INDIANAPOLIS — With a chance to clinch a championship, the Oklahoma City Thunder turned in a clunker of a performance.
“The way I see it is we sucked tonight,” Thunder superstar Shai Gilgeous-Alexander said after the 108-91 loss to the Indiana Pacers in Thursday’s Game 6 of the NBA Finals. “We need to learn the lessons, and we have one game for everything we worked for, and so do they. The better team Sunday will win.”
Gilgeous-Alexander and the rest of the Thunder starters will be well-rested for Sunday’s Game 7. They sat out the fourth quarter, exiting when the Pacers had a 30-point lead.
It was a particularly sloppy performance by the MVP. Gilgeous-Alexander committed eight of Oklahoma City’s 21 turnovers.
The eight turnovers were the most Gilgeous-Alexander has had in a playoff game and matched his regular-season career high. It also tied the most in a Finals game in at least 40 years, according to ESPN Research.
“Some of them I just think was carelessness and not being focused and not being engaged,” said Gilgeous-Alexander, who finished with 21 points on 7-of-15 shooting and had only two assists. “They played harder than us tonight as well, and when a team plays harder, they usually turn the other team over.”
The Pacers didn’t employ the relentless full-court pressure that they had throughout the series and still forced all those turnovers, which surprised Gilgeous-Alexander.
“From our standpoint, it was uncharacteristic,” Thunder coach Mark Daigneault said. “It was disappointing. It was collective. It wasn’t one guy. Just we were not where we needed to be on either end of the floor for much of the game. We have to be a lot better before Game 7.”
The turnovers were far from the Thunder’s only offensive issue in the series-extending loss. Oklahoma City shot 38.2% through the three quarters that the regular rotation played before Daigneault looked ahead to Game 7. That included making only 3 of 20 3-point attempts entering the fourth quarter.
“It just got sticky, I feel like,” Thunder forward Jalen Williams said, referring to the stagnant Oklahoma City offense throughout the game. “Our defense wasn’t very good. When you’re constantly taking the ball out and you’re playing against a set defense over and over again, that’s part of it. Other part, we didn’t do a good job trusting each other to make the next play like we did Game 5.”
The Thunder were outscored by 40 points during Williams’ 27 minutes, the worst plus-minus by any player in a Finals game in the play-by-play era that began in 1997-98, according to ESPN Research. He finished with 16 points on 6-of-13 shooting with 1 assist and 3 turnovers.
Gilgeous-Alexander acknowledged that the opportunity to clinch a championship — the franchise’s first since moving to Oklahoma City — was in the players’ minds as Game 6 tipped off.
“Now, we didn’t play like it at all,” Gilgeous-Alexander said. “That’s why the night went the way that it did. We got exactly what we deserved, what we earned. We have to own that.”
