The Thunder’s nightmare

Tired, trailing, and just one day off

After Game 3, NBA MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander explained his approach to fatigue: “It's what you worked all summer for. To me, the way I see it, you got to suck it up, get it done and try to get a win." MADDIE MEYER/GETTY IMAGES

I'm not predicting anything yet. Who knows what's going to happen? Game 3 of the wild 2025 NBA Finals was a coin flip with two minutes to go. The Pacers scraped by again.

The Thunder showed a ton of championship toughness, especially at the end of the third and start of the fourth quarters. Every time Indiana got ahead, they’d hit a big 3 or a big shot. I thought, okay, they're doing the same thing they did in the Denver series and stepping up when they need it most.

The difference this time could end up being the story of the Finals, the playoffs, and the season: the Pacers got their opponent to run out of gas.

That’s the analysis.

They do it different ways. In the wonderful F5, Owen Phillips shares data from Genius Sports about how the Thunder offense typically works: Shai Gilgeous-Alexander brings the ball up and makes magic. When Gilgeous-Alexander dribbles it up, the Thunder have scored 1.26 points per possession in these Finals. That’s fantastic.

But the Pacers mucked all that up by picking Shai up way deeper in the backcourt than anyone has all postseason. He didn’t like it. Phillips writes:

In Game 3, there were 66 possessions where someone other than SGA initiated the offense. It was the most in any game during the regular season or the playoffs for the Thunder. The net result was not pretty. The Thunder scored just 0.99 points per possession when someone other than SGA dribbled the ball up the court.

It started early. Game 3 began with Andrew Nembhard welcoming Shai to “Nembhell” which resulted in a foul on the MVP. The Canadians have been close friends for years, their families dined together in Paris at the Olympics!! But this is the Finals.

In Game 6 against the Knicks in the conference finals, Nembhard wasn’t timid about picking up Jalen Brunson incredibly early.

But Shai is faster than Brunson, and in the first two games, Nembhard gave the MVP a tad more cushion. Which made things a tad easier for Shai to catch the ball cleanly, and start his forward progress.

Game 3 was different. It looks to me like the memo for Game 3 was to stop respecting Shai. Pick him up full court. If you can get him running fast, great. Go under the screen when they screen you 70 feet from the basket. Just go under it--back there there’s no need to fight over the top. Then you’ll be chasing him, but you won’t be trailing. Get back in front, get in his face, and be more physical.

For Game 3, that was a killer strategy to exhaust Shai and suck the life out of the Thunder offense. But it wasn’t the only one.