Perhaps it was only appropriate that a postseason of the NBA no one would have predicted that he could not end without another plot turn.
Despite the star shipowner, Tyrese Haliburton, playing with a calf injury, the Indiana Pacers avoided the elimination on Thursday to win the game 6 of the NBA finals, 108-91, and pushed the best series of seven against Oklahoma City.
For the first time since 2016, the finals go to a seventh and last game.
Game 7 is Sunday, in Oklahoma City. It became necessary after the 3-points of Indiana quickly took Indiana from an early hole of 10-2 in the first quarter, then her rhythm of the signature of sign, pressing the defense and tireless reserves, opened the game and turned this series again into a currency change.
Andrew Nembhard, better known for his defense of all the series about the star of Thunder Shai Gilgous-Alexander, became offensively life to score 17 points, and Pascal Siakam and Obi Toppin scored 16 to lead the Pacers.
Gilgeous-Alexander scored 21 points, while Jalen Williams had 16 a game after scoring a maximum of playoffs 40.
Leading only one point at the beginning of the second quarter, the Pacers surpassed Oklahoma City for 21 points during the last eight minutes of half to lead, 64-42, in another example of Indiana that refused to bend in difficult circumstances, just as he had to win unlikely games against Milwaukee, Cleveland and New York previously in the postseason.
That dramatic turn of the second quarter was caused by Pacers Reserve Aaron Nesmith, then gave an exclamation point of Siakam, who immersed himself in the Thunder Star Williams 40 seconds before part time and then, after a possession of Oklahoma City without annotation, he sank a leap of turn expired in the quarter.
Although Haliburton underwent a force test prior to the game under the surveillance of Indiana’s medical staff and considered himself ready to play, he adapted to a compression sleeve that covered his lower right leg, his effectiveness was questionable after he was seen limbing after interviews in the days after game 5, when he had not failed in a single field goal.
The coach of the Pacers, Rick Carlisle, already known as one of the most inventive coaches of the NBA, said before Enet that he would face the elimination that would not contain any possible adjustment that could extend the season of his team.
“We are in a two -game season,” said Carlisle. “With two days in the middle (game 6 and game 7), tonight, everything is out there.”
However, Haliburton, who had been Indiana’s engine throughout the postseason during her career that challenges the probabilities to the first finals of the team since 2000, was not a decoy.
After not being able to make a single field goal in game 5, he scored 12 points in the first half and ended with 14. The best news for Indiana was that he only needed to play 23 minutes.
Despite the injury, he showed an explosion when he jumped in the air from the upper part of the 3 -point arch and went to the corner, then ran to the paint before receiving a pass and banking gently on the edge during an advantage of 24 points with 20 minutes remaining in the game. Oklahoma City quickly called for a waiting time, but the pause did not stop the attack, with its deficit quickly to 28 in a matter of minutes.
During the previous week, the Thunder had retired from difficult positions before, and fought with the control of the series by limiting their own mistakes. So that the second list of younger has played in the final, was a maturation signal. However, all that cold efficiency melted in the game 6. They committed 12 ball losses before part time and made only one of their first 16 attempts of 3 points.
The abyss between the teams tonight was so wide that Gilgeous-Alexander, the NBA newly crowned MVP, had tied in his career for ball losses, with eight, with 12 minutes to play in the game.
Oklahoma City finished with 10 ball losses more than Indiana, and 21 points less in triples, two
Determined with yellow t -shirts, Indiana’s local crowd rarely went triumphantly in tense time to see Oklahoma City reduce its deficit to 18 with 4 minutes to play in the third quarter. However, Indiana did not stagger, responding to that attempt to demonstrate with a devastating close to the third quarter crowded by a 27-foot launch of the Ben Sheppard reserve that pushed Indiana’s advantage at its older night, with 90-60, entering the fourth quarter, and the coach of Oklahoma City, Mark Daigneault, attracted her holders.
Solo Oklahoma City has experience in game 7 during these playoffs, since he advanced the second round winning at home over Denver. In the history of the finals, the road teams have 4-15 in game 7. The most recent game 7 was in 2016 when the Cavaliers defeated the Warriors along the way.
The title of the Pacers now expects to depend on doing something that has happened only twice before this season, which forces Oklahoma City to consecutive losses.
