Speaker 1: On this episode of The Heat Check. Oh, God damn it, Pacers,
Speaker 1: God damn it, Pacers. We've got a lot to talk about, y'all,
Speaker 1: and the chat a lot to get to. It's an
Speaker 1: immediate reaction extra episode on a Saturday. What up, Wyatt?
Speaker 1: Drop that motherfucker beat? That should be Rihanna. You you're
Speaker 1: listening to the Hottest, the Hottest. It'd be a podcast
Speaker 1: out here. I said what I said, it's the Heat
Speaker 1: Chick Check. Guys. What did I just watch? What did
Speaker 1: I just see? I knew it. I just felt it.
Speaker 1: I felt like, there's just no way, There's just no way.
Speaker 1: There's no way that the Pacers are gonna win three
Speaker 1: of the first four games. It was Scott Foster game,
Speaker 1: the extender pause. NBA calls him in whenever they need
Speaker 1: to stretch a series out, to stretch it out pause,
Speaker 1: and that's exactly where this series is heading. So it
Speaker 1: felt like for most of the game, Indiana had this
Speaker 1: shit sorted. The Thunder couldn't shoot a three to save
Speaker 1: their life, didn't even want to try. Shae had a
Speaker 1: very quiet first three quarters. They were staggering his minutes.
Speaker 1: Dagonall was taking him in, taking him out, took him
Speaker 1: out of the third quarter, then put them immediately back
Speaker 1: in because the Pacers took took the lead to ten,
Speaker 1: and it was like, oh my god, what are they
Speaker 1: gonna do? The Pacers had a ten point lead for
Speaker 1: most of the second half, and we're still leading one
Speaker 1: O three, one O two with two twenty three left
Speaker 1: in the game, and then Shaye hit a shot to
Speaker 1: give the Thunder their first lead of the second half,
Speaker 1: and it was just brutal. The Pacers scored two fucking
Speaker 1: points the rest of the way. Unacceptable, unacceptable. Most of
Speaker 1: the Indiana collapse is probably gonna fall on the shoulders
Speaker 1: of Ben Mathern, who absolutely the only reason he was
Speaker 1: in the game at all was because Andrew Ne Smith
Speaker 1: fouled out. So Nie Smith, gets your shit together. Mattherine
Speaker 1: went one for four from the free throw line, three points.
Speaker 1: Smiths there and committed not one but two away from
Speaker 1: the ball fouls that gave the Thunder two free throws
Speaker 1: and the ball and the ball five points and the
Speaker 1: other ones that I I just it's inexplicable. Had he
Speaker 1: made his shots not committed those two fouls, it would
Speaker 1: have been tied one O seven, one oh seven the
Speaker 1: final twenty seconds. The Matherine experiences is very similar to
Speaker 1: the current Russ o Westbrook experience, where some days Russ
Speaker 1: winds you a game and some days Russ loses you
Speaker 1: a game. An athletic monster who sometimes makes inexplicable decisions
Speaker 1: and plays just as often, and as he's making the
Speaker 1: ones to say, Wow, this guy's a fucking bucket, this
Speaker 1: guy's really good. Here are my thoughts. With three minutes
Speaker 1: and thirty four seconds left, Shay had twenty two points.
Speaker 1: I looked at the graphic on the screen and he
Speaker 1: had thirty eight, he had thirty four, he had twenty four,
Speaker 1: and at that point he had twenty two, and I said, wow,
Speaker 1: the pacers are really getting better and better out holding
Speaker 1: him down. And then he scored thirteen points in the
Speaker 1: final three and a half minutes. Crazy. He had two
Speaker 1: free throws halfway through the fourth and ended up ten
Speaker 1: for ten just inevitable. Inevitable chat was pretty good. He
Speaker 1: had a game high plus fourteen. He had fifteen rebounds.
Speaker 1: He was okay on offense. He had a couple of
Speaker 1: get into the lane layups that were big boss, like
Speaker 1: put your body into him and get into the lane.
Speaker 1: Defense was pretty solid. He had a big block on
Speaker 1: Halliburton on the perimeter. I think two of those. Alex
Speaker 1: Caruso was excellent. Bounced back from a bad Game three
Speaker 1: where he was a game worst plus minus to tie
Speaker 1: chat with the plus fourteen net rating. Had twenty points
Speaker 1: off the bench, and not just the twenty it was
Speaker 1: when he decided to score that was super meaningful. He
Speaker 1: had this one side fallaway jumper baseline that I was like, God, damn,
Speaker 1: that's a Superstar shop splash. He had an astonishing five steals.
Speaker 1: He was really fucking good. He pretty much was the
Speaker 1: reason I think that the Thunder had a chance to
Speaker 1: even come back into this game. In Game three, the
Speaker 1: Pacers bench doubled up the Thunders bench in scoring. In
Speaker 1: this game, the gap was only ten points. Here are
Speaker 1: some other stats that I think are super interesting. So
Speaker 1: last game, we saw the Pacers get get into the paint,
Speaker 1: get busy. I think they had forty eight points in
Speaker 1: the paint in this particular game, thirty six points in
Speaker 1: the paint compared to okayse He's fifty. And they had
Speaker 1: only thirty three total rebounds as opposed to Okaysee's forty
Speaker 1: three rebounds, and okayc had twelve offensive rebounds. As a whole,
Speaker 1: that's just extra points that they're going to put back
Speaker 1: on you. When you have Chet getting put backs to Hartenstein,
Speaker 1: who was pretty largely irrelevant, having put backs, it's just
Speaker 1: not gonna work. The game was very ticky, tacky towards
Speaker 1: the end. It was actually like great in the first half,
Speaker 1: and then as soon as the second half came around,
Speaker 1: it was like, hey, Scott Foster, call fucking everything. He
Speaker 1: called two flagrant one fouls two are you fucking kidding me?
Speaker 1: It was just disgusting, right Like, if you watched it,
Speaker 1: and hopefully it did, cause it was a classic, it
Speaker 1: was hard to watch. There were some touch fowls where
Speaker 1: Andrew Nei Smith had his hand on Shay's shoulder and
Speaker 1: Shay ripped through and tried to shoot just fowl merchant stuff.
Speaker 1: Siakam At at certain points in the game looked like
Speaker 1: the best player on the court. Again. He had twenty
Speaker 1: eight and five. He had five steals, he had a block,
Speaker 1: his defense was really good. He had some crucial rebounds,
Speaker 1: and he only took those fifteen shots. He was just
Speaker 1: he was a difference maker, but he only took fifteen shots.
Speaker 1: Obi Toppin could not be stopped. Ain't no stopping Obi Toppin.
Speaker 1: He had seventeen seven and one and it wasn't just
Speaker 1: like how many points he had in the third quarter.
Speaker 1: Obi Toppin had this one opportunity for a three pointer
Speaker 1: and it looked like, oh wow, Obi Toppin just doesn't
Speaker 1: have it tonight. Where Obi Toppin isn't aggressive right now,
Speaker 1: you need to take every opportunity you can against thunders defense,
Speaker 1: shotlock violation. After that, Obi Topping back to back threes
Speaker 1: and then Obi Topping big dunk, put back dunk just
Speaker 1: like he did in Game three, and then a big
Speaker 1: rebound that caused a foul that put the okac in
Speaker 1: the UH in the penalty. Then a block on Jalen
Speaker 1: Williams that causes shotclock violation, all in the span of
Speaker 1: two minutes. Like I said about Cruiser really fast, all
Speaker 1: of Cruiser's points stopped runs pretty much. It was bucket
Speaker 1: after bucket that made the game feel like it was
Speaker 1: closer for Oka. See it gave them hope. Miles Turner
Speaker 1: just disgusting, just disgusting stuff missed a hugh multiple open
Speaker 1: threes that he either missed badly or did not take that.
Speaker 1: We had one that would have tied the game. I
Speaker 1: think it was an airball. His shooting oh for six
Speaker 1: from three, three for ten was just That's why Obi
Speaker 1: Topen has to get minutes because Myles Turner is just awful.
Speaker 1: They need to figure it out. Tyrese Haliburton, I'm sure
Speaker 1: is going to get gonna get shit on again. It's
Speaker 1: up and down and up and down again for Tyrese Aliburton.
Speaker 1: What can the man do? He was okay eighteen two
Speaker 1: and seven at two steals, shot one for seven from three.
Speaker 1: He kids can't really have that. But they were figuring
Speaker 1: some things out. I'm not sure why Halliburton wanted chet
Speaker 1: on him to shoot threes. I personally don't want a
Speaker 1: seven footer on me when I want to hit threes.
Speaker 1: That's just me. Had a few crucial layups down the
Speaker 1: stretch of the game, though, and some and some crucial
Speaker 1: and one opportunities. So the game was decided one because
Speaker 1: Scott Foster was there. Number one. That's like to me,
Speaker 1: number one. The fouls were agreed. I cannot express to
Speaker 1: you how upset I was by that the Pacers were
Speaker 1: awful for them from three, but so were the Thunder
Speaker 1: as bad as the Pacers were from three. The Thunder
Speaker 1: shot seventeen percent from three three for seventeen. Wow, So
Speaker 1: that wasn't the equalizer, but because they only had thirty
Speaker 1: percent from three, much better than seventeen. They had open
Speaker 1: looks they missed, but the free throws dog. They just
Speaker 1: couldn't make the free throws down the stretch. In terms
Speaker 1: of the free throw disparity, Pacers shot twenty five for
Speaker 1: thirty three from the free throw line, and a lot
Speaker 1: of those misses were down in the fourth quarter. You
Speaker 1: just cannot have that. Just cannot have that. In some ways,
Speaker 1: I feel like the Thunder one a game where a
Speaker 1: lot of the stats show that they should have gotten
Speaker 1: blown the fuck out, which is a testament to them.
Speaker 1: Two of their starters had six or less points. Hartenstein
Speaker 1: had two, Dort had six. Dort was very physical, gotten
Speaker 1: foul trouble. The Thunder made three total free three pointers
Speaker 1: all game. Like I said, they turn over, blocks, and
Speaker 1: steels were basically even. Four of their five bench players
Speaker 1: shot at combined three for thirteen. God, they were bad.
Speaker 1: None of these are particularly good statistics. They only had
Speaker 1: ten assists in the whole game. Ten assists in the
Speaker 1: whole game. Tyrese Haliburt averages ten assists himself in the
Speaker 1: Pacers at twenty one. And yet somehow, okay, see one,
Speaker 1: how Scott Foster, Scott Foster, no shay was incredibly had
Speaker 1: nine straight points and that was pretty much. Yet those
Speaker 1: touch fowls for Scott Foster are going to really lament.
Speaker 1: Rick Carlisle was absolutely losing his mind out there. He
Speaker 1: was the touch foul on mathin grabbing Jalen Williams's wrist.
Speaker 1: Was I can express to you how baffled I was
Speaker 1: by that. It was a wildly inconsistently left game. Back
Speaker 1: to the Thunder, they become the first team in NBA
Speaker 1: history NBA Finals history, with ten or fewer assists and
Speaker 1: three or fewer threes and still win. No team since
Speaker 1: twenty twelve has won a Final game with only three threes.
Speaker 1: And they should not have won. OKAC is calling this
Speaker 1: the greatest win in OKAC history. This feels to me
Speaker 1: so much like Game four against Denver. You should not
Speaker 1: win this game, and you won it somehow. You're down
Speaker 1: with two minutes left to go, and you stretch this
Speaker 1: thing out where they got to play the foul game. Wow.
Speaker 1: OKAC has the best win percentage following a loss in
Speaker 1: NBA history. In the postseason, they're six. No, they're eighteen
Speaker 1: and two following a loss. We move on to Game
Speaker 1: five at OKAC, which I'm sure will be on fire,
Speaker 1: then Game six on Thursday and Indie, and a possible
Speaker 1: probable Game seven Sunday night in Okay. See. I need
Speaker 1: a Game seven. I do. And I have a confession.
Speaker 1: I'm rooting for these Pacers. I'm worried, but I'm rooting
Speaker 1: for him. I just like the little engine that could
Speaker 1: chugg the chigg the chill, that chill, the chigg the chill.
Speaker 1: And I really hope that Haliburton gives us magic. And
Speaker 1: I hope that the Pacers figure out a way to
Speaker 1: slow down Shake because they haven't exactly figured out a
Speaker 1: way to do that yet. And by the way, real quick,
Speaker 1: before we end this, Shae can't be an MVP and
Speaker 1: call for switches against Andrew Nemhart to get him off
Speaker 1: of you and get aaron Ne Smith on you. That's
Speaker 1: some crazy ass shit. If I'm Andrew Nemhart, I'm texting
Speaker 1: him all night. I'm in your head, buddy, I am
Speaker 1: in your head. You don't want me guarding you because
Speaker 1: I can put the buckle up on you and strap
Speaker 1: you down. And he had him frustrated. So more. Andrew
Speaker 1: Nemhart on Shae Less, Aaron Neith Smith. That's all the
Speaker 1: time that we have for this episode of The Heat.
Speaker 1: Check come back Tuesday for an all new episode, and
Speaker 1: check out the feet for past episodes and the occasional
Speaker 1: bonus emergency episode like now that came at unexpectedly like
Speaker 1: a Ben Mathuram smelt. Ben, give us, then take us away.
Speaker 1: That's all the weeks time that we have. We'll see
Speaker 1: you next time. Thank you for waking, thank you for listening.