JTS. Yeah. Just in time sports. Life is good.
Look. This is just a town sports. Come and get
your weekly takes. His opinion from the heart.
He can never show you fake. If you winning or
you losing, he gonna tell it to you straight.
How we talking basketball without a Jordan Brown
debate? If you got the hottest takes, you better
come and make it case. If you win a couple games,
he might even show you grace. JCS on every platform.
We grow to adaptation. Numbers going up the charts.
We create the separate. This is just the time
sports come and get your weekly takes. His opinion
from the heart, he can never show you fake. If
you winning or you losing, he gonna tell it to
you straight. This is just a time sports, come
and get your whoopie takes. He gonna tell it
to you straight. Welcome into the show. Welcome
in to the newest edition of the Justin Time Sports
Podcast. Of course, I am your owner and host,
Justin Jackson. Shout out my man B -Roy for the
intro opening song. I actually love that song,
but I don't give him enough credit, nearly as
much as I need to for that amazing song, but
he knows how I feel about it. That song is great.
He's also a huge Oklahoma City Thunder fan. I'm
recording this right after game four of the finals.
And with the series is now 2 -2, shout out to
Oklahoma City Thunder for pulling an Indiana
Pacers on the Indiana Pacers. The Pacers at one
point led the game 103 -99 with 320 left in the
fourth quarter. It finishes 111 -104. Oklahoma
City closed the game on a 12 -1 run. that ultimately
sees Indiana miss three free throws by Benedict
Matherin. I think he's had such an amazing game
three. He had probably the worst time to have
a bad free throw shooting night in game four.
Like I said, he was one for four down the stretch.
I think he was one for five in the game. He picked
a bad time, an awful time, a truly awful time
to have a bad shooting night. In which case,
he's going through it a little bit. You know,
kind of look at statistics first and then kind
of talk about what I've been seeing in the games.
Obviously, in game three was a huge win for the
Pacers. It was a game that a lot of people, I
mean, going into it, myself included, going,
Indiana's not going to win another game. They
got game one. Oklahoma City took care of business
game two. Okay, we're going to reset ourselves.
They're going to win game three, win game four,
go back to OKC and win in five. My original prediction
was OKC in five. I thought it would be 2 -0 going
into Indiana. Indiana will win game three. And
then Oklahoma City would take care of business
in four and five and the series is over. But
obviously, Indiana won game three. They handled
Oklahoma City the entire game. Never really blew
Oklahoma City out. The biggest lead so far in
this series has been Oklahoma City in game two.
However, Indiana never had a double -digit point,
never had a double -digit lead until the third
quarter of this game. But they're 2 -2. They
led for .3 seconds in game one. They led pretty
start to finish in game three. However, I'm going
to run through some numbers real quick, and then
we'll get into, like I said, what I saw, what
I'm looking at for games five and six, or what
I'm looking at for game five in particular. Start
off with Oklahoma City. They're a big three.
Of course, Chet, J -Dub, and SGA. SGA goes for
35 points, three rounds, and four assists. No,
sorry, zero assists. 35 points, three rounds,
zero assists. This is a game where I thought
Indiana did a hell of a job in making Oklahoma
City play one -on -one. I think that's something
they need to try to replicate in game five, but
we'll get into that. J -Dub with 33, seven, and
three. I'm sorry, with 27, 7, and 3 on 8 for
18. Shea shot 12 with 24. Of course, he did his
number. He shot 10 free throws, made all 10.
Congratulations to him on that. J -Dub, like
I said, 24, 7, and 3. He shot 10, 11 free throws.
He made all 11. And then Chet with 14 and 15.
Got a block and a steal in there. He went 6 -6
from the free throw line, 4 -9 from the field.
What I do notice, I'm sorry, I'm going to wait
on that. Tyrese Halliburton, 18 points, 2 rebounds,
7 assists, 5 big turnovers. He shot 7 of 15.
Miles Turner went 3 for 10. He was 12, 2 and
2. He was 0 from 6 from 3. Pascal Siakam, who's
kind of been the Indiana driving force. If Pascal
plays well, they win. He was 28 -5 with five
steals and a block, but all five of his steals
came in the first half. They kind of figured
out a way to neutralize him defensively. Benedict
Matherin, he actually shot five for eight from
the free throw line. The problem is he missed
three out of his last four. From the free -throw
line. He picked a horrible time to miss his free
-throws. Obi Topic was going for four from the
free -throw line. So, looking at the free -throw
battle itself, moving over to the team stats
here, you guys, when I look at that, Indiana
missed eight free -throws. You lose the game
by seven. I mean, if you do nothing else, you
make, you know what I'm saying, you make your
free -throws and you win this game. I also look
at, you know, I look at a certain thing, I look
at field goal opportunity. Oklahoma City shot
47 % to Indiana's 42. Three -point percentage.
Indiana shot only 30%, but Oklahoma City shot
17. Indiana was 11 of 36 from three. OKC was
three of 17. Oklahoma City shot 38 free throws.
Now, probably eight of those came when the fouling
was happening. But again, they shot 38 free throws.
Indiana shot 33. We spoke about Oklahoma City
being 14 points better from the free throw line
in terms of percentages. Oklahoma City out -rebounded
Indiana. Something we noticed big in game one.
Of course, I can talk to you guys again in two
or three, but something we noticed big in game
one was Oklahoma City played a smaller lineup.
Indiana killed them on the boards. Assists were
easily Indiana. I spoke about that. You know,
Shady didn't have an assist. If you went down
the list of Oklahoma City players, none of them
had assists, really. They only had 10 as a team.
Points conceded off turnovers were very even.
Turnovers were even, 16 apiece, 25 -23. Indiana
advantage on points off turnovers. Fassburg points
was one point different. Indiana won that. Points
in the paint. So big things I want to talk about
in this game is points in the paint. Oklahoma
City won that by 14. I want to look at rebounds.
Oklahoma City won that by 10. I want to look
at free throws. Oklahoma City won that by 9.
I want to look at... Pure field goals. Oklahoma
City made three more shots. Indiana's biggest
advantage was it was plus 24 for the three -point
line in terms of points. That is the only statistical
category in assists that they lay, which makes
sense because you're assisting a lot of those
three -point shots. Whenever you play a lot of
in -the -paint basket or you're not making a
lot of threes, your assist numbers are usually
low because those are usually drives or those
are pick -and -rolls. You know what I'm saying?
Those are usually attacks to the basket. They're
rarely dump -offs or they're offensive rebound
buckets, not really assisted baskets. And so
the fact that, you know, Indiana in the modern
NBA, you're plus 24 from the three point line.
You should win that game. I mean, the world will
tell you, oh, you're plus 24 from the three point
line. You should win that game. But I always
want to look at a player's plus minus. And I
wanted to go through that last on my statistical
breakdown because we're going to talk about the
game a little bit. And then we're going to move
into game five and kind of what I expect from
the rest of this series. But Chet Holmgren and
Alex Caruso easily had the biggest plus minuses
for the Oklahoma City Thunder. Chet and Caruso
were both plus 14. Isaiah Hartenstein was minus
seven. Dort was plus three. But J -Dub and Shea
were both zeros, which means when they were in
the game, the game was even. I mean, SGA played
40 minutes, J -Dub played 36, and they were even
minutes for both of them. They probably played
a lot together. And then you look at Harden's
time with the minus 7. And then you look at Andrew
Wiggins' plus 5. In 11 minutes, Williams, Kyron
Williams, who was on the Pelicans at one point,
was a plus 7 in just 11 minutes. You know, so
that means he was a very valuable minute to me.
They won a good bench stretch there. And then
flipping over to Indiana, your biggest plus is
always their biggest plus is Pascal Siakam. He
was plus seven. He was plus seven in 35 minutes,
which means in 13 minutes he lost by, oh, God,
14 in the other 13 minutes he went on the floor.
Andrew Nembhard was plus three. Those are the
only positive players. Oh, Halliburton is plus
one. Obi Toppin was minus 15 in 29 minutes. I
mean, that's a big number because the next person
to him is Shepard. Brendan Shepard was minus
10 in 12 minutes. That's not great. But to be
a minus 15 as a 30 -minute player, 29 -minute
player, that's big. Especially if you look at
a minus 10 number from a 12 -minute player. That
means when the game was in there, it was... It
was dark for those two on the floor. So that
is something that Indiana is going to have to
figure out. Oklahoma City went double big and
it doesn't seem to be that effective considering
that Isaiah Hardenstein was a minus seven when
he was on the floor. It definitely did not seem
that effective. It's something that I think may
end up sending Mark Dagon all back to the drawing
board. He went double big and he won. But he
went double big and it wasn't working. They kind
of won the game in spite of going double big.
So I think that's something that Mark Dagonal
is going to have to go back and maybe redraw
the drawing board or maybe start it and don't
play it long. You know, something where you still
utilize your rebounding advantage, so on and
so forth. Because there were moments there, and
I see the plus and minus, but there were moments
there in that game where Isaiah Hardenstein made
like three big plays in the second quarter, like
almost back to back to back. He had a tippet.
He had a slap. He had a slap rebound. The old
Tyson Chandler slap rebound. He had a tap rebound
out. He got an offensive rebound that set a screen
for a bucket and then came down and had a great
walling over the fan. It was like back to back
to back what he was able to do. So I think that
the double big lineup is the Oklahoma City's
best lineup. Typically, it's usually it's most
flexible because the check can shoot. Now, Chet
is going to be on, to me, hellified rehab. If
I'm the Oklahoma City Thunder, Chet's rehabbing
from now until we play the next game. Chet is
on a rehab. Chet is not doing it. From Friday
night in his local town, it's about 1048, to
Monday afternoon, which is when they play. I
mean, they play Monday night. But for Monday
afternoon, Chet is on a 24 -hour rehab. Because
he repeatedly rolled that ankle. He rolled it
against, coming down a fast break, Siakam tried
to cut him off. Siakam actually doesn't hit him
up top. Foot happens to catch Siakam footing
away by, and he rolls. And he rolled it over
about three times. He turned it over about three
times. In a regular season game, when he rolled
it over against Siakam, he's probably done for
the night. But, like, SGA told him, like, we
need you, man. Get up. Like, you know, we need
you. Like, we can't win anything without you.
So I think that's going to be something to watch
out for. I'm not sure it's going to be very,
you know, nationally media talked about. But
I do think that's going to be a huge issue. Potentially,
the fact that Chet, again, rolled his ankle over
at least three times. It rolled over repeatedly.
I mean, every time he went down, he was grabbing
at his shin ankle area. I hope for Oklahoma City.
It's not a high ankle sprain. I'm hoping it's
something that he could battle through. I'm hoping
it's something that he could, like I said, it
doesn't hold him out of the series. I don't want
the series to be changed for injury. There's
only one player injured on either side that I
know of, and it's Walker for Indiana. that's
that that he wasn't probably gonna play this
series anyway right so that's something that
you know so far this series now did both teams
get there due to injury at oklahoma city no i
think indiana yes with boston boston coming apart
physically kind of you know greased the wheels
for the entire east and then of course you know
it went down with cleveland again also kind of
greased the wheels for the entire east but The
two teams in the finals have been healthy. We've
had a lot of finals ruined over the past, not
ruined, but severely altered over the past 10
years of injuries. I mean, if you look at the
Warriors' first title, they don't play a starting
point guard the entire playoffs. You look at
Kawhi's title against Golden State, the only
player left on the team was DeMarcus Cousins
and Stephen Curry. I mean, like I said, there's
been injuries. Injuries happen in the past every
year, but there's been injuries affecting final
series at an unfortunate pace over the last couple
years. And those two jumped out at me. Warriors
with Kyrie. Warriors beating Kyrie without Kyrie
in love. And then Kawhi beating the Warriors
without Klay and KD. So, you know, pretty wild
there, but I'm glad Indiana and Oklahoma City
are healthy. So that's what I was watching out
for. In short, if you're Oklahoma City, going
into game five, that constant rehab of Chet.
He rolled it against Pascal Siakam. He rolled
it probably two more times and turned over on
him. But he's a warrior. I gained a lot of respect
for Chet because most guys' finals are not when
that ankle turns. And it turned. It rolled over
pretty good. They're tapping out, right? Like,
I'm done kind of thing. I'm out. You know, because
he had rolled over. I mean, it was a legitimate
roll. He kept battling. He kept fighting. Credit
to SGA. You know what I'm saying? Major credit
to SGA. Tonight was a night, and I don't know
when the last time he hasn't had an assist in
the game, but tonight was a night they, you can
tell, they made a concerted effort to make him
a driver. If you're going to go, you're going
to go. Because the most dangerous thing, a high
-level ball handler. can't have is options is
i'm driving down the lane and i see that help
coming from the corner and i know my corner man's
open or you know i'm driving down the lane and
in the big and the big man steps up and now my
guy's in the dunker spot like the worst thing
you can have you can give a an elite player as
options you want to make them as one dimensional
as possible so when sga was driving they were
going to make him either drive it Or kick it
all the way out. Like, reset the play. Just opposed
to driving it and kicking it for a three. Or
driving and kicking it for a dunk. Or driving
and starting to ping pong it. Like, no. You're
either going to go all the way to the rim. Or
you're going to reset the play. And I thought
Indiana did a great job of that. I think that's
a strategy they probably need to use, you know,
the rest of this series. Is we're going to make
you SGA. We're going to make you one dimensional.
You're going to be a scorer. And that's the old
LeBron rule. Remember when LeBron first broke
into the NBA, that's what a lot of people tried
to do to him. You know, when he became, you know,
when Superman had his powers and the words of
Reggie Miller, we're going to make you beat us
scoring. because the worst thing we can do is
have you kick it to Mike Miller for two threes,
and J .R. had a couple of threes, and Mario Chalmers
makes a three, and Kevin Love hits two, and Kyrie
hits three catching shoots, and it's like, now
everybody's hitting from everywhere. That's the
worst thing that can happen. SGA, it's kind of
like, no. The worst thing we can do is J -Dub
hits two to three, and Lou Dort hits two, and
Chet hits two, and you hit one or two, and now
Kaysen Wallace hits one. So now those guys who
are playing great defense, they're playing even
better defense because now they're making open
threes. And so I think that that was a smart
decision to make SGS score. To me, one person
has a limit. And it sounds kind of crazy. But
to me, one person has a point limit. Like, you
know, to me, SGA by himself is only going to
get to 40, 45 at the most, which is a lot of
points. But by himself, he's only going to get
to 40, 45. When he becomes dangerous with 80
of those assists, he's got 30 and six of his
assists, threes. So now he's got 48, 50 points
responsible for. Instead of, you know, him trying
to work and get to 40. So, I mean, that's just
decisions have to get made. I think that Rick
Carlisle is one of the better coaches in NBA
history. I don't think he gets enough credit
for it. He was actually. He was actually the
man involved with the 0 -4 Pistons. And then
he was involved with Reggie Miller's Indiana
Pacers. And then, of course, what he did with
the Mavs, with the Dirk title run year, and what
he's doing in Indiana this year. Rick Carlotta
is a hell of a basketball coach. And I think
that strategy, whether it was him or whoever
he listened to, that strategy of we're going
to make them attackers, we're going to make them
scorers, was big. This series, before I move
on to the next game, this series was supposed
to be 2 -2. It just was. Outside of the fact
that it ended up being 2 -2, it legitimately
was supposed to be 2 -2. Think about it. The
Indiana Pacers lead for .3 seconds in game one.
I mean, Oklahoma City outplayed them on the point,
on the scoreboard, the entire game. Halliburton
hits the shot. So that game is supposed to be
1 -0 Oklahoma City. Then you come back and you
win Oklahoma City. So that should have been 2
-0. You lose game three, OKC. So it should have
been 2 -1. This game, Indiana has you fairly
dead to rights. You shoot three for 17 from three.
You have a seven -point deficit entering the
fourth. You have a four -point deficit with 320
left. And you win low -key going away in regulation.
you were supposed to lose the game. So in the
end, it was supposed to be 2 -2. I mean, again,
we did all that. Both teams were supposed to
serve at home, hold serve at home, which means
we didn't have a series at all. Theo added, if
it's not a series, somebody loses at home. I
think that we got a game seven. I do. I think
the Oklahoma City is going to win game five.
And Indiana is going to scrap, claw, and beat
down the door to avoid losing it in Indiana.
And then all the chips are in the middle of the
table for game seven. All the marbles, all of
the everything is pushed right into the center
of the Oklahoma City court. Winning takes all.
Here we go for game seven of the NBA Finals.
And we'll see what chips fall where they may.
A couple of points, you know, just quickly. I
was wrong. History was wrong. No, I was wrong
in my prediction. I said, of course, he in five.
I wasn't alone in that prediction, but I will
admit I'm wrong. I will admit I was wrong. And
secondly, my historical take on the OKC Thunder
is wrong as well. I can make a case for J -Dub
being top 12. I think the easier case is for...
Shea being the best player in the world, while
I think it's Joker, you can make a case if he
wins the title with the MVP, he would have had
the best season. He also beat Joker. No, he beat
the guy who beat Joker. Regardless, Joker's out,
right? So you made the case. Indiana, if Indiana
wins, it goes into the arbitrary seasons. It
goes into... The 0 -4 Pistons. You know what
I'm saying? It goes into one of those weird years
in history. Who knows what's going to happen
these last three games. If I had to make a pick
right now, which I'm going to. I'm going to make
a pick right now. It's a best of three, and OKC
has two of the three at home. I mean, it's just
that simple. This is why the regular season matters.
It is a best of three. The second youngest team
in the finals ever is in the best of three, and
they have two of the three at home. Oklahoma
City at this point does not have to win and gain
Bridgefield House again. They just got to win
in Oklahoma City, gains five and seven, and they're
the NBA champions. And Oklahoma City's in a frenzy.
And Shea Gills Alexander's the greatest thunder
of all time. And, you know, so on and so like
that is what's at stake. Crazy part about it
is Oklahoma City wins, of course, SGA's final
MVP. If Indiana wins, it's Pascal Siakam right
now. He's leading the team in points and rebounds.
They're also leading him in assists. He's close
to him in assists. Right now, the final MVP if
Indiana wins was Pascal Siakam. With the fourth
quarter looming, I was prepared to come on and
say Indiana's up 3 -1 and the final MVP currently
is Pascal Siakam. I mean, like, Shout out Pascal.
I mean, if he ends up with two rings and a final
MVP, conversations would need to be had. Because,
no, Kawhi got two final MVPs, never mind. He
doesn't have the same postseason resume as Kawhi,
but Kawhi has two final MVPs. So that's fair.
But, like, you know, conversations at that point
would need to be had, need to be discussed. In
the event that Kawhi, not Kawhi, Pascal Siakam
ends up with a second ring and a finals MVP.
But the NBA is off for the weekend. You know,
we get to not have, there's no basketball on
Saturday or Sunday. A little weird, but it is
what it is. And then we crank up Monday night.
The YouTube show will be back very soon. But
I am excited. I'm over the moon excited for this
next game. These have been very low watch finals,
low rated finals. They've been, I mean, very,
very low rated. I'm talking like 8 .1 million
viewers. And they're always remarking, oh, it's
the lowest since COVID. It's the lowest since
before COVID. It's the lowest since before COVID.
The bubble is the only thing lower than this.
Like, you know, which I thought the bubble being
low watch was always weird. Because what else
were you doing? Outside of LeBron being in the
finals, that's what I watched. What else were
you doing during the bubble? Like, what else
were you doing during COVID besides watching?
I was feeding for live sports. I mean, that's
why the last dance did so well. Outside of being
a Jordan thing, no one had anything else to watch.
And as a Michael Jordan, things are so closely
guarded. ESPN built it up for months. It came
out early. I remember when they were saying,
like, it was so early. They were still editing
episodes, like, the night before they came out
on TV. Like, that's how, like, you know, 11th
hour and 35th minute they were with The Last
Dance. They were editing episodes the night they
came out. But anyway, this has been a lowly rated
finals to get back on topic. But it's been great
basketball. Game two was the worst game. Yeah.
Game one, you had the shot from Halliburton.
Game three, you had the Pacers -Avalanche. Game
four, you had the comeback by OKC. Like, you
know, there's been just three out of four games
have been really, really good games. Like I said,
OKC controlled games, too. They just own that
game. But it's been really, really great basketball
so far. They're battling, right? And it's kind
of been Pascal Siakam and the Pacers versus SGA
and the Thunder. I still think Oklahoma City
pull it out. I just think go seven now. My original
prediction was five. Indiana won again. They
weren't supposed to, which was game one. If they
went back to OKC 3 -1, it's over. But because
it's got to go back to Oklahoma City and it's
got to go back to Indiana, I think it's going
to be Oklahoma City in seven. I don't think game
seven is going to be close. I think they're going
to blow them out in game seven. But, of course,
we'll talk before then. Obviously, obviously,
obviously. But this is your owner and host, Justin
Jackson. That's all I have for my Game 4 reaction.
This is your host, JJ, signing out.