INDIANAPOLIS — The last time the Oklahoma City Thunder had any level of control in Game 3 of an NBA Finals that was suddenly trending against them, they were up 95-91 with 8:45 left and had just forced a missed layup that probably should’ve ended in a defensive rebound.
But Chet Holmgren couldn’t grab it in a crowd, Lu Dort accidentally helped tap it over to Andrew Nembhard and Nembhard immediately hit a 16-footer.
But that wasn’t the most deflating part of the sequence. Alex Caruso grabbed the ball as it went through the net. He took one wandering step out of bounds and flung a rushed inbound in Jalen Williams’ direction. It made it about four feet before TJ McConnell, standing directly in front of Caruso, leaped up to steal it and then dropped in a layup.
A defensive rebound would have meant a four-point lead and possession. But within five seconds, Wednesday’s game was instead tied, beginning a fourth quarter snowball that would end in a 116-107 Pacers win and a 2-1 series hole for the Thunder.
Had that McConnell leaping steal been an outlier, it wouldn’t have been such a postgame talking point. That egregious of an inbound error happens occasionally — maybe a handful of times per season to any given team.
But the Thunder were victimized three separate times in Game 3 by the same player on the same type of sneaky steal most often seen in youth basketball.
“Sucked,” Williams said. “Bad, unforced turnovers.”
This game flipped to open the second quarter. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander took his first rest of the night with the Thunder leading 32-24 after 12 minutes. He’d return three minutes later with the Thunder down 37-36.
McConnell was the spark plug of that minus-nine stretch. It included two of his three inbound steals. The first came to open the quarter. McConnell set up Pascal Siakam for a layup, baited Cason Wallace into an interception and then pinged an offensive rebound over to Bennedict Mathurin for a layup — again creating four points in a flash.
“I call them pick-sixes,” Caruso said. “It’s a live-ball turnover in your third of the court and they score. It can add up to eight, 10, 12 points, which might be the difference in the game.”
The second of McConnell’s inbound steals came a couple of minutes later while Gilgeous-Alexander was still on his brief but detrimental rest. He found Aaron Nesmith for a layup and again jumped the passing lane and ripped an unaware Williams before he could gain control of Wallace’s pass, throwing it off Wallace out of bounds to generate an extra possession that charged up the arena.
“Those plays hurt,” Gilgeous-Alexander said. “Because they’re very controllable. You can take your time. You make mistakes in basketball, no matter the stage. We definitely had opportunities to cover those things up. But you also don’t let plays like that happen. It just goes back to being tighter, being more focused, being more forceful all night. Things like that really hurt.”
The Thunder only averaged 11.7 turnovers this season, the fewest of all 30 NBA teams. They’re only averaging 12.0 in the playoffs, third-fewest among the 16 qualifying teams. They terrorize your offense, but also succeed because of their ball security, beginning with Gilgeous-Alexander, who only averaged 2.4 turnovers this season, fewest among the NBA’s top-14 scorers.
But that was a major problem in Game 3. Their offense was careless and scattered. Those three McConnell inbound steals counted for three of the Thunder’s 19 turnovers. In their previous 18 playoff games, they never committed more than 16.
Gilgeous-Alexander had six of those 19 turnovers, more than he’d committed in a game since December. That included the detrimental “pick-six” type, as Caruso mentioned, a live-ball giveaway that gifts the other team two points and revs up the crowd. Here is the worst of the night from Gilgeous-Alexander.
Thunder coach Mark Daigneault was asked postgame whether those live-ball turnovers, particularly the McConnell inbound steals, were inexcusable.
“In terms of inexcusable, everybody is out there competing and trying,” Daigneault said. “I’m not going to place blame on those plays. I just thought their overall tone was better than ours for the majority of the game. I thought we had some really good stretches, but we just made one too many mistakes and had one too many possessions on both ends of the floor where they were more tied to their identity than we were. Obviously, those (turnovers) are costly plays.”
The Thunder gave up 40 second-quarter points and didn’t force a turnover in the 12 minutes. Their bench was outscored 49-18. After a strong third quarter, they were outscored 32-18 in a fateful fourth when their offense came to a halt and their defense had too many lapses, including from Gilgeous-Alexander late, sagging too far off Nesmith and closing out too slow, leading to a dagger 3.
This all combined to deliver the Thunder their second danger point in these playoffs. Like the Nuggets series — which began with a home collapse in Game 1 and a tight Game 3 loss in Denver — they are down 2-1, staring down the barrel of a crucial Game 4 road test Friday night against a confident team and a frothing crowd.
“You’re probably just slightly more frustrated with (this 2-1 deficit),” Caruso said. “You just put in so much effort and so much into the game to not come away with a win when you have a chance, especially on the road, it definitely stings a little. That’s part of the playoffs. That’s part of the finals.”
(Photo of Shai Gilgeous-Alexander: Maddie Meyer / Getty Images)
