Chet Holmgren has well and truly put a shaky Game 1 behind him, with the Thunder big man scoring 13 points in the first quarter alone as Oklahoma City took a 32-24 lead against the Indiana Pacers in Game 3.
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Holmgren had just six points in the series opener but responded with a strong start to Game 2 and carried that on the road to Indiana, making five field goals and getting to the line three times.
Holmgren’s 13 points were the most he had scored in a first quarter all year and he was finding multiple ways to score – whether it was the hook shot early, a midrange floater or aggressively driving to the rim to draw a foul.
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Thursday June 12th
“He’s just scratching the surface… he’s got a chance to be a special player for a long time,” Kevin Harlan said in commentary.
Meanwhile, the Pacers made a concerted effort early to get Pascal Siakam matched up on Oklahoma City’s smaller players, switching him onto Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Cason Wallace with success.
They followed a similar approach in Game 1 and as was the case then, it resulted in early points for Siakam, who made three field goals in the first four minutes on Thursday.
And if you wanted an idea of why Indiana was hunting those mismatches, you just had to see the way Chet Holmgren used his length to disrupt what would have otherwise been an easy transition dunk for Siakam against most other defenders.
Siakam’s early success did come at the expense of Tyrese Haliburton getting involved and showing the kind of aggression that his critics were calling for after an underwhelming second game of the series, with the Pacers guard taking six minutes to record his first field goal attempt.
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A switched on Holmgren helped Oklahoma City to a 15-6 lead before Indiana called its first timeout of the game.
Holmgren picked up where he left off when play resumed by earning another pair of free throws before making a dunk off an Alex Caruso dunk to put the Thunder further ahead 19-10.
But then Haliburton started to come to life, getting a floater to fall before pouncing on a poor Jalen Williams pass and finding Obi Toppin in transition to force the Thunder into calling their first timeout.
Haliburton later pulled up for a 3-pointer with no hesitation as Indiana closed the gap to 22-20, but Oklahoma City took a 32-24 buffer into the second with Lu Dort on fire from deep (3-for-3).
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