Oklahoma City (AFP) – Oklahoma City star Shai Gilgeous-Alexander said the Thunder must stick to the principles that made them the best team in the NBA regular season as they seek to bounce back from a devastating loss to Indiana in game one of the NBA Finals. The Thunder, who led the league with 68 regular-season victories, had never trailed and led by 15 early in the fourth quarter of the championship series opener. But the tenacious Pacers rallied and seized the 111-110 victory on Tyrese Haliburton’s pull-up basket with three-tenths of a second remaining.
“As much as we can, we just got to treat it like every other game, every other situation we’ve been in,” Gilgeous-Alexander said. “Yes, we haven’t been in this situation (in the Finals), but that doesn’t mean our character has to change, or what we did last time. It’s still basketball, the game of basketball we grew up playing. The rules don’t change because we’re in the Finals.”
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After Indiana pulled within one with 48.6 seconds remaining, Gilgeous-Alexander — the 26-year-old Canadian who supplanted Denver star Nikola Jokic as the NBA Most Valuable Player this season — had a chance to put the Thunder ahead by three, but his fadeaway shot attempt didn’t fall, leaving the door open for Haliburton’s heroics. “I thought I got a pretty good look, felt good, didn’t go in,” he said. “Then they got a look, and it went in. Can’t do anything about it now. Just got to be better for next game.”
Thursday’s outcome recalled the opening game of the Western Conference semi-finals, when Denver’s Aaron Gordon drained a last-gasp three-pointer to lift the Nuggets to a 121-119 victory over the Thunder. Oklahoma City went on to beat the Nuggets in seven games, and Gilgeous-Alexander said it would be no harder to bounce back after another narrow defeat. “Me personally, how you lose doesn’t really matter,” he said. “Obviously it sucks, last-second shot, the energy in the arena and stuff like that. But we lost at the end of the day. We lost game one. We’ve lost game one before. The series isn’t first to one, it’s first to four.”
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