Thunder’s Last-Minute Twist Shocks Pacers in Game 5 NBA Finals Thriller

At the beginning of the series, the question was whether the Pacers’ bench could match the Thunder’s. But, with the emergence of McConnell and Toppin (and Bennedict Mathurin, who struggled with his shot in Game 5), the Thunder will probably take the benches playing close to a draw. The Pacers still had the bench edge with McConnell’s performance, but the Thunder’s bench did enough to make the impact close. That was the difference from Game 3, when the Thunder bench had just 18 points.

With the bench playing well enough and Jalen Willaims having the best game of his career, the Thunder were able to absorb Shai Gilgeous-Alexander’s worst shooting night of the Finals. Of course, the “off” shooting night for SGA still featured 31 points on 9-of-21 shooting and 10 assists. But his brilliance has been the metronome for the Thunder this series. Now, the Thunder need just one more brilliant performance from their dominant duo to claim an NBA title.

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