NBA FINALS: THUNDER VS. PACERS

June 10, 2025

Aaron Nesmith

Indiana Pacers

Practice Day

Q. Talking about the atmosphere, the city is crazy about these games. How does it feel for you playing the first Finals game at home?

AARON NESMITH: It's exciting. Honestly, I can't wait to see how rocking and loud this place is. It's going to be a special, special moment for sure.

Q. What does home court do for you?

AARON NESMITH: It's a good reset. You get to sleep in your own bed, get back to your home-game routines, kind of take a breather after being on the road for six days.

It will be good.

Q. Does the crowd push you over the top a little bit?

AARON NESMITH: Oh, yeah, yeah. Every little run, the crowd gets hyped. You get hyped with the crowd. You feed off the energy. Makes it tough for them. They got to fight against 20,000 people in here.

Q. You had no paint points in the first quarter. Improved upon that. What do they do that makes it so difficult to get into the teeth of the defense?

AARON NESMITH: They have so many talented individual defenders, if they switch on the ball. So, it's hard to get downhill.

We have to do a better job of that, getting downhill, making our presence felt from the beginning.

Q. How have you handled the mental side of the series, not getting too high or too low so far?

AARON NESMITH: Same as any other series. We've lost in the Playoffs before, won in the Playoffs before. If someone walked up to me and said, you'll be 1-1 in the Finals going back home, I think anybody in here would take that. You know what I mean?

Just having a positive attitude about the situation and understanding we have an opportunity to do something special here at home.

Q. How have Coach Carlisle and Pascal and their experience helped the rest of the guys?

AARON NESMITH: Understanding the moment. Enjoying the moment. Staying even keel. Never being too high, too low.

Q. What does the Game 1 win do for your confidence coming into this Game 3 at home?

AARON NESMITH: We did our job. We stole one. Got home court. Now we have to protect home court and do our job here, too.

Q. Does not winning a Game 3 in the playoffs so far come to your mind at all?

AARON NESMITH: No, not at all. It's another game. Just happens to be the order of it.

Q. Is there extra importance because you need to protect home court?

AARON NESMITH: Yeah, all the games are important. You want to win every game. We're going to go out with the mindset we'll win tomorrow. Hopefully we'll turn the page from that and win Game 4.

Q. Obi mentioned one of the key aspects of this team is everybody holds everybody else accountable, especially when things don't go right. What's your take on that?

AARON NESMITH: I think we do a really good job of that. I think it’s because we're so close, we just understand what's needed of us. Even in practice today, some of our practice guys went above and beyond simulating OKC defense and helping us understand the pressure and being better. I think everybody on our team does a good job pushing each other.