The Oklahoma City Thunder were on the ropes.
The Indiana Pacers appeared poised to move within one win of the franchise’s first NBA title.
But then Thunder star Shai Gilgeous-Alexander took over.
Gilgeous-Alexander scored 15 points in the final 4:38 to lift Oklahoma City to a 111-104 victory over the Pacers in Game 4 of the NBA Finals on Friday in Indianapolis, leveling the series.
“I just tried to be aggressive,” Gilgeous-Alexander said. “I knew what it would’ve looked like if we lost tonight. I didn’t want to go down not swinging.”
Gilgeous-Alexander finished with 35 points and three steals, while fellow All-Star Jalen Williams added 27 points.
The Thunder trailed by 10 late in the third quarter before battling back.
Four times in the fourth they tied the game, but they couldn’t break through until late.
That’s when the NBA’s Most Valuable Player began to take over.
Indiana led 103-99 with three minutes left before Gilgeous-Alexander took a feed from Williams and drained a 3-pointer — just Oklahoma City’s third of the game — to cut the deficit to one.
After Alex Caruso’s block and Williams’ rebound on the other end, Gilgeous-Alexander drove wide to the basket, pulling up from 14 feet out and hitting a step-back jumper over Aaron Nesmith to put the Thunder ahead for the first time in the second half, 104-103.
It was a lead Oklahoma City wouldn’t relinquish.
Gilgeous-Alexander wound up scoring 15 of the Thunder’s final 16 points as Oklahoma City finished the game on a 12-1 run to even the best-of-seven series.
Game 5 is scheduled for Monday in Oklahoma City.
Gilgeous-Alexander finished without an assist for the first time since 2020. He shot 12-for-24 from the field and 10-for-10 from the free-throw line, making eight foul shots during the crucial late stretch.
After recording 20 assists through the first three quarters, the Pacers had just one in the fourth.
“We just got too stagnant,” Pacers coach Rick Carlisle said. “The ball was not being advanced quickly enough, we weren’t creating problems and we were up against the clock a lot, so things got very difficult. …
“They made it very difficult.”
Indiana shot just 5-for-18 (27.8 percent) from the floor in the final 12 minutes, missing all eight of its 3-point tries.
“We just didn’t execute at the end of the game,” Pacers forward Pascal Siakam said. “We didn’t get easy shots. The easy shots that we got, we missed them. And they made them.”
The Pacers led by 10 with two minutes remaining in the third after Obi Toppin’s dunk capped Indiana’s 12-4 run and sent the home fans into a frenzy.
But then the Thunder started chipping away steadily, tying the game on Alex Caruso’s free throw just less than four minutes into the fourth after his steal from Siakam.
The teams steadily exchanged offensive blows over the next four minutes until Gilgeous-Alexander took over on offense and Indiana wilted.
“We never wavered,” Caruso said. “We never thought we were losing the game.”
Caruso finished with 20 points, reaching the mark off the bench for the second time in the series and the third time in the playoffs after not scoring 20 or more points during the regular season.
Chet Holmgren led the Thunder with 15 rebounds, one off his high in the playoffs.
The Thunder outscored Oklahoma City 31-17 in the fourth.
“We’ve just got to get more stops down the stretch,” Indiana star Tyrese Haliburton said. “Seventeen-point fourth quarter, after the offensive success we had all game, I think really shows we have to do a better job moving the ball. I think that starts with me.”
Siakam led the Pacers with 20 points and five steals — four in the first quarter. Haliburton had 18 points, and Toppin added 17 off the bench.
–Field Level Media
