← The Herd with Colin Cowherd
The Herd with Colin Cowherd
Hoops Tonight - Thunder-Pacers Finals Prediction: SGA & OKC defense will OVERWHELM Tyrese Haliburton & Pascal Siakam
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That's code hoops for new customers to get $300 in bonus bets. If your bet wins when you bet five bucks only on DraftKings, the crown is yours. Gambling Problem Call 1-800-Gambler in New York, call 877-8-Hopeny or text HOPE NY to 467-369 in Connecticut. Help is available for problem gambling. Call 888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org Please play responsibly on behalf of Boothill Casino and Resort in Kansas. 21 plus. Age and eligibility varies by jurisdiction. Void in Ontario. Bet must win to receive reward. Minimum minus 500 odds. Required bonus bets expire 168 hours after issuance. For additional terms and responsible gaming resources, see DKNG co Audio. All right, welcome to Hoops Tonight here at the Volume. Happy Monday everybody. Hope all of you guys are having a great start to your week. Well, we've made it to the NBA Finals and today we're going to start with our very basketball centric exit, an Ocentric Series preview. We're going to do the same format we've been using for all our series. We'll talk about the season series and the regular season off the top. Then we'll talk about our gambling odds presented by DraftKings. We'll look at Indiana on offense. We'll look at Oklahoma City on offense. And then I will get to my prediction. You guys know the drill before we get started. Subscribe to the Hoops Tonight YouTube channel so you don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at_jason lt so you guys don't miss show announcements. Don't forget about our podcast feed wherever you get your podcast under Hoops Tonight. It's also super helpful if you leave a rating and a review on that front. Jackson's doing great work on our social media feeds on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and TikTok. Make sure you guys follow us there. And then last but not least, keep dropping mailbag questions in our chats after our shows so we can get to our mailbags throughout the remainder of the series. All right, let's talk some basketball. So the Thunder won the season series 2 0. The first game was back on December 26th. It was in Indiana. Indiana actually held a four point lead with a couple of minutes left. The those of you guys who hang out with us on playback, we actually rewatched the entire crunch time sequence of this particular game and the Thunder just walked him down. J Dub had a couple really nice attacks at a ball screens. One where he got a nifty kind of like up and under layup, another one where he drew a foul. Shea had a kind of a guard guard screen with Kayson Wallace. That's a big way that they looked to attack Tyrese Halliburton when he was hiding on guards was just kind of having guards slip out of screenshots. When Halliburton hedges they hit case on Wallace for another opportunity. He drew a foul and then Shay Gilders Alexander hit this ridiculous hesitation pull up three off the top of the key while coinciding with a bunch of Oklahoma City stops on the other end of the floor. And they just walked the Pacers down and got a big win in Indiana. Their second matchup was much more recently on March 29th down in Oklahoma City and the Thunder just blew them out. Pacers jumped out to a little bit of an early lead. There's an interesting trend in this matchup where when Isaiah Hartenstein's on the floor, the the Thunder just look a little bit slow and the Pacers are able to kind of get into the flow of their offense and cause some problems. But at the start of those those games we'd see that bear out. Then they'd go a lot more small. Chet didn't play in either game. So we'd see very different versions of the Thunder later in games where they just kind of match speed for speed and they were able to cause more problems for the Pacers. Now it's worth mentioning the Pacers went out to big leads in each game. They jumped out 22 to 7 in the December game and they jumped up 19 to 9 in the March game. But again that kind of falls into that Hartenstein stuff. Very interesting on off splits with Isaiah Hartenstein in the regular season versus when he was off the floor. And as is always the case with the regular season, key players missed games for both teams, right? Like Aaron Neesmith and Ben Matheran each missed a game, Aaron Wiggins and Alex Caruso each missed a game, and then Chet Holmgren missed both games. And I think that's going to be the interesting one because while Hartenstein caused problems on the defensive end for the Thunder, he also caused problems for the Pacers when the Thunder were on offense with his vertical spacing and ball screens as they used a lot of at the level coverages and let the roller get behind. So Chet is theoretically the solution to both of those problems. A faster, more defensively versatile big that won't give you the issues that Hartenstein gives you on that end of the floor, but a legitimate vertical spacer who also can pick and pop and that causes all sorts of problems. So obviously Chet missing both games is a huge deal and it didn't matter as the Thunder went two and O Our gambling odds Again, all of our odds are presented by our partner DraftKings. Oklahoma City is right now -700 on DraftKings to win the title feels about right to me. I would be absolutely stunned if Indiana found a way to win this series. We're going to go through the specific pathway that exists for them to try to, you know, toe that line and somehow find a way to win this series. But I have a really hard time seeing it and I think it's a particularly tough personnel matchup for them, even above and beyond any talent differential that exists within this series. So to me, Oklahoma city being around minus 700 seems about right. There were other series where they had odds in the similar range where I felt like, if I remember correctly, it's right about where it was for the Denver matchup and I'm like, this doesn't make sense to me. Like, Denver clearly can cause some serious problems for the Thunder with Jokic and with all of their size and just their veteran experience, this to me feels like a more natural line for this type of matchup. Let's start with Indiana on offense as far as matchups go. Again, a lot of this depends on how Oklahoma City decides to start games. If they start Hartenstein, he'll guard Miles Turner, Chet will likely guard Pascal Siakam, J Dub will guard Andrew Nemhard, Lou Dort will guard Tyrese Halliburton and Shay Gilgis Alexander will guard Aaron Neesmith. Couple specific things to keep an eye on there like Pascal Siakam in this matchup consistently in the regular season was really aggressive downhill versus Oklahoma City's bigs. Even Hartenstein obviously We're going to talk about attacking Smalls. That's going to be a big theme in this series. But if Chet guards Siakam, be ready to watch Siakam try to cave his chest in early and often in the series. Like just aggressive drives from the top of the key where he sees Chet in front of him and he just tries to go through him and get all the way to the rim. That's something to keep an eye on. And then again, Shay guarding niecemith Shea has a tendency to linger into the paint. He, like, basically operates as a roamer in the Oklahoma City defense. It's how he gets a lot of steals in a lot of cases. So obviously Aaron Nesmith's ability to knock down, catch and shoot threes and beat him crashing to the basket is key. If they go small and if they start Alex Caruso, I think we'll see Chet guard Miles Turner. Very different type of matchup, obviously there. I think I'd go with Caruso on Siakam in that case, just because Caruso has had success in this playoff run dealing with Biggs. He had a little bit of a problem with Julius Randall in the first game of that series, and then, then he just figured out that Julius Randall can't dribble and just attack the basketball and caused a lot of problems in that way. So I would just have Caruso guard Siakam if that's the case. He's just had a lot of success against those bigger forwards, including even Jokic briefly in that second round series. The rest of the matchups would be the same, obviously. Lou Dort on Tyrese Halliburton, shake it. Just Alexander on Neesmith and J Dub on Andrew Nemhardt. But again, as it pertains to Oklahoma City in particular, even with, like, Case on Wallace coming in off the bench, Caruso coming in off the bench if Hartenstein starts Aaron Wiggins. All these guards are interchangeable, and they're all going to spend a lot of time guarding a lot of different players. Both of these teams play in transition a ton. And so even talking about these matchups, it kind of comes with a certain amount of, like, it doesn't necessarily matter as much as you would think, simply because so many of these situations are going to involve transition cross matches. Again, transmission, transition cross matches. Pretty simple. The principles in transition defense are stop the ball, protect the rim, then spray out to shooters. So it's not about guarding your man in that case, it's about guarding the nearest man. Right. And so you're going to See a lot of situations where dudes get cross matched and so everyone's going to kind of have to figure out how to guard in their respective random matchups that they end up in. In the regular season, Tyrese Halliburton was a non factor relative to other matchups. Tyrese is generally a low usage player because he's more of an advantage hunter than an assist hunter. The difference to me there is like Tyrese Halliburton gets rid of the ball earlier than most people do, and it's usually when as soon as he sees the slightest bit of a mismatch. Excuse me, not even mismatch, but advantage like this guy lingers in a little bit too far on a ball screen, leaving two on the ball, or this guy sinking just a bit too far in in nail help or this guy's open up the floor. Tyrese gets rid of the ball quickly. That leads to a lot more hockey assists and fewer regular assists. So even as a high assist player, his usage rate is relatively low because of how often he gets rid of the ball quickly in possessions. But even within that context, his usage plummets in this matchup. So for instance, Tyrese Halliburton, as this, like, you know, offensive engine only had a 21% usage percentage in the regular season against the whole league, but that dropped all the way down to 12% against the Thunder. That's how uninvolved Tyrese Halliburton looked in this matchup. And that is, we're going to get into it a little bit more later, but that's going to be something Tyrese has to avoid in the sense that he needs to make sure that he remains a threat even when he's not involved in the action. The two starters for the Pacers that saw an increase in usage relative to what they did versus the rest of the league, among their starters was Andrew Nemhardt. Obviously, that's not too hard to figure out. He's the next best ball handler in the lineup after Halliburton. And so if he's going to end up running the show while Halliburton stands around, he's the obvious guy that slides into that spot. The second guy is Miles Turner, and it's not too hard to figure out that either because of the switches that lead him that leave him in a lot of matchups with guards underneath the basket. Oklahoma City went small in this matchup quite a bit in the regular season. I'd even consider going to Chad at center small for the sake of this matchup because how skinny he is. And so Turner and Siakam, even a little bit of Thomas, Bryant, maybe just these guys, these bigger players, even Obi toppin a little bit. These guys attacking Smalls is going to be arguably the biggest pivot point of the series, which we'll get into here in a little bit. Everything starts with ball pressure. There are these pivot points I just talked about, one involving Turner and Siakam attacking Smalls. These pivot points to me are these like tests that Oklahoma City's defense makes you pass. And at any one of these pivot points, Indiana's offense could break. And if Indiana's offense breaks at any of these pivot points, this thing is so over. It's not even funny. Like we're talking could be a sweep if any of these pivot points ends up breaking for Indiana. So the first pivot point is just getting the ball up the floor. In the regular season again, the Pacers were a very good team at taking care of the basketball. Here are some basic stats to kind of demonstrate that for you guys. The Pacers were the third best team in the NBA taking care of the basketball overall, turning the ball over just 13.2 times per game. The Pacers actually did a little bit better, even against Oklahoma City. Worth mentioning, just 12 turnovers per game in those two games. Among all teams who played against the Thunder this season, only the Sacramento Kings did a better job of taking care of the basketball against the Thunder. But this is a playoff matchup. In the regular season, the Thunder averaged 17 for forced turnovers and 21.8 points off of turnovers. In the playoffs, that goes up to 18 point turnovers and 23.8 points off of turnovers. They have stepped it up. Minnesota averaged 19.3 turnovers a game in the four losses, 19.3 turnovers and 23.3 points allowed off of turnovers. Denver, in their four losses, 18.5 turnovers, 26, 6.3 points off of turnovers. Oklahoma City has been winning games in this postseason by turning teams over and getting out in transition. That is the first breaking point of this series, whether or not they can handle ball pressure and get the ball up the floor. I expect Oklahoma City to come out with a very aggressive ball pressure scheme with the added layer of denying Tyrese Halliburton whenever they can. Between Nemhard, Niecemith, Halliburton, McConnell, Siakam, any guy who could theoretically bring the ball up the floor. They have to be sharp, using their body to protect the ball and prevent the easy pick sixes that can occur out at half court. There are a couple of tricks that they can use to help handle ball pressure on the way up the floor. The obvious one is kick ahead passes. If you ever see like Indiana runs their lane so religiously, if you see an opportunity to throw a kick ahead, make it, because then you don't have to bring it up against pressure. But the trick there is again, you have to be cognizant of Oklahoma City playing those transition passing lanes, enforcing turnovers in those situations. The less obvious one is target the Oklahoma City defenders that aren't as good at forcing turnovers. So like Chet, Chet's on the floor. Let's say they do go big and Hartenstein's on the floor guarding Turner and Chet's guarding Siakam. Have Siakam bring the ball up the floor against Chet. Chet's not as good at applying full court pressure and ripping the ball away from a live ball handler. Right. A couple of their perimeter guys, Aaron Wiggins, Isaiah Joe, these are two guys that get far fewer steals compared to the other primary defenders for Oklahoma City. Shea Shay gets a lot of steals, but primarily in off ball situations. You could have Neesmith bring the ball up the floor. Shea wants to waste a bunch of energy trying to turn his man five times on his way up the floor. That's his prerogative. He's also not as good at just getting those live ball steals as some of those other guys that they have. So those are simple ways to try to alleviate that full court pressure. The second breaking point in terms of the pressure defense from Oklahoma City is high and low post entries. We talked about this a lot in this postseason run after the Denver series, in the Minnesota series, Oklahoma City in the regular season actually did quite a bit of switching with Hartenstein in ball screens. There were traditional coverages, but switches were mixed in. And then as we mentioned earlier, Oklahoma City went small a lot. Which means in this series there will be a lot of situations where Turner or Siakam is matched up against a small. Just like Julius Randle got, just like Nas Reed got, just like Aaron Gordon got, just like Nikola Jokic got. And what did we see in those series turnovers on post entries over and over again, even for Nikola Jokic, one of the best positional bigs in terms of creating passing angles. Game 7 literally turned on the inability to get Jokic the ball because of Alex Caruso and his disruption on post entries. And guess what? In the film session, Indiana had similar turnovers against Oklahoma City in this regular season. There's a play where Miles Turner had a deep seal against Kayson Wallace under the basket and Cason's trying to three quarter front around the left side and Miles is trying to back him down to create that passing angle and right as he's backing him down, Obi Toppin throws the pass and it's kind of in that gap right as Miles Turner's backing and it just goes out of bounds. Turnover. You see a play where Pascal Siakam is posting up on the right block and the defenders full fronting the post and he's creating that over the top passing angle. Pass goes up, dude comes shooting in from behind that post bracket that we always talk about the Miami Heat, where that window just suddenly disappears as a defender comes flying in from behind and steals that ball. Even on plays when they get the ball into the post, the immediate swarming can cause turnovers as well. This is the second breaking point. If they can't actually get the ball to their size advantages, then they have very little chance of scoring against Oklahoma City when they start to switch. And so again, step one getting the ball across half court into their offense. Step 2 actually getting the ball in their post entries and high post entries to their size advantages. Now before we talk about the third breaking point, AI is redefining what's possible for your business. Are you up to the challenge? Microsoft is helping leaders like you get AI ready faster with unified data and simplified platform management, unlocking up to 150% improved output. Cross industries leaders are turning to Microsoft's AI tools and guidance to rise to the challenge. For the mba, that means using AI powered insights to deliver more personalized fan experience. For BMW, it means innovating their development process safely and securely. And for Lego House, it means creating new interactive experiences for people to explore. 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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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