NBA Playoff Reaction 🍿 Pacers put the Cavs on the brink, OKC evens series in Denver | SportsCenter

NBA Playoff Reaction 🍿 Pacers put the Cavs on the brink, OKC evens series in Denver | SportsCenter

pictures, descriptions, and accounts. Pacers looking to take the 3-1 lead on the top seed in the East. And the Cavs got hit with a buzzsaw. Indiana miles Turner to Obie Toppin. And then Tyrese Hallebertton gets it to Obie’s not missing. Pacers go up by 12 early. Then this moment, Benedict Matherin popped DeAndre Hunter in the gut and Hunter would respond. Watch it here. Matherin, boom, the shot right to the midsection. Hunter gets a technical foul, but Matherin gets a flagrant foul, too, and is ejected from the game. Yeah, got to think, says DeAndre Hunter. Pacers didn’t actually need Benedict Matherin on this night. Let’s move along to the second quarter. Pacers already up 23. Topping inside. There was very little resistance by Cleveland. Pacers by 25. And then Tophin goes baseline. Throws it into reverse. 20 points in 21 minutes for Obie. Very smooth. Pacers up by 24. And the run hasn’t even really hit yet. Then even when they’re just trying to mug the Pacers, Turner with the finish and one. Andrew Nemhardt back inside to Miles Turner. Pacers up by 24. Then Turner Miles Turner just goes off here. Get it to him. 33 4-3 Rainbow. So it’s a eight nothing run at this point. And then Hallebertton launching. It’s 11 nothing. Oh, it’s bad for the Cavaliers. Miles Turner stepping toes behind the line. There’s another three. 14- nothing run. Heat check. Miles Turner way outside. Wow. 17 consecutive points by the Pacers. Turner 13 in the second quarter. Knocked down all three of his threes. That 40.1 lead tied for the largest in NBA postseason history. So, here’s what it looked like at the half. Not only did Indie dominate the scoreboard, they forced Cleveland into 14 turnovers. That’s the same amount they had in the entirety of game three. The Pacers with 25 assists in half one, the most in any half of any playoff game in the last quarter century. So, for all intents and purposes, the game was over at halftime. And it was definitely over for Donovan Mitchell. warming up in the second half. He grabs the ankle and kind of limps off and would not play a second of the second half. We’ll keep our eye on that. Toppin misses, but Pascal Seakum did not. He was nine of 10 shooting for 21 points. And then Hallebertton inside to TJ McConnell who just slings it for for Topping. Pacers go on to win 129 to 109. And here’s Kenny Atkinson on the drubbing. Complete domination by them is really it’s kind of the story um kind of in every facet. It wasn’t like oh you know tactics or anything involved. They they dominated us um in every facet of the game and that’s what get a you know 20 point game or really 30 point game. um left ankle um left ankle injury. Um he’ll get a MRI tomorrow. So obviously there’s just not much more you can say as far as availability or I mean no idea. I mean you know obviously he couldn’t go in the second half. So um see what the MRI says. Let’s bring in our senior NBA reporter Brian Winhurst on this. I get it Brian. Sometimes things snowball on you. That was an avalanche coming down on the Cavs that we don’t see a lot of 41 point halftime leads in the NBA and then Donovan Mitchell doesn’t play in half two with the ankle and you wonder was it the was it the lead was it the ankle what can you tell us about despite that injury well first off you got to give credit to the Pacers they played a brilliant game this series has been about who controls the pace of play the Cavs got the Pacers to slow down in game three they went back to their pace of play and topped it with some brilliant execution Donovan Mitchell has been dealing in this series with a calf injury. It was not serious enough to be on the injury report, but he was definitely dealing with it and admitted he was going through something. So, when you see that video of him appearing to pull something, I mean, he didn’t even get airborne, but the Cavs say left ankle, we’ll go with left ankle. They’ll know more about the MRI, but Donovan, you know, had a calf injury last year in the playoffs, actually in the second round. Was sort of coming from heavy usage rate when the team was dealing with some injuries at that time. He ended up missing a couple of games in the Celtics series when the Cavs were eliminated. Now, really, this is all about what his availability is because I can’t see the Cavs winning three consecutive games against a Pacers team that is playing awesome and has been playing awesome for three or four months now with Donovan Mitchell not able to go. Thunder Nuggets. It was like a throwback to the 90s. Neither team cracking 100, but somebody had to win. Shay Gilis Alexander and the Thunder looking to tie up the series on the road against Nico Yic and the Nuggets. Early first, Shay getting it going. Midth spinning rides there and then pull up mid-range here. Eight points in the first quarter, the same amount as the Nuggets as a team. OKC up 17 to8 after one early second. Here’s Alex Caruso up to Isaiah Hartenstein who throws it down 23-8. Later in the quarter, Nuggets trying to get it going. Joic floater good. Nuggets down 10. Under 10 seconds left in the second. Give it to Joic for three and oh, nice move there and gets it to go. Nuggets made eight field goals in the first half, fewest in a playoff half since the 2017 Raptors. And they were down six going into halftime. Early third, Nuggets making a move. Joic for three. Nuggets down four. Later, Nuggets down two. Aaron Gordon gets it. Got it. Sets up. Somebody guard him. No. Okay, then he’ll do that. Nuggets take the lead. Couple possessions later, Nuggets up three. Look at Murray working it right there and getting it to go. Nuggets up six. Yeah, get those shoulders moving. And then Joic, little three party going here. Nugget shot three for 20. Three of 22 from three in the first half, seven for 11 from three in the third. And the Nuggets were up six going into the fourth. But then here comes OKC. The ball movement on point. Aaron Wiggins hitting threes right there. OKC down one. Kase Wallace, let’s get him involved. Drills a three. OKC gets the lead. And then SGA went to work. Watch this. Driving up on Murray, getting the floater. OKC up three. How about his fadeaway game? How’s that? Let’s take a look. Ooh, nice. OKC up five. Couple possessions later, Nuggets trying to get back in this one. Murray driving layup there. He had 17. Nuggets down four, but in the end, too much. SGAA on the drive at 25. OKC wins at 9287. Series tied up at two. And here’s SGA coming up clutch. Those are the moments where um the guy on the team um earns his buck. You earn your money. You you close games, you win games, and that’s what that’s what everything’s about, winning games. And the later you go in the season, the better the teams, the more the closer the games. Um and you need to rise to the occasion. We need to give ourselves a chance. We need to play physical. We need to be more physical with them. aggressive and uh of course they’re favorites. They’re they’re playing amazing. They they won six seven how many games they won and we need to give ourselves a chance to just to give ourselves a chance to win a game. Can you lean on the confidence that you’ve been there, done that, you’ve won there? I mean, yeah, it’s best out of three. It’s not It’s not a funeral, guys. It’s best out of three. We lost the game. On to the next. Well, it’s not a funeral, but the Thunder have life because SGA came up clutch. The Thunder led by two with six minutes left in regulation and then Shay took over getting eight of his 25 points when it mattered most. Sunday was a bounceback game for the MVP favorite in game three. Struggled in the game’s final moments going 0 for seven in the last six minutes of the fourth quarter. Not this time. All right, we’re back with Brian. So OKC showing some some grit, some sand to even up this series. Not a pretty win, but a significant one. How did OKC pull this out, Brian? Well, with with the MVP who’s probably going to be named in the next week and their depth, this was a story of Shay out executing everybody else down the stretch. It was not in one of his top 100 finishes, but it was one of his most important ones because he was a he was facing double teams in zone the entire game and the Nuggets were forcing the ball out of his hands and nobody on his team was hitting shots and so he just willed away to get himself to the foul line, get a couple of clean looks. It was very important that the Thunder got into the bonus with about seven minutes left in this game. That was like giving Shay the green light to draw contact. That helped them get over the hump. But I can’t talk enough about the depth. 35-8 on the bench scoring. That was a difference in the game. As for Denver, Nicola Joic shot under 40% for the third straight game. That’s the first time in his postseason career that he’s done that. So, how is OKC making making life difficult for Joic right now? Uh he’s exhausted. I think uh they’ve played the Nuggets have played uh six games in 13 days. Um actually seven games in 13 days because a seven game series with the Clippers. They’re basically playing six and a half players at this point. The Thunder are throwing three different big men at Joic and they’re wearing him down. This is a guy who has shot 56% in the playoffs the last three years. He’s at about 45%. You see it in his free throws. He shot 90% in the playoffs last year. this year is about 75%. You can just see it. His shots are short. He isn’t getting separation. I think fatigue is playing a huge factor against the Nuggets with the Thunder being much deeper. It really showed up today and it could be a factor the rest of this series. All right. Certainly doesn’t bode well as we head into a game five back in Oklahoma Tuesday. Well, it was ugly, but the Oklahoma City Thunder, they got it done. Stephen A. Kendrick Perkins. I’m Malikica Andrews. Uh Stephen, I’m going to start with you here on the Oklahoma City side of things. You were challenging to see more from Sha Gil just Alexander and he stepped up down the stretch. It wasn’t perfect, but he did. He did step up. He hit three or seven shots. Give him credit for that. He was a presence offensively. Give him credit for that. Collectively, they played defense. They deserve a boatload of credit for that. They were on the road. They knew they couldn’t afford to go down 3-1 because you weren’t going to overcome a 3-1 deficit against Jokic Porter, you know, uh Aaron Gordon and the rest of the crew. Russell Westbrook. Let me throw him in there. and you answered the call. And not only did you do it because of SGA and your defense collectively, but you also did it because of a bench in Caruso in Wallace in Wiggins that consistent and outs scoring Denver’s bench like 35 to8 I believe that was the number. Correct. So, I’m looking at it from that standpoint and I’m saying to myself to do all of that on the road with your backs against the proverbial wall with people like me and others saying you lose this game, your season is done. And they answered the call. That what that is what potential champions and potential imminent MVPs are made of. That’s what they showed us Sunday. I’m looking at Jokic. Y’all remember we was talking about earlier about how Joic had the new the new haircut, the little booy fade. He came in because he wanted the new look, right? Because he shot 8 for 25 in game three. Okay. He wanted to bounce back. He shot 7 for 22 tonight. Like this is the third straight game that Jokic has struggled, right? And so I’m looking at it, it’s the bodies, right? You look at Jaylen Williams coming in off the bench. You got Isaiah Hardenstein uh starting and setting the tone with Chad Homegrred meeting him at the basket every time. And then you have these piranhas that are swarming every single time that he’s catching the ball. And when you look at it, he has no driving gaps. Like OKC does an excellent job from the perimeter of taking away driving gaps. That’s why you see Denver with so many wide openen threes cuz they’re going to bank. Russell Westbrook, Christian Brown, those guys are going to have to knock down threes on a at a high level. I don’t believe they could do it. Again, this was a game that was won in the trenches by Oklahoma City. I got to tip my hats off to him because SGA was cool, but he wasn’t shay butter. Well, game we have our game five here coming up on Tuesday. We will see if uh Denver can

SportsCenter reacts to what went down in a pair of NBA Playoff Game 4’s on Sunday as the Indiana Pacers blew out the Cleveland Cavaliers to take a 3-1 series lead while the Oklahoma City Thunder picks up a road win over the Denver Nuggets to tie up their series.

0:00 Cavs vs. Pacers
3:12 Kenny Atkinson on Donovan Mitchell
4:00 Brian Windhorst reacts
5:21 Thunder vs. Nuggets
7:36 SGA, Jokic & Murray postgame
8:44 Windhorst on OKC’s win
10:39 Stephen A. & Perk react

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