NBA FINALS: THUNDER VS. PACERS

June 7, 2025

Cason Wallace

Oklahoma City Thunder

Practice Day

Q. On guarding Tyrese Haliburton late in the game.

CASON WALLACE: I just wanted to make it a little difficult for him. I didn't force him either way. I feel like with the time on the clock, you know, what was going on on the floor, he made a nice shot.

Q. They have had multiple comebacks in the playoffs. Is that something that’s in your heads, to be aware of how resilient that he can be, maybe more than other teams?

CASON WALLACE: Yeah, we know that they make comebacks in every series they have played in. But we want to be a 48-minute team. That's what we told ourselves because we have seen it. We just didn’t want to let it happen to us. Just got to move on.

Q. Anything that they did that caused you guys to have trouble scoring off the turnovers, and specifically the live ball turnovers that you generally have so much success doing, or was that just a matter of you guys didn't take advantage of it and you expect it will be better in Game 2?

CASON WALLACE: Yeah, we just got to take care of it, once we get it. Capitalize on their mistakes. Yeah, we'll do better at that the next go round.

Q. Did you feel like you guys were prepared for the challenges they presented to you during the game with pace?

CASON WALLACE: Yeah, we play fast, too, I would say. We can play with more pace, and we can play that for the whole game.

Q. There's a stat out there that you guys made fewer passes in pretty much any game since that tracking data has been out there. Was the ball sticking? Were you intentionally not passing as frequently as you usually do?

CASON WALLACE: No, I mean, that was brought to our attention in our film session that we didn't move the ball how we usually do. That could have been a problem. We'll be better the next game. We won't make the same mistake twice.

Q. Which one of your teammates do you think will be a great basketball coach some day?

CASON WALLACE: Alex Caruso. I tell him that all the time. He plays the game, he thinks the game and he's also coaching the game all at the same time. He's always a few steps ahead.

Q. What did it mean for you to start, and did you have to prepare any differently?

CASON WALLACE: No, I didn't prepare any different. I was excited to start in the NBA Finals. That's a big opportunity. So I got ready the same way as I usually do.

Q. What's the biggest takeaway from watching film earlier and what you guys did well that you want to carry into Game 2?

CASON WALLACE: We have to play the whole 48 minutes. We played great the first half. Had a little slippage in the second half but we've just got to stay on it.