OKLAHOMA CITY — Oklahoma City guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander will almost certainly reach a milestone on Sunday night.
The reigning NBA MVP from the Thunder enters Game 2 of the NBA Finals against the Indiana Pacers just two points away from 3,000 for the season, including the regular season and playoffs.
That’s a total that has been reached 24 other times in league history — 10 by Michael Jordan, five by Wilt Chamberlain and once by nine other players. Gilgeous-Alexander would be the 12th to reach the milestone.
But there’s a bigger milestone that Gilgeous-Alexander would like to get Sunday as well: His first finals win. That’ll be his only priority in Game 2.
“I said this so many times, I don’t play for the individual stuff,” Gilgeous-Alexander said. “I don’t play for anything else besides winning. I never have in my whole life.”
The Thunder, the NBA’s top overall seed entering the playoffs after going 68-14 in the regular season, lost Game 1 to the Pacers on Thursday night 111-110 — and with it, lost the home-court advantage in this series as well.
If the Pacers win Game 2, they’ll likely become overwhelming favorites. Only two teams — the 1993 Chicago Bulls and 1995 Houston Rockets — won the first two games of a finals on the road, and both went on to win the NBA title in those seasons. And teams that open the finals with a 2-0 lead go on to win the series 86.5% of the time (32 times in 37 chances).
“The journey to get here all year has not been about getting to the finals,” Pacers guard Tyrese Haliburton said. “It’s a day at a time, especially after the start of the year. And it’s hard — we have social media and friends and family that tell us all the numbers of if you can win the two games at home, whatever it will look like, or on the road or whatever the case.”
The series will shift to Indianapolis for Games 3 and 4 on Wednesday and Friday.
