Who Needs Game One of the NBA Finals More?
The NBA Finals are upon us. With the start of the championship series just hours away, both the Indiana Pacers and the Oklahoma City Thunder begin their journey to the promised land with Game One set to tip off tonight at 8:30 p.m. EST. In a series in which every game is played as if the series depends on it, which it kind of does, many will look to see who will strike first and capture the first game of the series. While both teams would surely love to start their campaign with a victory, who needs Game One more? The answer is the Pacers.
It feels like David vs Goliath, the underdog vs the favorite. The Indiana Pacers, after a chaotic series vs the Knicks, now step up to play the 68-win Oklahoma City Thunder, a team that has seemingly sailed right through the tough Western Conference, handing out blowout wins like they were going out of style. While the Pacers are a good team in their own right, I mean, they have managed to get to the NBA Finals, the Oklahoma City Thunder are a different animal. Led by the MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, the Thunder are arguably the deepest team in the league, with half their team capable of popping off for 20 points or more in any given game, not to mention their skill on the defensive end. Hailed as one of the greatest defensive teams ever, the Thunder led the league in defensive rating in the regular season, with their opponents only scoring 106.6 points per 100 possessions, whilst having somehow improved upon this metric in the NBA Playoffs, leading the league once more with a rating of 104.7. Several series removed, and people are still talking about how Alex Caruso, a guard, managed to stifle Nikola Jokic, a center and arguably the best player in the world, in their second-round series. Needless to say, even if the Thunder lose this first game, they have more than enough in their arsenal to come back and win the series in convincing fashion.
As for the Pacers, the team knows OKC has a tendency to dominate its opponents, to blow them out by vast margins, and with their defensive efficiency, they know it will be hard to score on them, and this is why it is so crucial for them to capture this first game. If the Pacers can win Game One, it will put some added pressure on the Thunder, who are, just like the Pacers, experiencing this environment for the first time. Perhaps that added pressure, plus a Game One loss, is enough to tighten their backs and make the seemingly unstoppable juggernaut flinch, even just a little bit. Against a team like OKC, falling down early in the series, knowing the opponent you’re facing, can be disheartening, making the impossible task seem even more impossible. The Pacers can’t match the Thunder man for man, they can’t match them size for size, but if they can get in their head, and put some added pressure into their minds, they may just stand a chance.
