Finals Film Room: OKC finds success with SGA, J-Will pick-and-roll
OKLAHOMA CITY — Oklahoma City, the NBA’s winningest team this season, hasn’t lost two games in a row in more than two months. Their opponents in the 2025 NBA Finals, the Indiana Pacers, haven’t had that teensy of a losing streak in three months.
Put them together and it’s no wonder the participants have been trading games and head into Game 5 Monday (8:30 p.m. ET, ABC) at the Paycom Center tied 2-2.
That ability to re-center and reset themselves speaks to the Eastern and Western Conference champions’ resilience, as well as their ability to adjust strategically and quickly clean up mistakes. What it doesn’t offer much of, if any, is momentum.
It’s an NBA truism that momentum is rare in the playoffs, particularly in the deeper rounds. It’s not that sweeps or five-game series don’t happen, but the more evenly matched the two teams are, the thinner the line gets between winning and losing. A bit of fine-tuning here, a little more desperation there, is all it takes sometimes.
Principals on both sides were asked about momentum in interview sessions Sunday, and frankly, no one came up with any definitive explanation.
“Aside from game planning and scouting, this is like a totally new series,” said Thunder star Jalen Williams. “You’re treating this as Game 1, you know what I mean? … I feel like that’s the most clean-slate attitude that you can have with it.”
What officially is a best-of-seven series to win the Larry O’Brien Trophy has been turned into a shorty. Two out of three now. The Thunder have home-court edge again, with the Pacers eager to swipe it again the way they did when the “long” series began June 5.
“It’s the best part about playoff series, is when you get the chance to respond,” said Indiana guard Tyrese Haliburton, whose team lost a fourth-quarter lead in Game 4. “That’s the great thing about sports. You’re going to have good games, you’re going to have bad games. But there’s nothing like the [next] game to respond.”
Here are four things to look for as this high-level, entertaining series heads into crunch time:
1. More from Thunder’s ‘other’ PG
The ESPN docu-series “The Last Dance” has been in rotation lately on the network’s many channels, offering a reminder of how valuable Chicago’s Scottie Pippen was as a full-service sidekick to Michael Jordan during their dynasty in the 1990s. In particular, Pippen frequently played as a “point forward” for the Bulls, enabling Jordan freedom off the ball in initiating that team’s famous triangle offense.
A point forward has emerged in these 2025 Finals: OKC’s Jalen Williams. We’re not comparing him or teammate Shai Gilgeous-Alexander to the Bulls’ Hall of Fame tandem, but the effect of having Williams start OKC’s offense has freed up Gilgeous-Alexander (in the past two games especially) from constantly taking Indiana’s first defensive punch.
Williams, wrapping up his third season as the No. 12 pick in 2022 out of Santa Clara, is known for his two-way play and versatility. Still, this has been a heavier dose on the ball to help set OKC’s attack in motion. Where has this come from?
“Well, I grew up short,” Williams said, explaining that he started organized basketball as a point guard. “A lot of times, that always goes under the radar.”
Learning and playing on the wing as he grew to his current height (6-foot-5) shifted him around, but this is a nice relief valve for the Thunder, spelling Gilgeous-Alexander a bit without dipping into the bench.
“I’m pretty comfortable doing it,” Williams said, “and at the same time, I think if everybody on our team can figure out a different way to be successful and change during the series, I can do that.
“It’s just something that, as the game went on, it just naturally, organically happened, and I was kind of ready for that.”
Williams, an All-NBA Third Team pick this season, is averaging 22.3 points in the first four games, with 5.5 rebounds and 4.3 assists. He has 17 assists and 10 turnovers to Gilgeous-Alexander’s 15 and 12.
2. Siakam as priority for Pacers
That stifling defensive blanket Oklahoma City threw over the Pacers’ offense in the fourth quarter Friday had Indiana almost speechless afterward, leaving them talking simply about getting “stagnant” with no other real explanations. Oh, Carlisle did cite OKC’s 12-4 rebounding edge in the period and reckless fouls, which limited Indiana’s scoring chances and forced his team to face the Thunder’s set defense.
But two other things stood out. As Haliburton went, so did the offense. The Pacers’ guard spent a lot of time working from sideline to sideline, 25 feet from the basket, all that east/west indecisiveness setting up rushed shots or turnovers.
The other thing was, Pascal Siakam — who led Indiana with 20 points and 15 shots — got up only one lonely 3-point attempt early in the fourth. He got subbed out with 7:28 left, returned at 4:19 and did virtually nothing the rest of the way. No points, no shots, no rebounds, no fouls, nothing that appeared in the box score.
Targeted by OKC’s defense to take Siakam away? Not according to Mark Daigneault.
“None of our adjustments are really personnel specific against this team. … They play as a whole and as a unit, and you have to defend them as a whole and as a unit,” Daigneault said.
Still, it’s hard to win if one of your top players — the MVP of the Eastern Conference Finals, no less — goes ghost down the stretch.
Said Carlisle: “He is a guy that if we are not playing through him, he needs to touch the ball more.”
3. Indiana’s defense is Finals-worthy
The aftermath of the Pacers’ Game 4 loss took on an ominous tone for some, framed in an uh-oh manner: The Thunder made only three of 16 3-pointers, passed for just 11 assists, and won! The thinking being that Indiana will be in trouble when those stats bounce back closer to normal for OKC. The Thunder averaged about 14 3-pointers on 38 attempts, with nearly 27 assists, this season.
The half-full view for the Pacers is that they limited the Thunder to those paltry numbers Friday. Which means they conceivably could do it again or come close. Such expectations would have been irrational even a year ago, when the Pacers had recently begun working on their image as a team that could only win by outscoring everyone.
“When I first got here, most of the narrative was ‘They play fast, they don’t play defense, right?’” Siakam said. “That was the thing. I’ve seen the growth of everyone. The coaches have been doing an awesome job preparing us for games, and everyone is willing to put the effort in. … When you see the results from the defense, you have no choice but to commit to it.”
The coaches and front office knew Indiana needed to defend more diligently to become a serious contender — and knew the growth would need to come mostly from within. Carlisle gave credit to assistants Jenny Boucek and Jim Boylen for teaching, challenging and developing the rapport that sold players on the work of developing a stingier defense.
Not only is Indiana now in the Finals in large part due to its defense, but it has set new standards this postseason for being able to shift seamlessly from a high-octane attack to full-court pressure.
“This is not something that players in the AAU level are leaning into saying, ‘You know, I can’t wait to get in there and do the shell drill.’” Carlisle said.
What OKC has built defensively over several years, Indiana has cobbled together a facsimile of in about 15 months.
4. Carlisle sets a screen
Indiana Pacers coach Rick Carlisle talks with the media ahead of Game 5 of the 2025 NBA Finals.
A familiar gamesmanship as an NBA playoff series plays out goes like this: One coach or the other — sometimes both, alternating by whose team most recently lost — complains in the media about the officiating and how much brutality the other guys are getting away with. The idea being, he’s sending a message to the referees to watch that stuff and perhaps even tilt things his way in the next game.
Carlisle, though, put a surprising spin on that Sunday when he defended referee Scott Foster against a flurry of criticism on social media and elsewhere.
Much of what Carlisle called “awful” came from apparent Pacers fans who were upset by Foster even before tipoff. It ranged from labeling the veteran game official “The Extender” for the suspicion that teams trailing in a given series get an edge from him to gripes after OKC’s Game 4 victory about fouls or non-calls that allegedly favored the Thunder.
“I’ve known Scott Foster for 30 years. He is a great official,” Carlisle said, responding to a general question about officiating. “He has done a great job in these playoffs. We’ve had him a lot of times. The ridiculous scrutiny that is being thrown out there is terrible and unfair and unjust and stupid.”
There were 53 fouls called in Game 4 and 71 free throws awarded, the most so far in the series. Foster, the crew chief, called 23 of the fouls – 12 on OKC, 11 on Indiana. OKC shot 38 free throws and made 34. Indiana shot 33 and made 25.
After the game, Carlisle did talk about his team missing eight free throws to the Thunder’s four, but not about the number awarded.
The NBA staunchly supports its game officials against charges of bias or being swayed by criticism from players and coaches. Now we might get to see how the refs react to a losing coach defending one of them. Seed planted? It’s even possible Foster is back on the court for a potential Game 7.
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Steve Aschburner has written about the NBA since 1980. You can e-mail him here, find his archive here and follow him on X.
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