Will the Oklahoma City Thunder solve Game 1 issues⁉️🤔 + Game 2 PREDICTIONS 👀| SportsCenter

Will the Oklahoma City Thunder solve Game 1 issues⁉️🤔 + Game 2 PREDICTIONS 👀| SportsCenter

the patience with a chance to win it Coach trust us in those moments to not call timeouts Trust me in those moments Just trying to make a play Hallebertton driving Pulls off Jump shot It’s good He’s not afraid of the moment He is the moment And Indiana takes game one We never think the game is over Ever We keep believing Keep believing and we stay together Yeah we’ve seen that movie before I bet Knicks fans are having PTSD right now Here is why the Thunder really need to avoid going down 20 37 times the team has trailed 2- 0 in the NBA finals Only five times they’ve come back to win it Most recently the Bucks in 2021 against the Suns Uh the good news for OKC they are 4-0 this postseason off a loss winning by an average of 21 points That’s just the way this this playoffs has gone right I mean they could blow them out by 40 I mean you just don’t know Uh joining us is Quinton Richardson also Anscape senior writer David Dennis Jr So Q uh let’s start with you You’ve seen all the history obviously and we’ve seen again and again what the Pacers can do Uh you have your Q tips What does OKC need to correct tonight Yeah Hannah first I want to start with Jaylen Williams Man Jaylen Jaylen is the team He’s the other all-star on the team He needs to be far better than he was offensively We need him to be more aggressive We need him to put more of an imprint on the game on the game and and he needs to leave his mark He also is second team all defense but we need to see a better Jaylen Williams on offense and defense He plays too much of a role on this team to only have the output he had He wasn’t he wasn’t the Jay Dub they needed him to be during that first game And they need him to show up in that all-star fashion and be who he has been for most of the season for them which has been their second player second best player behind SBA Secondly man we need Chad Hong We need the big fella to do something Six points six rebounds That is so far below his standard It don’t make sense He He’s one of the guys that’s a young and upcoming star in this league who I’m sure OKC and even himself expects far more from You see him right there jumping He didn’t have any trap blocking presence at the at the paint And just his finishes as you can see Miles Turner those guys had him off balance and taking a lot of awkward shots Lastly I need them to go back to their regular start lineup Man I don’t know why they they the coach Denov flinched and before any game I felt like this was the the the start line that that led them to the best record in the NBA this season and they changed it before they even played at game one and were forced to do so I felt like that that that kind of impact that Chad Hongren’s impact on the game cuz I feel like he plays better with Hardenstein in there at the big and him at the four So I want to see them get back to that and um I think tonight they go out there and get it done Q that last point is so important I think we talk a lot about when teams have long breaks and the players have a little bit of rest and how they come out in game one Coaches are susceptible a little bit to having that time off and overthinking things a little bit I think Dagno and that OKC coaching staff overthought things when they change that lineup They kind of conceded to Indiana that they could not handle with those two bigs on the court and they never even had Cadet and Hardenstein on the court together at the same time at all in game one even when there were opportunities for that And so now you look on the other side of Indiana with the Pacers and what Carile did he stuck to his guns You look at somebody like Obi Toppin who struggled so much in that first half and turned the ball over Carile stuck with him and he was able to nail some pivotal threes and that is the difference between those two The biggest advantage that Indiana has in these finals is coaching experience with Carlile and they used that in game one Yeah I mean the other thing is if you look at it they just weren’t finishing at the rim Oklahoma City So again they had a couple of days now to look at this film to make adjustments So now you get a segment We’re calling it Dennis the Menace which I really like Who’s the biggest menace the biggest disruptors tonight So it’s the two big defensive guys uh small guy Dort and Caruso and what they’re going to do defensively Those guys were all up and down the court in that first half Cause turnover They caused seven steals between the two of them in the first half none in the second half So what we saw was that they were not as aggressive They were being put in different positions and they have to be better defensively on Nimhard who had a lot of control of the ball and on Hallebertton We they were able to shut him down for the first pretty much 46 minutes of that game He’s going to come out with a lot more confidence after hitting that game-winning shot So they’re going to have to hone in even more on him especially if OKC finds themselves you know not using those bigs again in game two Those two guys are pivotal defensively Yeah when Dort was the final defender on Hi he forced him to turn the ball over three times All right let’s pick a winner Um you go first Q Hey based on how the Thunder have come back after they lose games I got I got I got the Thunder tonight winning by 15 to 20 plus Woo Okay What about you Double D I’m not going to put a point spread on it like you did You don’t I didn’t ask you to but I’m going to say that yes I’m going to go with OKC winning game two They’ve been bouncing back uh all year after a loss They had that bad loss against Denver in game one They came back and won by a million points I expect that same sort of intensity in game two Yeah listen and if they’re going to force all those turnovers they need to take advantage of it Only 11 points off all those turnovers in game one but you know you know how this playoffs has gone Who knows Q double D Thanks man It’s gonna be a good one For the first time in NBA history the Indiana Pacers lead in an NBA Finals taking game one of every series this postseason and Thursday was their third win by a single point in the playoffs as they shocked the Thunder in OKC Tyresese Hallebertton his fourth go-ahad or game time bucket in the final five seconds in these playoffs alone Senior NBA writer Brian Winhurst has been there for all of it He joins us now So Brian uh SGA put up 38 points in his NBA Finals debut third most all time but it took a high volume of shots to get there He took 30 shots So how do you view that lack of efficiency in game one Yeah he didn’t have a bad game at all Hannah but um it wasn’t really his ideal performance So during the course of the entire season he took 30 shots just three times but in two of the last three games of the playoffs he’s taken 30 shots That just shows you the volume is edging up And I also should point out that he only had three assists in game one That’s the fewest assist he’s had in any playoff game So look he’s the leading scoreer in the league He goes as the the offense goes as he goes but I think he recognizes he needs to distribute it a little bit more And if he’s going to score 38 maybe a couple more assists maybe a couple fewer shots are more ideal for the Thunder Yeah they’ve had a couple days to watch film I’m sure they’ll make adjustments and assess what they need to do better But in the meantime uh you have the Pacers leading in the finals first time in franchise history And after hitting that game one winner Tyrese Hallebertton told Pascal Seakum in the tunnel “Let’s get greedy.” Uh what more can you tell us about how the Pacers are approaching tonight Yeah that sounds like something anybody would say except for the Pacers have actually been doing this So they’re seven and0 in the first two road games of the series so far this playoffs That’s incredible especially when you consider that the the last couple series they’ve been on the road to start the playoffs If they win tonight they’ll go 2 and 0 in three consecutive series where they’ve started this the series on the road That’s only happened a few times in NBA history So how do they do that How do they get game one on the road and then back up with game two Well Tyresese Hallebertton explained yesterday that they basically have a teamwide mandate to ignore human nature Don’t think about being up 1 And more importantly don’t listen to their friends and family telling them what the history is when teams get up 200 in a series Don’t listen to ESPN and look at the stats and the graphics to say what happens when the road team wins game one and game two Forget about all that That also sounds cliche but whatever they’ve doing Hannah has been working Okay So then earmuffs Pacers for this one Uh four teams in history have gone 8-0 in games one and two in every series of the playoffs and all four won the NBA title But we don’t want to let them know that right Wendy Wendy will be back tonight on the Hoop Collective Yeah we’ll see you Wendy Enjoy the game

On SportsCenter, David Dennis Jr., Quentin Richardson and Brian Windhorst join to preview Game 2 of the 2025 NBA Finals between the Indiana Pacers and the Oklahoma City Thunder.

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