The hero behind the 0.3-second kill! The Pacers hidden defense gate locks the MVP

The Indiana Pacers await the final ruling of a bunch of NBA playback centers, discussing how to play offensively once they get the ball back from the Oklahoma City Thunder, whether one point behind or three points.

They did not discuss how to plan to stop Alexander, the NBA MVP, who has scored 38 points in his first NBA Finals at the moment, and maybe they don't need to discuss it at all.

Finally, the NBA Replay Center rejected the Pacers' challenge, which believed that the ball either ended up touching the Thunder player before it was out of bounds, or Thunder guard Carson Wallace fouled Pascal Siakam before it was out of bounds. However, the Pacers remained calmly preventing Alexander from rushing the rim.

Drew defended him.

For those who are not familiar with the Pacers, Drew is Andrew Nembhard.

"I have the highest confidence in him," Halliburton commented on Nembhard after the Pacers escaped again - winning 111-110, their seventh out of nine away games this season. Admittedly, Halliburton's quasi-final win in the first 0.3 seconds of the final game - this is his fourth time in the playoffs this year - in the last two seconds - won the team's first game. But Nembhard saved the game, just like a great goalkeeper in the Stanley Cup playoffs made a god-level save.

Nembhard is the embodiment of this team. No one cares who scores, when or how. Some nights, Aaron Nesmith opened fire in Madison Square Garden; some nights, Siakam looked like the top 10 players in the league; and Halliburton, at this moment, is the best finisher on Earth. The ball will always find players who are in an open position and feel hot.

However, they care very much about who will defend. And Nembhard has been one of the best ball-holders in the league for most of the past two seasons.

"He is our ace," Halliburton said. "He is our ace. He was our ace all season. Without that 65-game rule, he was definitely the best defensive team. We have the most confidence in him. Shay is the hardest player in the NBA to defend. He is the hardest person in the NBA to limit in one-on-one. So we can't design a defensive strategy for him that works every time. We trust Drew in that situation. We provide assistance as possible, but he has taken on a lot of dirty work. He has been doing these dirty work for years. It's his business card in the league. And he's an elite defender."

On Thursday night, the SGA faced many different defenders, which was common for players with amazing skills like him. He met some Nesmith's defense, some Halliburton's defense, and some Siakam's defense. But at a time when the game is at risk — unbelievably, the Pacers made a series of mistakes in over 47 minutes, with a total of 24 cumulatives — Rick Carlisle chose his 25-year-old defender Nembhard as his designated finisher, just as he has done since putting Nembhard and Nemshas into the starting lineup on the second day of Christmas 2023 with Halliburton and Miles Turner.

There were no double-teams, and Indiana did not double-team Alexander most of the night. Many times, only Nembhard defends alone, this SGA teammate in the Canadian national basketball team. Yes, they have known each other since childhood and competed on the same field.

But…never competed in the trough of Larry O'Brien.

Nesmith stands near the free throw line and is ready to assist in defense at any time if the SGA tries to break to the right. But he did not directly participate in the pincer attack, and Nembhard fought alone.

Alexander broke through to the left, trying to pass Nembhard in one step. But Nembhard held the shock with his chest, forcing SGA to stop. Alexander turned right, which was his usual trick throughout the season, which allowed him to easily make a foul and stand on the free throw line. But Nembhard once again held him hard and reached for a 15-foot back jump shot as SGA tried. He often scored such goals, and he missed it on Thursday. Nesmith blocked the Thunder’s Lou Dort – who ravaged the Pacers on the offensive rebound all night – and grabbed the rebound.

Less than 10 seconds later, Halliburton, the "King of the Lost Killer" hit his fourth playoff win goal when the clock showed less than two seconds. He attracted almost all the attention after the game, and most media waited for him for half an hour before the post-match press conference. By contrast, Nembhard walked out of the Pacers' locker room in about three minutes and answered only a few questions.

"I don't know how many points I was behind at the time, but we felt we were very close to the victory, really," he told reporters after the game.

It doesn't matter, his performance says it all.

"If there is someone we want to mark (opposite ace) in the last defense, it is Drew," Pacers guard T.J. McConnell said.

This is Nembhard's last defense on this extraordinary night. He also scored 8 of his 14 points in the fourth quarter, including a key three-pointer against Alexander in 1 minute and 59 seconds before the final game, chasing the score to 108-105. In the final stage of the game, he held the ball as many times as Halliburton and assisted Turner in the middle of the fourth quarter to hit a slightly hasty three-pointer. He was one of the biggest contributors to the Pacers being able to catch up with 15 points behind in the fourth quarter.

"He made a key performance on both ends of the offense and defense," Carlisle said. "That successful defense against SGA at the last moment was a key performance, and we grabbed the rebound. And that three-pointer was the key goal to boost morale... many key performances. Against Oklahoma City, you have to have players who can create opportunities. Their defense is really hard to deal with. ”

The Thunders achieved a 68-14 record in the regular season, tied for the sixth-best regular season record in NBA history with the Boston Celtics in 1972-73. Of the five teams that had better than the Thunder and the Celtics in a single season in history, four of them eventually won the championship. There is a reason why the Thunder are the absolute favorite of this finals. This is just the first game of seven four-wins.

But Indiana never seems to care about that. Even if the first half was awful, the Pacers did not back down. The audience at the Paycom Center Arena were all night long. Making deafening noise. The Thunder's defense played at their level throughout the season - their defense was one of the best in NBA history. And the Pacers didn't completely stop Alexander. He still scored 38 points. But he used 30 shots to get it. He missed some open shots. But after he used his seemingly endless offensive skills, he also got fewer open shots than usual.

And, as the game was hanging on the line, Drew defended him. In the end, the Pacers laughed to the end.

(text/Kong Yang)