This time, it’s the Pacers who are on the receiving end of an epic comeback. With the thunderous support from the Gainbridge Fieldhouse, the home team led for nearly the entire second half. The Thunder only took the lead with 2:23 to play, finishing the game on a 12-1 run. And naturally, Rick Carlisle was livid with his team’s inability to close out the game. His post-match comments were an eye-opener for Tyrese Haliburton and Co.

The primary reason for the Pacers’ collapse was: they missed all eight of their threes in the fourth quarter. To no one’s surprise, they have not missed this many threes all year, regular and postseason combined. Apart from their inability to score from beyond the three-point line, Carlisle also noticed a problem with the Pacers’ rebounding tonight. “Yeah, we got stagnant. Their second shots were a big problem. When you’re unable to rebound, it’s hard to continue to play with pace and tempo.”

To substantiate Carlisle’s comments, the Thunder outrebounded the Pacers 12-7, including 4-1 in the fourth quarter alone. The Indiana HC praised the Thunder for the fight they showed against the Pacers. “I haven’t looked at the at the end of the game yet, so I don’t have the blow-by-blow for you. But give them credit. You know, they kept attacking, kept attacking, and their defense was great down the stretch,” the Indiana coach said. Although it didn’t matter in the end, the Pacers did take their first double-digit lead in the Finals with just 2:08 minutes left in the third quarter. This raises further eyebrows about the nature of their collapse.

Further, Rick was asked about the team’s inability to provide buckets for each other, especially in the final quarter. He replied, “A Lot of the same stuff I was just talking about. You know, an inability to come up with Rebounds, an inability to get key stops was a part of it, and then you know, we just got too stagnant.”  Usually, the Pacers can rely on Mr.Clutch, Tyrese Haliburton, to bail them out of tough situations. But as fate would have it, that didn’t turn out to be the case.

With 3:52 left to play, Tyrese Haliburton already had seven assists. As per the Athletic, at the time, the entire Thunder starting lineup has just 4. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander has ZERO. But it switched, as the Pacers guard had zero assists in the 4th quarter and went 0-3 when shooting beyond the arc.

Tyrese Haliburton got the coach’s support after a previous result didn’t go their way

With the win the Game 4, the Oklahoma City Thunder have tied the series at 2-2. But just like in game 2, which the Thunder won, Tyrese Haliburton came under a lot of criticism for his performance. Even Rick Carlisle addressed the struggles Haliburton had in that game.

After the game, Pacers coach Rick Carlisle tried to diffuse the growing conversation around Haliburton’s underwhelming night. “There’s a lot more to the game than just scoring. Everybody’s got to do more,” he said. Even in this game, Tyrese Haliburton was the fifth-best scorer on the day. SGA had the game high of 35 points, and J Williams had 27 points. Meanwhile, Caruso and Siakam were joint third with 20 points.

Since 2000, the team that has won Game 4 in the finals has won the championship 19 times. And of the six teams that lost Game 4 and still won the finals, one was the Celtics last year when they were already up 3-0 in the series. So, both teams have the stats and history to make a statement win.