Thunder need Chet Holmgren, Jalen Williams to outplay their experience in NBA Finals

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OKLAHOMA CITY – Chet Holmgren and Jalen Williams were both drafted by the Oklahoma City Thunder during the 2022 NBA lottery. They are one year apart in age (Williams has him beat by 13 months) and are, arguably, the second- and third-most important players for their team.

And neither played particularly well in Game 1 of the NBA Finals against the Indiana Pacers, which needs to change if the Thunder are to regain the upper hand in this series.

“I don’t think anybody played their best game,” Thunder coach Mark Daigneault countered on Saturday.

Game 2 is Sunday at 8 p.m.

The Thunder blew a 15-point lead in the fourth quarter Thursday and lost, 111-110, to the Pacers on Tyrese Haliburton’s game-winning shot with 0.3 seconds left. Throw in the 25 turnovers Oklahoma City forced, and then realize the Thunder still lost, and yes, of course, the blame could spread far and wide.

Somewhere in that expansive fault net, it’s easy to spot two ugly stat lines – one from Holmgren and the other from Williams.

In 23 minutes, Holmgren scored just six points and collected six rebounds. He shot 2 of 9 from the field and was the Thunder’s only big on the floor at the start of the first and second halves because of a lineup change. In the end, the Pacers, a traditionally mediocre team on the glass, won the rebound battle 56-39.

Williams, meanwhile, needed 19 shots to score 17 points in 36 minutes. He added six assists and four rebounds, but Pascal Siakam, the Pacers’ forward opposite Williams, scored a team-high 19 points with 10 rebounds.

The Siakam comparison is germane because, in 2019, Siakam was where Williams and Holmgren are now — an important role player in his third year for a team, the Toronto Raptors, in the finals.

Daigneault highlighted Holmgren and Williams’ lack of experience for this stage when speaking about their Game 1 struggles.

“They have carved out huge roles on our team — they are a huge reason why we’re here,” Daigneault said. “They are in an uncommon position for third-year players. These are guys that are in their third year. Usually, delivering in the finals is not on the curriculum for third-year players, you know, and they have thrust themselves into that situation, which is a credit to them.

“And now that they are here, they have to continue to do what they have done all the way through the playoffs, which is go out there, fully compete, learn the lessons, and apply it forward. And they have done a great job of that. I think you’ve seen that over the course of the playoffs. They haven’t always played their best game, but they always get themselves ready to play the next one.”

Williams made his first All-Star and All-NBA teams this season after averaging 21.6 points with about five rebounds and five assists per game. He hasn’t been as accurate a shooter in the playoffs, with dips in his field goal percentage (down from 48 percent to 44.8 percent) and his 3-point percentage (just 31.5 percent now versus 36.5 percent in the regular season). He’s had a couple of real stinkers in the playoffs and has made less than 35 percent of his shots in five different games. The Thunder have lost four of them.

“I try and think of myself as somebody that’s very uncommon,” Williams said Saturday after the Thunder’s practice, when asked about the experience factor. “I don’t ever think that I’m in my third year because then that allows me to make excuses. I should just go out there and play. Pressure is a privilege. So I enjoy being counted on and doing that, and I just think I’ve been counted on since, I feel like, last year, to be totally honest, just in regard to being there for the rest of the guys. And now we’re here in the finals.”

Williams driving on Aaron Nesmith during Game 1. (Photo: Matthew Stockman / Getty Images)

Holmgren does not have nearly the on-court experience Williams has. Holmgren didn’t play in his first pro season due to a foot injury suffered shortly after being drafted. He played all 82 regular-season games last year and was runner-up for NBA Rookie of the Year, but this year, he played just 32 games because of a broken pelvis suffered in November.

He averaged 15 points and eight rebounds during his abbreviated 2024-25 campaign, and in the playoffs, he has given the Thunder slightly higher production in most categories. But for the first time this postseason, the Thunder didn’t start fellow 7-footer Isaiah Hartenstein next to Holmgren in Game 1, opting instead to start guard Cason Wallace and slide Williams and Luguentz Dort over a spot. What ensued was arguably Holmgren’s worst performance in the playoffs.

“At the end of the day, us as players, our responsibility is to be ready to execute no matter what the coaches ask us to do out there,” Holmgren said. “In Game 1, that was to play more single big. Whether the coaches ask us to do that or ask the team to go small or ask the team to go double big, we have to be ready to do that and execute it, and that’s what we have to focus on.

“Above everything else, (I just need to worry) more about impacting the game in all of the facets and just try to let that take care of itself,” Holmgren also said. “If you just focus on that, you’re going to start putting a lot more pressure on that and you’re not going to be focused on everything else that’s important, too.”

The Thunder are the second-youngest team to ever reach the NBA Finals, so whether it was Williams or Holmgren or someone else, Oklahoma City players who haven’t been in the league long were bound to be counted on. They all play behind Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, the league MVP, who scored 38 points in Game 1 but missed a bunch of shots from close range he usually makes, including one before Haliburton’s game-winner that would have put the Thunder ahead by three.

When Siakam was a third-year pro winning the finals with the Raptors, he could look up to and learn from Kawhi Leonard, who had already won a championship, and Kyle Lowry, a multi-time All-Star. Siakam put up huge numbers in Toronto during the 2019 playoffs, comparable to and in some cases better than what he’s done for the Pacers this spring.

But Siakam has more responsibility in Indianapolis now and can speak to what Holmgren and Williams are dealing with in Oklahoma City.

“At that time, I was really — I won’t want to say naive, but you go into it thinking, it’s Year 3 for me, we always had good teams and we always won,” Siakam said. “It just felt normal, like this is how it’s supposed to be. That’s how it felt for me at that time. I think for me now coming back, I have a little bit more appreciation for it just because of the journey and like on understanding how hard it is, and how difficult it is to get to this level and to this point.”

When Daigneault made his point about Holmgren and Williams, fans should know he was responding specifically to a question about Holmgren. He added Williams to the discussion to further illustrate the responsibility the Thunder have placed on two third-year players. Diagneault finished his answer, because, again, he was supposed to be talking about Holmgren, with “the last guy I’m worried about is Chet.”

The Pacers, meanwhile, are worried about him, and about Williams, and about Gilgeous-Alexander for Game 2.

“We don’t want Shai getting 38 points if we can avoid it,” Indiana coach Rick Carlisle said. “We have to make it hard on him. Look, everybody’s pattern after a loss is to come more aggressively. So he’s going to be more aggressive. Williams is going to be more aggressive. Chet is going to be more aggressive. Their whole team is going to be even more aggressive defensively.

“The challenge for us is to be able to match that.”

(Top photo: Matthew Stockman / Getty Images)

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