NBA FINALS: THUNDER VS. PACERS

June 7, 2025

Obi Toppin

Indiana Pacers

Practice Day

Q. This is a dream come true for a player to get to this stage and to be in the moment and also enjoy it and realize that this doesn't come around that often.

OBI TOPPIN: Yeah, like you said, we're just enjoying the moment. We only had one game so far, so we got a lot more to come. We enjoyed the game, but it's a new day now and we are going to learn and get better from that first game and get on to Game 2.

Q. The cliche is to treat it like any other game. But this isn't like any other other game, with all these folks out here. There's hype, and you guys have to feel that?

OBI TOPPIN: Yeah, for sure there's hype, like you said. There's a lot of media around. But other than that, it does feel like a regular game. We want to approach it that way and just be ourselves.

Q. How was it playing against the Knicks in the Conference Finals?

OBI TOPPIN: It was fun. Obviously I'm from New York. I grew up a Knicks fan. To have that opportunity to play them and beat them in the Eastern Conference Finals, it was fun. To have my family, my kids, my fiancée, we definitely enjoyed that moment.

Q. You guys have been really good in Game 2s so far. What is it about this team that it's able to maintain success when there are so many adjustments in these two games?

OBI TOPPIN: Great coaches, great leaders. They keep us on track. Obviously Pascal has been in the Finals before. Pascal won the Finals as well. Coach has been in the Finals and won the Finals. We have great leaders around us who have been in these moments and know what it takes to win. We all just follow along and listen to what they got to say and just keep going.

Q. How important has Pascal's input been in this run?

OBI TOPPIN: It's been extremely important. He's done it most recent, with the Raptors, getting that ring. Every single day he is always throwing us things that we should have in the back of our mind about how it's going to go and what's going to happen. We are all like a sponge and taking in everything they are saying and just getting better.

Q. What's your favorite thing about playing with Pascal?

OBI TOPPIN: It's extremely fun playing with Pascal. But it's extremely fun playing with everybody on this team. Everybody enjoys playing with each other and we love each other. As y'all can see, we have a lot of fun and enjoy playing this game. We are just going to continue that.

Q. What is the mission against Shai, does it mostly fall, at least first and foremost, to Andrew?

OBI TOPPIN: Nothing falls to just one player. Obviously Shai is a great player. He obviously won MVP. It's a team collective thing that we got to understand, and I feel like we do understand that.

We understand the amount of pressure he puts on teams, and as a team we just got to be able to stop that and stop the other guys as well.