Pacers VS Thunder NBA finals: Alex Caruso gave OKC a little – including many more minutes

Oklahoma City – During the first seven months and a half months of this NBA season, Alex Caruso had only exceeded 30 minutes in a match twice.

The first: a meeting at the end of March with the Clippers of Los Angeles, when the injuries to Jalen Williams and Chet Holmgren pressed him in the duty in the initial training of the Thunder. The second: match 4 of the final of the western conference of 2025, when the veteran Super-Subsancé made a skitter everywhere on the field, keeping Anthony Edwards, Rudy Gobert and each Timberwolf between the two in a hard victory of 128-126 which attracted Oklahoma City in a victory of the NBA final in 2025.

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Now that thunder is actually In The NBA 2025 final, however? Caruso has played more than 30 times more than four games in the final – the last two, now that you mention it.

As the philosopher said one day, “there are no coincidences.”

The name of this philosopher? Alex Caruso.

Caruso cracking 30 minutes just twice in his first 72 appearances, this Thunder and after-season attack plan was emblematic of the Thunder’s large-scale attack plan for a player they had targeted in a key profession last summer to be the missing piece of a hoped-for championship puzzle … but also a player whose career of seven years now legendary had led to multiple injuries that cost him seven -year career.

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“Yeah, I mean, it’s a double -edged sword,” said Caruso after the Oklahoma City match 2 victory. “Part of this is that I play a fairly erratic style, whether it be play 1 [of the season] Or if it’s match 2 of the final. I have only one equipment – I don’t know how to play 75%. Part of this kept me out of my own way, out of danger. I don’t do a good job for myself.

A part, however, went to Oklahoma City while being brilliant, with a ton of guys capable of contributing when he had the opportunity.

“We won 68 games in the regular season,” said Caruso after the match. “We had a 12 -year -old rotation throughout the year, according to whom was injured, various teams we played.

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The finals have a way to pass the depth of a team, to erase the opportunities to see what an early recruit could be able to provide you, to make contributors more limited particularly vulnerable and therefore non -viable, to bring a team to its most essential elements.

“This is the ultimate effort, Endeavour, as you want to call it,” said Pacers coach Rick Carlisle after match 4. “I mean, it’s long. It’s difficult. But it’s the greatest opportunity. … It’s really difficult, and it’s supposed to be difficult.”

It is a crucible: a 24/7 stress test which highlights and punishes weakness, and which rewards versatility and skills, a game without holes and an iron constitution.

In other words: it is a series built for Caruso, and for which Caruso is designed.

“Yeah, you know, I’m a full basketball player,” he said on Sunday. “There are a lot of things I really do, really good.”

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Caruso presented the diversity of his skills in match 4. Everyone knows, at this stage, that he is one of the best defenders on the planet, just as capable of chasing Jitterbug’s guards around screens and aggressively grouping Nikola Jokić in the post. What many could not AYS have been aware, however, he is also an initiator more capable of Oklahoma City’s offensive, with more touches and time of possession than any thunder in addition to Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Jalen Williams in Match 4, and with more discarded passes than even the two All-Stars on the OKC balloon.

Or that, when the moment calls him, he has enough to shake on his handle to be able to go from point to to point B of the rebound and make something move once:

“During my career, my abilities have improved thanks to a work ethics and a little confidence and understanding of the moment and success in the moment,” said Caruso after match 4. “… This series – these series, really – teams forced me to try to mark the ball.

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This preparation, combined with countless capture and shooting representatives who transformed it into an elite shot of 43.2% of the 3-point range in this qualifying series, makes Caruso a legitimate additional offensive threat playing tastes of Gilgeous-Alexander, Williams and Chet Holmgren. And thatCombined with his ability to defend himself throughout the position spectrum – and his propensity to wreak havoc while doing so, in the form of theft, deflections, blocked shots and exploded of him – makes him an exceptionally additive player in any context that you could mention.

“He’s a player – you connect him anywhere, any range, looks like any group, he makes a difference,” said Gilgeous -Alexander on Sunday. “Make everyone around him. He always speaks. He always knows where we are supposed to be, where the other team is supposed to be. He has special instincts. I don’t think you can teach things like that. He just knows where the ball is, where a bounce bounced, how to get a deflection, volley in time. ”

This overall difference was palpable at the end of the match 4. Caruso contributed a little of everything – solid shooting competition, bouncing aggressive at both ends, intelligent cuts, opportune aid rotations, excellent defense on the ball – as part of the little ball star, the star of Tyrese Haliburton declared Okc even in the Best of the Best of the Best of the Best of the Best of the Best Of The Best Of The Best

“He has a championship ring for a reason,” said Gilgeous-Alexander after match 4. “It’s no coincidence. He knows what it takes. He has put the work. He proves it every evening.”

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Caruso has proven a lot for Oklahoma City, both during the season and in this series, where he has the best divisions on the field / out of all of all of thunder in addition to Holmgren. In a match 4 Gotta-Have-IT, Oklahoma City dominated Indiana by 14 points within 30 minutes of Caruso; During four games, 17 of the 26 Thunder alignments that outclassed the Pacers included Caruso.

“He just has an incredible feeling for the match and is a crazy competitor,” said Gilgeous-Alexander on Sunday. “I think you add these two things together, and no matter where you put it in the world, any basketball match, it will make a difference.”

The question to which Daignault and its coach staff head for match 5 of a 2-2 series: could Caruso make an even larger difference in even larger minutes? Like … for example … starter minutes?

Daigneault has proven itself very ready to tinker with its starting range, moving from a more traditional look to two bigs with Isaiah Hartenstein alongside Holmgren before the series in favor of the movement of Cason Wallace in the first five to better match the speed of the perimeter with Haliburton, Andrew Nembhard and the pattern game of the octane ball and of Indiana. Daigneault was then returned to the Double-Big unit for match 4, as part of a reorientation of the rotation and the substitution model of Oklahoma City aimed in part to counter the Pacers’ defensive strategy on the Gilgeous-Alexander, thus ensuring that the MVP had a little more gas in the tank came to crimer than in the game 3. (Mission accomplished.)

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“Each match is different,” said Daignault on Sunday. “As, we did it after victories, after losses, throughout these series – we move things quickly enough to try to stay unpredictable and also try to scratch for each advantage that we can in what turns out to be nearby games.”

Few league players are better equipped to eliminate these advantages than Caruso, and with the knotted final and a title to two victories, Daignault sounded on Sunday as a coach ready to look even stronger in his direction.

“I think that’s the time when you have to do everything you can to try to win the matches and withdraw all stops. This is the mentality,” he said. “It was great. An additional rest in the final for all players is a consideration, and you are very restful between the games. There are advantages and disadvantages. But one of the advantages is that everyone is recovered and is as fresh as possible in the game.”

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With an additional day of rest between matches 4 and 5, and with a shot at a second meeting with the Trophy of the Larry O’Brien championship approaching possession, Caruso plans to be ready to put his fingerprints on the match, regardless of the number of minutes that Daignault needs him to play on Monday evening in Bricktown.

“These are the games on which you are judged … This is the period of the year for which I live,” said Caruso on Sunday. “This is the time of the year in which the matches count, the issues are high, the victories and the losses are more important. So being prepared for this is important. ”