NBA FINALS: THUNDER VS. PACERS

June 8, 2025

Myles Turner

Indiana Pacers

Game 2: Postgame

Oklahoma City Thunder 123, Indiana Pacers 107

Q. You guys always talk about setting your tone and your pace, first half of both of these games you haven't gotten off to a great start. What can you do to establish your pace from the get-go better?

MYLES TURNER: Physicality is a big part of this series, you know what I mean. We have to establish ourselves physically just as they have done, see what's going to get called, see what's not going to get called and see how the tone, the overall tone of the game is going.

It's got to be a much better collective effort, I think, defensively. I think we did a little bit of a better job in that first half but it's got to be four quarters of sustained defense.

Q. Is the lack of activity on defense then translate to not getting out and what you normally do offensively?

MYLES TURNER: Yeah, of course. You force them to a miss, you grab the ball, get out in transition, play our best basketball. But if you have to take the ball out every single time, fouls, slows down our offense obviously. So just finding more and more ways to mix it up defensively.

Q. You've seen every defense in the world against Ty, so it's not new, maybe being done just a little bit better. How do you make them pay if they are going to commit so much ball movement and man movement to keep him out of the paint?

MYLES TURNER: I think with Tyrese, there's plenty of formulas to get him going. I don't think they will be executing well enough. There are things we went over in our game plan that we didn't execute well enough today.

We'll get them in the paint. I think we have been one of the better teams scoring in the paint all year and we have to establish that early. I think we only had four or six points in the paint in the first half and that's not Pacers basketball. When you live and die by that three or mid-range shots, it doesn't always fare well for you.

Q. Two of the things has been physicality and Tyrese. Are those two things interrelated? Can you guys be more physical offensively to spring him, play more physical without drawing offensive fouls and everything else? Is there correlation between those two things?

MYLES TURNER: It's a battle. I think that screening, there's an art to it, you know what I mean. You have to be able to set the guy up, and if someone like a Dort or a Caruso, they fight over screens well. It's a matter of timing it and a matter of being on the same page. There's off-ball actions. There's flares. There's plenty of stuff you can do to get him going.

But again I don't think we did a good enough job in executing it.

Q. You mentioned the points in the paint the first half, and you personally got rolling a bit in the third quarter. What can you do to get going there?

MYLES TURNER: As you've seen they have a swarm mentality, keep everybody out of the paint. They sell out to the paint. They are willing to give up a multitude of shots, three, mid-range, whatever it is, so we don't get in the paint. Now it's just about, you know, making a decision, get in there.

I think that there's ways to break down the defense. I think that at times, easier said than done. But I think we have a formula that we have to execute on, and again, we just did not do a good enough job of that tonight.

Q. You do take one, split these games here in OKC. As you said home, do you take any solace heading home for Game 3? What mindset do you take?

MYLES TURNER: I just know Gainbridge is going to be rocking. I love our environment. You give credit where credit is due. This is a great environment. Oklahoma City did a great job showing up with their fans and whatnot. I expect it to be a lot louder in Indianapolis. I know how long this city has been waiting for this Finals experience. They are going to show up.

Q. Elite scorers, you can't really stop them, but how frustrating is it that even when you play Shai well, he gets 34, and the bench does do what they do; just how distressing was that? Because the defense on Shai was not bad tonight, just he got what he got.

MYLES TURNER: Yeah, you said, he's MVP for a reason. He's going to get off, and I think that we accepted that. It's a matter of slowing him down and limiting the role players. A few of their guys stepped up tonight. I think Wiggins had a great game. You know, yeah, Caruso, he did what he had to do.

So it's about limiting their role players and making it tougher on them, at least.