4 keys for Thunder, Pacers as 2025 NBA Finals near. Plus, honoring ‘Inside the NBA’

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It feels apropos to just watch 30 minutes of hilarious moments from “Inside the NBA.”

Title Round Set

Pacers-Thunder finals worthy of your attention

The Pacers did to the Knicks what most teams do when leading 3-1 in a playoff series: end it before it gets to a Game 7. The Pacers started the Knicks’ summer Saturday night with a 125-108 victory in Game 6 in Indianapolis. Pascal Siakam led the way with 31 points, and Tyrese Haliburton closed strong to finish with 21 points and 13 assists. But ultimately, it was another game with the Pacers getting the Knicks to play Indiana’s brand of basketball. That will be the challenge in the NBA Finals against the Oklahoma City Thunder.

Everybody will focus on the crowds, states and markets. They do matter to a certain extent. Ratings, at some point, will be a topic of conversation. And I’m sure plenty of casual sports or basketball fans will look at Thunder-Pacers in the NBA Finals, only to decide that rewatching “Detroiters” or tuning into the Stanley Cup playoffs is a better option.

This is already an underrated NBA Finals, though. It’s a fascinating matchup between the Pacers and the Thunder. Everything the Pacers do well, the Thunder do in a better way. But that doesn’t mean the Pacers have no shot. They’re heavy underdogs for a reason, but their styles of play should align for extremely entertaining basketball. And, as the Pacers have proven for two years, underestimating them could result in a big surprise.

We’re going to continue to preview the NBA Finals leading up to Thursday’s Game 1 in OKC, but here are some initial matchup thoughts:

1. Turnovers: During this past regular season’s two-game series, the Pacers actually did a really good job of taking care of the ball. They had 11 turnovers in the first game (six-point loss) and 13 turnovers in the second matchup (21-point loss). Those are not bad numbers, especially considering what we’ve seen OKC do to teams. However, the Thunder turned it over only three times in the first game.

Winning the turnover battle, or just not getting obliterated, will be a massive key. Nobody is better in the NBA than the Thunder at forcing live-ball turnovers. Indiana can be good at it, though. The Pacers were one of the best in the league at protecting the ball, so we’ll see if OKC can counteract that with physical play.

2. Transition buckets: Speaking of forcing turnovers, that leads to a lot of transition opportunities for each team. Indiana was 12th in the NBA at points off turnovers (18.3 per game). The Thunder were first overall (21.8). Interestingly enough, the Thunder allow the lowest number of points off their turnovers, and Indiana is second-best at it. It’s not just a given that OKC will turn the Pacers over.

3. Pascal Siakam: He was the Eastern Conference finals MVP, and we had a hilariously awkward moment when it looked like Haliburton expected to win the award, as it was given out. Siakam was brilliant in that series, though, and they’re going to need him to be even better. Being just as effective against guys like Jalen Williams, Lu Dort and everybody else OKC can throw at him. Where he could end up being super effective is in transition opportunities. We saw him running out and scoring very quickly against the Knicks, even when the Pacers gave up points.

Siakam averaged 2.4 points in the first six seconds of the shot clock this season. Against the Knicks in the playoffs, that number was 4.8. Maybe he and the Pacers can fully test OKC’s transition defense.

4. Can OKC give Haliburton the Anthony Edwards treatment? We saw the Thunder cut off every driving lane and area of space from Anthony Edwards last round. Is that something they can do against Haliburton, as well, in scheming this Pacers offense? That’ll be the big question for Thunder coach Mark Daigneault. If Haliburton is taken out of the game, the Pacers will be in trouble. If he’s able to remain effective as a playmaker, maybe we’ll get a series.

The Last 24

Haliburton trolls Knicks, city of New York

🏀 New foe dropped. The Knicks have a brand new villain in the mix: Tyrese Haliburton is here.

📲 Speaking of … Haliburton tweeted out a highlight reel from the series with one message. “I run New York.”

🏀 In good company. Jason Jones breaks down how Haliburton joined a distinct class of postseason Knicks slayers.

🤕 Injury absence. An ankle injury will sideline Pacers forward Jarace Walker for Games 1 & 2 of the NBA Finals.

💸 Who’s gone? Danny Leroux examines whom the Celtics might trade away this summer. Will it be Jrue Holiday or Kristaps Porziņģis?

🗽 Never recovered. The Knicks will think about a crucial missed opportunity all year: blowing that Game 1 lead against the Pacers.

📰 Serious allegations. Zion Williamson has been accused of rape in a lawsuit. He denies the claims.

🎧 Tuning in. Today’s “NBA Daily” discusses what the Knicks must do to improve on this season’s conference finals run.

An Era Ends

NBA on TNT gone for now, hopefully not forever

I’m a 43-year-old basketball nerd, and for most of my life, TNT has broadcasted NBA games. And, for most of my life, they’ve been the gold standard for doing just that. Other broadcast partners came and went for the NBA, but TNT always got it right. Ernie Johnson was the ultimate point guard, and, as they added Kenny Smith and then Charles Barkley and eventually Shaquille O’Neal, it rounded into the greatest sports programming ever.

Other networks desperately wondered how to replicate it. You see soccer shows finding their groove in their own way with being their own version of “Inside the NBA,” but it’s the basketball show that nobody can ever allow themselves to emulate. Chemistry cannot be forced. It cannot be bought. It cannot be faked. The chemistry on this show has been through the roof the entire time.

One thing I’ve always said basketball podcasts should do is make people feel like their friends are talking to them. Listening through headphones is an intimate process, and it creates a connection between the listener and the podcast. Somehow, “Inside the NBA” created that through the television. You felt like you were watching your friends have fun and goof around about the NBA.

While other pregame and halftime shows are speaking in halted, quick sound bytes at the other people on the panel and rarely at the audience at home, “Inside the NBA” spoke with each other and with the audience. It gave itself room to make moments, rather than trying to recreate corny sports talk radio from the ‘90s and put it on television. They’d break any rule necessary if it meant keeping a good segment going.

One of my favorite moments is them dancing around James Harden trade rumors during the All-Star player draft, as Kevin Durant ended up picking Rudy Gobert over Harden. It was art, and something other shows wouldn’t have been able to create. We know “Inside the NBA” isn’t going away; it’s just that the NBA on TNT is done. Thankfully, “Inside the NBA” is sticking around as a licensed product on ESPN. Hopefully, it won’t have lost any of its luster or energy in this new manner of existing.

Because as we’ve learned, there is no replicating what they do. Almost everybody else fails at trying to do so. Regardless, watching the NBA on TNT for decades helped grow the love of the game for myself and countless others. 🫡

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Lay of the Land

Can Knicks afford to remain consistent?

Now that the Knicks have been eliminated from their most successful season in 25 years, what do they do this summer? In a tremendous obituary for their 2024-25 campaign, James Edwards III and Fred Katz outlined the good and the bad of this season. It’s hard to ignore three things from this Knicks season. Let’s quickly go through each one, and we’ll circle back leading up to the start of free agency with the Knicks and several key teams in greater detail.

1) The depth issue. I don’t want to belabor the minutes issue with coach Tom Thibodeau because that’s been done to death. But he did seem to discover the importance of playing a bit deeper into his bench in the series against the Pacers when he started giving Delon Wright and Landry Shamet some run – even a little bit for Precious Achiuwa too. This should hopefully inform attempts to round out the bench with maybe another outside shooter or big man too, if possible.

This is all assuming team owner James Dolan doesn’t overreact and fire Thibodeau for losing to Indiana, despite making the Eastern Conference finals.

2) The defensive concerns. A telling part of the obit from JE3 and Katz was the concern regarding Karl-Anthony Towns’ defensive process, from players and coaches. These two lines were what stood out the most to me in that:

“Too often, Towns executed incorrect coverages without communicating why he did it. After it became a theme, players worried Towns didn’t grasp the importance of the matter.”

This was a similar problem with Towns in Minnesota under Thibodeau and other coaches too. Moving Mitchell Robinson into the lineup with him in the Pacers series was a good move, but that seemed to hinder some effectiveness with Josh Hart. It also is very matchup dependent. The Knicks were pretty mediocre defensively at times and need to figure out a better balance with Towns in the mix.

3) The Towns-Jalen Brunson two-man game. This doesn’t need to look like John Stockton and Karl Malone in the ‘90s. But it felt like even when both had big games on the same night, they were independent of each other. As was noted in the article, Brunson assisted on five Towns buckets in the entire ECF. That’s just unfathomable for two scorers that should play well off each other. The Knicks have to find a way to create better chemistry with that to create an impossible offensive set for defenses to defend. It will require much better screen-setting by Towns, better vision by Brunson and a commitment by the entire team to make it work. But it should be lethal.

Here’s how their summer situation looks.

Knicks (51-31, third in the East)

• Draft pick situation: Their pick (26th) belongs to Brooklyn from the Mikal Bridges trade. They forfeit their second-round pick (56th) from the Jalen Brunson tampering, but do have Memphis’ pick (50th).
• Upcoming free agents: Precious Achiuwa, Cameron Payne, Delon Wright, Landry Shamet, Ariel Hukporti ($1.9m team option), PJ Tucker ($3.4m team option)
• Main guys: Brunson, Towns, Bridges, OG Anunoby
• Any cap room? Not even close.
• Do they have to worry about any tax aprons? They are currently projected to be in the first apron, and will be up against going into the second apron.
• What do they need this summer? Will they keep Thibodeau as their coach? Can they add depth to help him play more players?

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(Photo: Alonzo Adams / USA Today Network via Imagn Images)

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