NBA Finals Preview | In addition to relying on Halliburton, the Pacers also need surprises to stand up

On the morning of the 12th, the third game of the Pacers and the Thunder's NBA Finals will begin. Back at home, Pacers need to do several things to take the lead in the series again: First, Halliburton has to show strong offensive firepower from the beginning; Second, Siakam needs to play the inside aggressiveness in the Eastern Conference Finals; Third, Pacers need surprises to stand up. Although the Pacers were led by their opponents most of the time in the finals G1, they tenaciously reversed in the final quarter and won the victory with Halliburton's 0.3 seconds of quasi-final kill in the final game. But in G2, Halliburton's offensive performance was not ideal, and his condition was very average. He only scored 17 points in the whole game, so he could not lead the team to win. Therefore, after playing G2, many people think that Halliburton must come up with a better offensive form from the start of G3 if the Pacers want to win. In fact, Halliburton has never found a good solution to the Thunder's tight defense. In the past two seasons, every time Halliburton encounters the Thunder, his offensive shots and shooting percentage have dropped sharply. This situation continued to the finals and did not fundamentally change. Halliburton's offense is largely a weather vane for whether the Pacers can win.

Halliburton was restricted by his opponent, and Siakam, the inside, did not perform as strong as the Eastern Conference Final. Although on paper, Siakam has a natural advantage in positioning, after two games in the finals, Siakam's performance can only be said to be fair and in a proper manner, but still cannot reach the level of helping the team win. However, in the previous Eastern Conference Finals, Siakam's performance was phenomenal, which was why he defeated Halliburton by a slight advantage and won the Most Valuable Player Award in the Eastern Conference Finals. In the finals, Siakam needs to attack the basket more to better help the team. In the East Finals, the Pacers won the game, Siakam's shots were 16 or more, and the two games lost were 14 or less. In the first two games of the finals, Siakam did not make more than 15 shots, of which G2 only had 11.

Finally, if the Pacers want to defeat the powerful enemy Thunder at home, they still need surprises to stand up. In fact, in a strong dialogue, there will always be surprises, which is also an important factor in the victory or defeat. For example, Bryant in the sixth game of the Eastern Conference Finals was like Toppin in G1. In G2, the Pacers' bench players were in a complete defeat. So if the Pacers want to win in G3, they have to have one or two surprises stand out from the bench.

In addition, whether coach Carlisle changes the lineup is also an X factor. In the finals, every game is a process of counterattacking, especially when the team loses a game, they must change in the next game. Carlisle is a championship coach. He can always produce some good game effects through positive changes, which leads to the ending of weak defeating the strong. The most typical example was that he led the Mavericks to defeat the popular Heat in the finals.