen. But let's say he loses his confidence dribbling in this matchup. He's got to stay involved as a screener. He cannot allow himself to become a spectator in this matchup. All right, let's move on to Oklahoma City on offense. Matchups once again are going to depend on the lineup that Oklahoma City starts with. If they start Hartenstein, we'll see Turner on Hartenstein, Siakam on Chet, Halliburton on Lou Dort. Indy, interestingly, likes Nemhard on Shea more than Niecemith. I've been super excited to see Neesmith get reps on Shea and we will inevitably see that because obviously they're going to try different looks over the series, but not a ton of examples of it in the regular season. A lot of nem hard on sga. We'll see how that works out. They match athleticism with Neesmith going on J Dub as his primary matchup. If if the Thunderstar ched at the five. I think we'll see Turner on Chet. I think we'll see Siakam on Dort. That's based on their second matchup this season. Halliburton on Caruso as like kind of like guarding that like pick and pop guy that ended up being Kason Wallace in the regular season. A lot of damage done to the Pacers defense using Halliburton and screens and having Kayson Wallace just slip out and he got a big dunk in a, in a important sequence during the regular season out of that type of play. But Caruso obviously, as we know, can do similar things out of that spot. So regardless of whether it's Caruso or Kason Wallace or whoever it is that they decide to decide to start, it'll be a guard that I expect the Thunder to attack Halliburton and hedges with. And again with those Hedges. A lot of teams try to take ghost screen threes out of Hedges, meaning slipping out towards the three point line. One of the things that the Thunder did in this matchup, which I found really fascinating, is they attacked Halliburton's hedges with cuts like rolls. And the fascinating thing there is like Halliburton has a relatively easy, easy method for defending ghost screens where like when the guy slips out of the screen, he gets super high with his hands as he gets out of the hedge and that forces like an over the top pass that is way more difficult for the guy to get a nice clean catch and shoot, look out of. These guys are just slipping right to the basket and Shea's just, you know, throwing a little quick bounce pass into the gap or a little floating pass over the end of the gap. And Halliburton doesn't really have a chance to rotate there because he's already going downhill towards the rim. So something to keep an eye on there. And then again the same matchups outside of that Nemhard on SGA and Neesmith on J Dub. But as we mentioned with Oklahoma City, with all the cross matches and stuff that's going to occur and just with the depth of perimeter Guard, defensive talent. You're going to see all sorts of different sorts of matchups in this series. Now, Indiana also brings a great deal of full court ball pressure. As we know, the trick here for Indiana is to not lose control of the ball in those situations. We saw this a lot in Minnesota, where ball pressure can actually backfire if Shea ends up just getting downhill. Shea attacks ball pressure by making a quick move, getting you pinned on his side, and then just using it as the initial attack of the possession and getting into the teeth of the defense. He's not trying to survive ball pressure, he's trying to punish ball pressure. As a team in this regular season, we've also seen Oklahoma City attack Indiana's ball pressure with extended ball screens, sometimes out as far as half court, where they're basically run a pick and roll with Hartenstein screening, because again, Chet didn't play in the regular season. But we'll see Hartenstein run out and set a screen for Shea way out at half court, which then just creates this massive Runway for both players. Shay's now rolling are driving really hard down one side. And here comes Hart and Stein rolling really hard down the other side. They've had a lot of success with ball screen attack in this matchup. Shea straight line drives are literally death. They end up in so many layups and so many foul calls. Indy has to find a way to contain the ball. And one of the biggest kind of like, subplots of this series will be if either team can break the other team of their primary defensive aggression game plan just by not turning the ball over, getting the ball into the teeth of their defense, and making the appropriate passes and knocking down shots. If you can break either team's base scheme, that's where things can get pretty interesting. Now in ball screens, Indiana is generally loading up. They're at the level most of the time to try to stop the guard from getting downhill. That doesn't work as much when the ball screens are extended out at half court, but when they can get the ball screens in more of a traditional spot, closer to the rim, they can come up to the level. And as long as the guard doesn't reject the screen, they can contain the ball there. But what is that? What happens when you end up bringing your big up to the level? That's when you start letting the roll man get behind. And even though Hartenstein struggled on defense in this matchup, he did get several lob dunks in ball screens because Turner was up at the level. We talked a little bit about this earlier in the show. Even if Hartenstein is played off the floor, Chet brings that same conundrum to the table, albeit he's not as good of a screener. Hartenstein's a better screener out on the perimeter, getting those initial bits of separation. But watch out for Chet as a role man in the series. He can pop. He certainly can. I think that would be more useful his shooting ability in those like spacing situations when other players are involved. I think vertical spacing is going to be a key in this series with the way that Indiana's guarding in ball screens and so Chat's ability to roll and finish will be big. Now the Pacers will pinch from the weak side, nail help, low man help to try to shrink the floor. As has been the case for Oklahoma City all season, it will come down to them passing the ball effectively through that aggression and role players knocking down threes in their two regular season matchups. Tell me if you can see the difference. In the December game, Oklahoma City got 0.86 points per catch and shoot jumper. They got just 0.91 points per play when they passed out of pick and roll and they managed just a 107 half court offensive rating. That was the game that Indiana held a late lead and almost won. In the late March game, Oklahoma City got 1.36 points per catch and shoot jumper. They scored 1.38 points per play when they passed out of pick and roll and they had a 114 offensive rating in the half court. That was the game they blew the Pacers out. So once again it's the same dynamic that has existed throughout this postseason run. When you look back through the other losses that Oklahoma City has had in this postseason, all four of them, the Thunder dropped below a 90 offensive rating in the half court. They are rickety on that end of the floor compared to their defense. And Indiana does in theory have the personnel better equipped to keep the ball in front, rotate out to shooters and do all that sort of stuff, right? So they that if Indiana wins games in the series, that's what it'll look like. Loading up on the ball, Oklahoma City missing shots, them not having a successful half court offense game, it being close late, Indiana having a chance. Shea absolutely torched these guys in the regular season. 39 points per game, 7 rebounds and 8 assists, 56% from the field, 64% from 312 free throw attempts per game. He just absolutely fried them. The main catch and shoot guys that burned them, Lou Dort and Isaiah Joe, Those guys hit 15 threes in the two games. Now what's interesting there is those are two guys that have been way less effective as shooters in this postseason. Isaiah Joe's role has been marginalized a little bit. Lou Dord is still taking a lot of threes. He's actually leading the team and made threes per game in this postseason, but he's doing it at a clip that's like barely over 30%, right? So like those were the two guys that burned him in the regular season. Lou Dord, it's actually funny you go back and watch him in the regular season. He was just so much more aggressive and confident as a catch and shoot guy than he looks in this particular postseason. A little more hesitant to take contested threes in this postseason and obviously just shooting them at a lower percentage. Something to keep an eye on. The trick for Indiana is going to be finding a coverage that doesn't require them to leave shooters open because as mentioned, there have been games where Oklahoma City's offense has cracked. But here they are, they're 124 in this postseason and their offenses looked pretty fucking great outside of that. And in big moments like game four in Minnesota, Minnesota alters their game plan, starts loading up in the paint, forcing them to knock down, catch and shoot jumpers. What did they do? They made them. All right. So can Indy find a coverage that doesn't require them to leave shooters open when Shay so let's say they switch. Well, Shea and J Dub torched bigs on switches in this matchup in the regular season. Even Siakam Shave was going right by Siakam whenever he wanted to. So I'm not sure switching necessarily covers the bases. And then we talked earlier about how they lost control of the roll man when they defended ball screens two on two. They could try running a deeper drop. But now you're running a drop against sga, who's one of the more gifted mid range shot makers in the league. So I don't really see a combination for Indiana that could hold up in one on one situations or two on two situations. So honestly, it feels to me like Indiana's only chance on defense is to basically load up and hope guys miss shots. And that's where you cross your fingers and say, it's the NBA Finals, it's June. These guys are young. Chet and J Dub again, two co stars that have become demonstrably more comfortable for Oklahoma City as the playoff run has progressed. Totally different vibe. Totally different vibe in the Finals. Everything is so different. The media presence, just the pomp and circumstances Pomp and circumstance, the pressure, everything is just tougher in this setting. And so like that, that really is the pathway. I view this as an extremely poor matchup for the Indiana Pacers. We've talked so much about how good the Pacers and Thunder are at capitalizing on the low hanging fruit in basketball. If you guys remember, we spent a lot of time talking about that over the last couple weeks through ball pressure, playing with pace and transition. Just like taking advantage of simple advantages and extending advantages and finishing plays. These teams are two of the most well coached teams in the league that play, that play modern basketball in a way that maximizes your talent. But neither of these teams are very susceptible to that sort of thing because of how sharp they are. So this series has a high probability of coming down to athletic superiority in superstar play. And I think the Thunder are the more athletic team and I think Shay Gilricis Alexander is far and away the best player in the series. I think we'll see Indiana's offense break in many different ways. I think we'll see games where Tyrese Halliburton is a complete non factor. I think we'll see games where they can't get the ball into the post. I think we'll see games where they can't hit a jumper to save their lives. We could see each of those things in different losses in this series. I'm picking Oklahoma City in five. I'm guessing the home crowd in Indiana and that game plan of sacking, sagging in and packing the paint and forcing guys to knock down shots will lead to a relatively comfortable win for Indiana in game three. I'll say by around 10, 15 points. But I think Oklahoma City wins games one, two, four and five all in pretty comfortable fashion, probably with a blowout or two mixed in there. Indiana does have a path. It starts and ends with their defense. If they can successfully load up on Shay and J Dub and force the game to be played through Oklahoma City's young players off ball. And if they can be sharp enough with their closeouts to make them uncomfortable, which again is the key if you let it doesn't matter if it's the NBA Finals. If you let dudes just take open threes all series, they will eventually get comfortable. But if you can press them just enough to make them uncomfortable, there will be games where Oklahoma City misses. From there, all roads lead back to Siakam. I think he has to be Finals MVP for Indiana to win. He's going to have more favorable matchups than Halliburton. He's going to be the most reliable option that Indiana has when Oklahoma City starts switching everything and his ability to quickly score and manage double teams because again, Oklahoma City will swarm him. That will be the key to their ability to score in the half court. When things slow down, guys got to hit, catch and shoot shots. When Oklahoma City loads up, I think they need to dominate the offensive glass as well. This is a team in the regular season. Oklahoma City did not do too poorly on the offensive glass against Indiana. I think Indiana rebounded 28% of their own misses, but Oklahoma City is allowing an offensive rebound on 33% of opponents misses in this playoff run. Indiana can do some damage there, but to be clear, I just don't see that as a super realistic path. I think this is every bit as lopsided a series as Denver versus Miami in 2023. The talent gap isn't necessarily as wide, but I think the matchup is just particularly brutal for the Pacers. So again, it's going to be a showcase for some young talent in the NBA. Should be a fun series for all of us basketball nerds out there, but I just think Oklahoma City has everything they need to dismantle this Indiana team and I expect them to do so relatively quickly. All right guys, that's all I have for today. As always, I sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting the show. Tomorrow we have Sam Versini coming on the show to do a deeper dive into the Finals. Then on Wednesday, we're doing a video on just some of the major storylines in this particular series. That's our coverage before we load up into Thursday night live on YouTube after the final buzzer of game one. I will see you guys then. 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A (43:51)

It'S Ryan Seacrest for Albertsons and safeway. Now through June 24th, score hot summer savings and earn four times the points. Look for in store tags on items like Starbucks ground coffee, Red Bull energy drinks, Spam Classic Planet Oat Milk, Charmin bath tissue, Totino's Pizza, Rol and Frito Lay chips. Then clip the offer in the app for automatic event Long savings Shop in store or online for easy drive up and go pick up or delivery subject to availability restrictions apply. Visit Albertsons or Safeway.com for more details. Traveling is one of life's greatest joys. Honestly, can anything be more exhilarating? Well, actually, yeah. With Chase Sapphire Reserve, it's your gateway to the world's most captivating destinations. First, you'll earn three times points for travel and dining and the card gets you into the Sapphire Lounge by the club at select airports nationwide and access to one of a kind experiences whether you're booking a once in a lifetime trip or your next weekend escape. Discover more with Chase sapphire reserve@chase.com Sapphire Reserve cards issued by JP Morgan Chase Bank NA member FDIC subject to credit approval terms apply. We finally switched to T Mobile because with them we can be connected here and there. Dad, the cousins in Mexico have a surprise for you. Please stop and enjoy the gift of staying connected. Switch and start saving today. Get four Samsung Galaxy S25 phones with Galaxy AI on us and four lines for just 25 bucks per line plus non stop talk, text and data between us and Mexico. Visit a store t mobile.com or call 1-800-t-mobile 1-800-t-MOBILE. See details@t mobile.com this is an iHeart podcast.