Endless Basketball: How OKC Saved Their Season By Becoming Something Else
There's always another possession.
Basketball is endless.
Baseball has the highest degree of timelessness to it. Football is very finite. This down. This quarter. 16 games. Hockey feels endless mid-period and extremely finite at the end, which is how basketball can get.
I went to shoot around this week, and kids were hanging out at the gym who had clearly been there all day, just like so many of us used to, staying from start to finish in the summer, playing pickup or ones, just endless dribbling and shooting all day. One game bleeds into another into another.
It’s even more that way, I think, for NBA players.
I went on a stretch of a few years where I asked players what the most competitive environment they’d ever been in was. Many said AAU or a high school game. Most who had been to the Tournament in college cited that. Only a handful of players listed the NBA.1
There are a lot of reasons the NBA doesn’t reach that level. The money. The lifestyle. The politics. It’s just not as pure. But the other factor is that you play so many games, and there’s always another one. Nothing ever feels over. Take a tough loss? You play again in 48 hours, so put it behind you.
It’s why teams constantly talk about not getting too up or too down in the regular season. The emotional cost is too high.
This is how Oklahoma City saved its season.
Everyone could sense the Pacers haymaker coming. The crowd was teetering on the edge of pandemonium and the Pacers were making shots. You could feel it was going to break open.
And it did, for just a moment in the third quarter of Game 3. Specifically, this moment:
That wasn’t the Pacer’s largest lead but it felt like it. The Thunder had to collapse on Haliburton as he beat SGA again, forcing them into help and rotations and Nembhard makes them pay with a corner three. That’s the kind of play the Thunder have lived by daring teams and getting away with it all year.
But here’s the thing about basketball. It’s endless. There’s always another possession, another quarter, another game, another month, another season. There’s always more basketball.
The Thunder still had 18 minutes to go in this game.
One of the reasons that the Pacers went up 2-1 is that games are finite. It doesn’t matter if the Knicks led by 17 or the Thunder by 10 or whatever. What matters is that you have more points when the buzzer sounds. Basketball is endless. Series are not.
So even though the Pacers took away the Thunder’s identity, exposed their weaknesses, had all the momentum, and were in control, that didn’t mean things were over, because there’s always more basketball.
In the fourth quarter, the Thunder did not “get back to their identity.” Their identity is a swarming defense that forces turnovers and high-octane conversions. It’s packing the paint and using converging defense instead of switching.
In the fourth quarter, they only forced three turnovers for four points. They switched everything with Chet Holmgren, finally, FINALLY daring the Pacers to make contested shots over one of the best shot-contesters in the league in space. They walled everything off on the perimeter instead of sinking into the paint.
This is not who they are. It’s who they needed to be.
The Thunder are 11th in second-chance points per game in the playoffs. OREBs are not their identity because they prioritize transition defense. They had eight second-chance points in the fourth quarter out of 31, over a quarter of their points on putbacks.
Yes, Shai making pull-up jumpers is them. Yes, swarming defense is them. However, they ran fewer pick-and-rolls. They had to execute in half-court. And they just found a way.
The Thunder and their fans constantly point to the Nuggets’ series as their moment of adversity. Sure, going down 2-1 is tough. However, at no point in that series did I truly believe Denver was going to win. OKC won Game 4 with their identity.
It’s not that the Thunder can’t win close games; that’s a misconception. In the discourse, everything that isn’t a strength is a weakness. Clutch play is a strength for the Pacers. For OKC, it’s more of a middle ground. They are 6-4 in clutch games in the playoffs after Friday night’s win. 60/40. That’s about right for a team that good.
It’s not a strength, it’s not a weakness. It’s just what was required in Game 4.
That’s so important. Basketball is endless, and so eventually you will face a big moment when you have to be something you’re not. A clutch team. A good half-court team. A rebounder. A defender. A grifter.
In Game 4, OKC crossed the threshold. They were broken. And they had 18 minutes to piece themselves back together into what they needed to win that game, and they did.
Because that’s what truly great teams do.
OTHER DISCONNECTED FINALS THOUGHTS
Look, Scott Foster Scott Foster’d the hell out of that game. It was his usual disasterclass. Inconsistent calls. High-profile nonsensical ones. Too much involvement. Some touch fouls. However, I don’t really feel that he decided the game. The Extender label is actually exaggerated, as of 2022, teams were 11-11 in elimination games with him. Tom Haberstroh has a great piece on how he’s actually the Extender: extending games.
That Nesmith pull-up reach was a foul. He’s got his arm in when Shai’s in triple-threat. You show me that at any point in the season and my reaction would be “Shai is going to draw a foul.” You can’t put your hands in. Ever.
What Nembhard’s done so well in this series is show you hands. You must always show them. He gets the edge on you, and you’re parallel to him? You have to move laterally while getting those hands up to show you’re not reaching because he maneuvers to get your hands in the middle of his possession, then exaggerate.
The no-call on the push off was egregious; it was one of the rare times that Shai actually fully pushes off instead of that Zombie Dead-Arm push-off he uses. I don’t mind the travel call, it’s too bang bang.
And on the other end, how many calls did the Pacers generate on looseball rebound opportunities?
That said, the off-ball fouls were egregious and ridiculous in that spot. “You can’t tackle someone!” Fuck off, it’s the Finals Game 4, yes you can!
I had felt a little bit coming off the Nuggets series that Caruso was overrated. The guy doesn’t play more than 30 minutes most nights, can’t create on his own, isn’t a great shooter, gets away with suplexing bigs2 because of how bigs and littles are officiated in the NBA. But Good God has he been the difference maker on both ends in this series. Timely drives for controlled layups, good reads. Great defensive play to muck up possessions while recovering (outside of that Nembhard three). He’s not going to win Finals MVP but he should be in consideration even with Shai averaging thirty-whatever when he has been cooked defensively all series.
OK, Carlisle gets a Game 6 no matter what. Does he use zone in Game 5 to steal it? Or does he wait until his back’s up against the wall. Or is he just not going to use zone?
Daigneault went to the smallball starting lineup to take the efficiency off Indy’s elite starting unit, and it worked. However, he ultimately lost all the subsequent staggered lineups. It was a reversal of the playoffs, where Indy’s starters were great, but OKC’s three-man combos were better. In this series, OKC’s starters were better, but Indy’s three-man combos killed them. By going back to double-big, he evened that out in. Game 4 and it was a huge deal.
Indy’s best lineup? Their starters with a +6, +22.5 net. Daigs sacrificed the good start to win the rest of the game, and it worked.
Obi Toppin’s playoff run should never be forgotten.
Pascal Siakam was +14 in a game they lost by seven. He sat for 13 minutes. Myles Turner is going to have to step up in Game 5 or 6. They don’t make it out unless he does.
Notably, my favorite was Jameer Nelson, who said without hesitation, “The NBA Finals. There’s no higher level of basketball than that.”
This is interpreted as saltiness by OKC fans over Denver, when a. I’m not a Nuggets fan, b. Denver being eliminated was a huge relief for me personally, c. I’ve called out Nuggets fans often for complaining about the whistle for a team top-five in free throw rate and defense. I have long been complaining about how little guys get to do whatever they want to bigs. I love post-up play. I grew up with Alonzo Mourning as my favorite player. This is not about Jokic.
I commented on Haberstroh’s post wondering why Foster still gets to work such important games. Even if he would be accurate and consistent, the endless parade to the free throw line is terrible for fans, and therefore the game.