“Adjustment or Elimination: How the Pacers Can Seize Game 3”
As the lights rise over Gainbridge Fieldhouse for Game 3, the Indiana Pacers stand at a quiet crossroads. Down 0-2, their season dangles by a thread. But the solution, whispered in film rooms and felt in the heavy legs of Game 2’s closing minutes, is clear: adapt—or bow out.
Oklahoma City’s daring 4-guard, 1-big lineup has turned the series into a chess match of speed versus size. Mark Daigneault’s Thunder swarm the perimeter, switch relentlessly, and force Indiana’s guards into rushed decisions. Tyrese Haliburton, Indiana’s maestro, has struggled to breathe when Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is in his jersey. But therein lies the opening.
The Pacers coaching staff knows that when SGA hits the bench—usually for five to seven minutes straddling the first and second quarters—the Thunder’s perimeter defense loses its fangs. That’s the moment. Haliburton must dominate these windows. Run the offense wide, exploit mismatches, call for high screens from Myles Turner, and carve up OKC’s second unit with mid-range jumpers and precision lobs. It worked in Game 1’s second quarter surge—a rare moment when Indiana dictated tempo.
But the Pacers can’t stop there. Pascal Siakam remains their silent sledgehammer. In Game 1, Siakam bullied OKC’s skinny guards in the paint, scored off offensive rebounds, and forced double teams. Since then, the Thunder have packed the lane and sped the game up. Siakam must reassert his will—not with fadeaways—but with punishing drives and low-block post-ups. The Pacers must slow the game, drag the Thunder into half-court wars, and pound the glass until they break.
Myles Turner, quiet thus far, cannot merely be a pick-and-pop ghost. He must punish mismatches when Chet Holmgren roams too far from the paint. Roll hard, demand the ball, and crash the boards as if the season depends on it—because now it does.
But perhaps the truest x-factor is Benedict Mathurin. The rookie’s fearless scoring has been missing in the early quarters. Game 3 demands his aggression early—not in garbage time, not in frantic fourth-quarter comebacks—but now, when OKC’s small defenders can be caught off balance. Attack the closeouts, seek the body on drives, and draw fouls to disrupt their flow. An early scoring burst could force OKC to rethink their small-ball gamble.
Indiana’s bench—Aaron Nesmith, T.J. McConnell, Obi Toppin—cannot simply “hold the line” anymore. They must attack OKC’s depth, especially when Josh Giddey and Isaiah Joe are on the floor. Fresh legs, defensive energy, transition buckets—those will bleed the Thunder’s pace and make their starters work harder upon return.
And finally, the open corner three—the shot that was there all series, flashing like a forgotten truth—must fall. The Pacers shot 36% from deep in Game 1, but have since gone cold under OKC’s pressure. The shot is there. It always was.
In the silence before the tip, the Pacers know this: control the paint, own the boards, rest Haliburton from SGA’s shadow, and unleash Mathurin early. Adapt—or face the quiet end of a season that once roared with promise.
The adjustment is possible.
But it must come now.
Let me know if you want it from a coach’s POV, a player diary entry, or as a sports column for an even more vivid flavor.
