OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — For the Indiana Pacers, a chance at being perfect in Games 1 and 2 of these playoffs went awry.
They’ll have to settle for a mere split of the opening two games in the NBA Finals instead.
The Pacers’ bid to become the fifth team in NBA history to go 8-0 to open the four playoff rounds — sweeping Games 1 and 2 in all four series — was stopped on Sunday night by the Oklahoma City Thunder. The Thunder took control early and won Game 2 123-107, tying the championship matchup at a game apiece.
“Any time you’re the lower seed in a playoff series, you know your job is to go split or go try to get one on the road,” Pacers guard Tyrese Haliburton said. “We got Game 1, you know, but it felt like we really let the rope slip there in the second quarter.”
That they did: A 19-2 run in that second quarter put the Thunder in control — and the final margin was 16.
The Pacers were trying to join the 1986 Boston Celtics, 1987 Los Angeles Lakers, 1996 Chicago Bulls and 2017 Golden State Warriors as teams that won Games 1 and 2 in all four rounds of a single postseason. All four went on to win the NBA title.
Those teams all did it with home-court advantage in every one of those series. The Pacers haven’t had home court since Round 1 — taking the first two of that series against Milwaukee, then winning the first two of Round 2 at Cleveland, the first two of the Eastern Conference final at New York, and Game 1 of the finals in Oklahoma City.
So, in the end, the Pacers have to settle for going 7-1, tying for the fifth-best record in Games 1 and 2 in a single postseason. They also became the third team to win five of those games on the road in a playoff run.
“I think you want to win every game you play,” Pacers forward Pascal Siakam said. “So, we are not happy with how the game went today, and that’s it.”
Houston went 5-3 in Games 1 and 2 on the road on its way to the title in 1995 and Miami went 5-3 in road games over the first two games of series in 2023 on its way to the NBA Finals. (The Heat were 6-2 in “road” games in Games 1 and 2 of their series in the 2020 bubble playoffs as well, but those games were all in Lake Buena Vista, Florida.)
“I’m not interested in talking about the past,” Pacers coach Rick Carlisle said. “Each day, as you are on a playoff run, is like a new day. I find that looking back is a dangerous thing. We’ve got to keep our eye firmly where it needs to be.”
If the Pacers had won Sunday, they likely would have been overwhelming favorites heading home with a 2-0 lead. Only two teams — the 1993 Chicago Bulls and 1995 Houston Rockets — won the first two games of a finals on the road, and both went on to win the NBA title in those seasons. And teams that open the finals with a 2-0 lead go on to win the series 86.5% of the time (32 times in 37 chances).
“Keep our heads. We know where we’re at,” Pacers forward Aaron Nesmith said. “We know what we’ve got to do better and just execute our game plan better.”
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