Pacers’ Bennedict Mathurin needs to maintain efficiency, aggression from Game 3 for Indiana to win NBA Finals

Sports

add

The Indiana Pacers hold a 2-1 series lead against the Oklahoma City Thunder in the NBA Finals, thanks in large part to a 27-point performance from Bennedict Mathurin off the bench. Mathurin was the Pacers’ leading scorer in their 116-107 win in Game 3 on Wednesday and joined some elite company in the process, becoming just the sixth player in league history with 25+ points in an NBA Finals game at age 22 or younger. The other five in that group are LeBron James, Kobe Bryant, Magic Johnson, Kawhi Leonard and Tony Parker.

It was a much-needed performance for the Pacers, who entered Game 3 without having a single player eclipse the 20-point mark so far in this series. It marked the first time since the 2013 Finals that a team didn’t have a player score at least 20 points in the first two games of the series. Mathurin wasn’t alone; Tyrese Haliburton and Pascal Siakam also scored 20+ points, but Mathurin’s production was a positive sign for an Indiana team that has been in need of some consistent scoring.

“I think he was great being aggressive,” Siakam said of Mathurin after the game. “That’s who we want him to be and when he’s aggressive, he’s active on defense. He’s picking up full court. He’s cutting. Like when he’s doing that, I mean, it looks easy out there for him. So we just want him to keep that same mindset and energy every single day and I know that, again, his minutes might be here and there. He just keeps going. That’s what we’re going to need from him.”

Over the last two games, Mathurin has really been the only consistent player for the Pacers, having scored 14 points on an efficient 4 of 7 from the floor in the Game 2 loss. But if Game 2 was the opening act, then Game 3 was the main event for Mathurin. It wasn’t just that he put up his highest point total in the playoffs, it was how he was getting his buckets. Ten of Mathurin’s 27 points came inside the paint, and another seven of them came from getting to the free-throw line. 

The points in the paint are especially notable, given the Thunder led the league in the regular season in fewest points allowed in the paint (42.5), which has only improved in the playoffs (40.6). In the first two games of the series, OKC limited Indiana to just 34 points in the paint, a far cry from the 51 points they averaged during the regular season and the 43 points they were putting up in the playoffs before facing the Thunder. But Mathurin — and by extension the rest of the Pacers roster — found the tiniest of ways to exploit OKC’s aggressive defense by initiating more off-ball movement, which allowed opportunities like this for Mathurin:

The Pacers getting into their offense quicker and not letting the Thunder get their defense set also led to easier buckets for Indiana. We’ve seen through the first two games how difficult it was for the Pacers to get anything going in their halfcourt offense, so in Game 3 it was clear that the strategy was to turn up the pace even more, try and get out ahead of OKC’s defense and get them on their heels. It worked, like on this play where Haliburton sees an unmanned Obi Toppin in open space, who then turns on the jet boosters to get downhill, and with the defense collapsing on him, Toppin manages to find a cutting Mathurin for the and-1 opportunity.

Fourteen of Mathurin’s 27 points came in the second quarter. After a first quarter in which the Pacers looked frazzled, Mathurin led the charge in the second frame to give Indiana a slim four-point lead at halftime.

“I think the way we started the game wasn’t the best, but we were able to call a timeout and pretty much execute what we usually do,” Mathurin said. “I think when we play Pacers basketball, that’s the best thing that we are going to get and the fans are going to get.”

It was a career night from Mathurin, and as soon as he stepped into the second quarter, he provided the spark plug the Pacers needed to shift the momentum back in their favor. But one shining performance won’t be enough. Indiana’s going to need Mathurin’s consistent and efficient scoring off the bench if the Pacers have a shot at pulling off what would be a massive upset in this series. 

Mathurin was aggressive in Game 3, but as we’ve already seen in this series, and throughout the postseason, the Thunder are great at responding and bouncing back. Now that Mathurin’s had a massive performance, OKC is likely going to focus in on him for the next game and make life a bit more difficult. It will be on Mathurin to show that even with added defensive attention he can still deliver.

This news was originally published on this post .