NBA FINALS: THUNDER VS. PACERS

June 21, 2025

Isaiah Hartenstein

Oklahoma City Thunder

Practice Day

Q. Isaiah, what's it like entering Game 7 knowing that no matter what, your season is over?

ISAIAH HARTENSTEIN: From a perspective standpoint, I think we are seeing this game as a privilege. I think pressure in general is a privilege. We all grow up. We all want to play in these kinds of games. That's what you work your whole life for, and so yeah, we're looking at it as a privilege and we're going into it confident.

Q. Even when they are not necessarily on a break, they really make an effort to get the ball across the court at 21 seconds on the shot clock, so they can get into an action or something. How does affect not necessarily how guys defend transition but how you defend in the halfcourt?

ISAIAH HARTENSTEIN: I think from that standpoint, they are a great running team. We knew that coming into the series. A lot of it is also what we do. I think last game, we didn't play our brand of basketball and we didn't play our brand of defense and we just let them be comfortable. So I think it's a mix of things. They do a great job of never changing the way they play. So they get out, they run. And it’s our job to just get back to playing our style of defense and going from there.

Q. Is there anything in your career that prepared you for this Game 7?

ISAIAH HARTENSTEIN: I think AC said it before the last Game 7, my whole career has kind of been a Game 7. As weird as it sounds, I might have been more nervous going into a training camp, when I was on a training camp deal, than now. That was where I was fighting low key for my career.

I think just those moments where you don't understand it at the time kind of helps you now kind of navigate what I'm going through right now.

Q. Did you envision this right now when you signed with the team last summer?

ISAIAH HARTENSTEIN: It was a goal. Definitely a goal. You never know what can happen. You try to do everything you can to get to this moment and we have a privilege to be in this moment and we're ready to go.

Q. After Game 6 did you do any different thing since Thursday tonight?

ISAIAH HARTENSTEIN: Same routine. Nothing really changed. Only thing you can change you is watch the film, see what you did wrong, and I think just watching what we did wrong is all controllable stuff.

Q. Like what?

ISAIAH HARTENSTEIN: You'll see tomorrow.

Q. What about yourself off the court?

ISAIAH HARTENSTEIN: Not really much. Just try to keep your routine the same. I think we do a good job of not getting too high or too low. When you start trying to change too much, that's kind of when you get out of who you are as a person.