NBA FINALS: THUNDER VS. PACERS

June 13, 2025

Chet Holmgren

Oklahoma City Thunder

Game 4: Postgame

Oklahoma City Thunder 111, Indiana Pacers 104

Q. You guys found yourselves down seven going into the fourth. Obviously, you can still win at 3-1 down. Talk us through the fourth and also talk a little bit about the switches you found yourself on, a lot of guards and you did a great job on those guys.

CHET HOLMGREN: We just got some big-time players that make big-time plays. I think Shai's shots were huge. Those are loud, obvious, everybody sees them. We had guys make plays that you could say were invisible, that led to a lot of good things happening for us.

That's great team effort for us right there. A great team win. We got to keep it going.

Q. More specifically the switches on Haliburton. What were you thinking in those moments and what did it take to slow him down?

CHET HOLMGREN: I mean, I had just given up two drives right before that. Just kind of trying to learn from those and play them better in those instances.

I feel like I got a good contest. He was still able to get it off. He shoots a high-arcing shot. The whole time it's in the air, a lot's going through your mind.

I'm just glad we were able to get those stops and close out the game.

Q. I'm sure your whole basketball life there's been so much focus on your height. Tonight, did you feel like your quickness impacted the game?

CHET HOLMGREN: I feel like a little bit of it was just trying to have an intention of making winning plays. And those plays were kind of what presented themselves. I found myself in situations where I had to try and get stops for us to win the game, and then also try and make winning plays for us, no matter what they look like.

If the ball bounces the other direction on some of those shots, we're not talking about that. So there's a little bit of that, too.

I guess I had a knack for being in the right spot tonight.

Q. When Mark was up here, he credited Lu Dort for setting a defensive tone in the fourth quarter. I think he called Alex Caruso a competitive monster. What did you get from them in the fourth?

CHET HOLMGREN: That's what I was talking about initially up here. We had a lot of guys make winning plays that can kind of be invisible to the untrained eye. It's not showing up necessarily in the stat sheet. It's not like a highlight that's going to be played over and over. It's not one single instance.

But Lu and all the other guys climbing up in the ball, really playing some hard-nosed defense, not only sets the tone for us and all the other guys guarding, but it also kind of sets the tone for the other team, just making things tough. That was huge for us tonight.

Q. Shai scored 15 of the last 16. Aside from just his shot-making, what stands out about his demeanor or composure in big moments?

CHET HOLMGREN: Yeah, I mean, I didn't know that, but that's crazy. That's impressive.

We've seen it before from him. We know that that's the type of player he is. But it's still impressive. That's very impressive. I'm sure that's going to be a very small category of players that he's going to put himself in or has put himself in with a finish to the game like that.

As much as I am impressed, I'm not surprised.

Q. When you guys went down 10 in the third quarter, the arena is getting really loud, probably the highest-pressure situation you guys have faced so far this season. What was going through your mind? How did you feel you were able to weather that storm?

CHET HOLMGREN: I can't speak for where everybody's mind was at. I was just kind of thinking about how to make individual plays that could put us in a better situation. Not try to get a home run or make it all happen at once.

I feel like we had some instances in the second quarter, and the intentions were right, everybody was playing super aggressive, everybody really wants it, but we were trying to hit some home runs in the second quarter, myself included. I feel like in the third quarter and fourth quarter especially we really got to what we needed to get to when we needed to get to it and it was good for us.

Q. Mark mentioned how difficult this game was. You're a team that won 68 games in the regular season. How much can you learn about your team on a night when it's not working that well and you have to dig deep?

CHET HOLMGREN: I wouldn't say we learned anything about each other. We've been in tough situations before. Every single time we've come together. That doesn't mean that we got to win the game that night when we did see adversity.

No matter what happens, good or bad, pretty or ugly, we're always going to stick together. We're going to win together, we're going to lose together, we're going to have great moments together, we're going to fail together. No matter what happens, we're going to do it together.

I don't really see that changing ever.