Basketball: Hartenstein’s OKC is still missing a victory for the title in the NBA

The Oklahoma City Thunder won against the Indiana Pacers for the third time and are only a win from the title in the NBA finals. The team around Isaiah Hartenstein won a 120: 109 at home and now leads 3: 2 after Siegen. Hartenstein has the best chance of winning the championship in the NBA only second German after Dirk Nowitzki. The Würzburger won the title with the Dallas Mavericks in 2011.

Nowitzki was trained by Rick Carlisle, who is now responsible for the Pacers and almost saw a comeback of his team again. The Pacers reduced an 18-point deficit to only two in the final quarter. The Oklahoma City Thunder then got control of the game and can now make the second championship in its history perfect on Friday in the German night in Indianapolis. In the best-of-Seven series, a team needs four victories.

40 points for Jalen Williams – Haliburton only hits free throws

“This is a really good team, you don’t just stumble into the final. You just have to keep the course, even if the others have a run,” said Jalen Williams, who came for 40 points for OKC. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander posted 31 points and prepared 10 hits. The key to the enormously important victory was the strong defense after the weaker phase, in which Hartenstein also had a large part. He came to four points, eight rebounds and four templates as well as a block and a steal.

The Pacers meanwhile had to compensate for the weak yield of Tyrese Haliburton, which rejected all six attempts from the game and only collected four points through free throws. Haliburton was visibly struck. The best thrower for Indiana was Pascal Siakam with 28 points.