Dustin Dopirak | Pacers Writer for IndyStar

It is the JR Sport Brief Show here with you coast to coast on the Infinity Sports Network. The Pacers have a surprising 2-1 lead here in the NBA Finals. There's still conversations about whether or not they can win, how good or not good Tyrese Halliburton is or is not.

So, to have a chat with us is someone that we have spoken with before. as these pacers are still rolling along now in the NBA Finals, joining us right now. Courtesy of the Indy Star is Dustin Dopirak. Dustin, how are you, man? Doing well, man.

Take a look happy again. No doubt, all the time. Always a pleasure. I mean, are you surprised at what we've seen so far by these pay a two one lead? Are you even surprised with this?

I mean, like, the answer is yes and no. I think my... The point that I thought they were going to lose, you know, like the series that I thought they were going to lose was Cleveland. And when they went up 2-0 on the road against Cleveland, I felt like I had to adjust my priors. You know, that was sort of not that I didn't think this Pacers team was good.

I mean, I looked at it as, you know, after they won the first series, I felt like they were kind of playing with House Money because I looked at it as, okay, they won 50 games. I think they made some progress off of last year. If they'd have got beat by a 64-win team in the semifinals, then that would have been nothing to be ashamed of. But when they went up to especially with that crazy comeback in game two of that series, I'm like, okay, well a lot is possible now. A lot has sort of become doable.

And so each stage since then, I've been less surprised.

So I'm not totally shocked. I mean, I think they had I I looked at the Thunder as a team that had answers for them. I I didn't think the Knicks did. I'm not surprised. I expected them to beat the Knicks.

But I thought, okay, maybe the Thunders just have the Thunders have a little more juice. They have the depth. They have all these switchable defenders. They have all these really, really good defenders and they've got the MVP. You know, you've got to give them the advantage.

So I mean, I took Thunder and six in this series. But I'm not surprised that it's competitive. I'm not surprised they were able to pull a rabbit out of the hat in game one. I'm not surprised they were able to just really ride the wave of what game three was going to be like, considering it was their first NBA Finals home game in 25 years.

So I'm not totally shocked. I mean, I will still be surprised that they win the series, but I can't be shocked. I mean, again, with all that they've gone through at this point, And all the different ways they've won games, you have to be like, Okay, wait a minute, they have something here. And I I think really after game two of that Cav series when I was like, wait a minute, you know what? They're tough, they're good, but more to the point, they've figured out how to outlast you.

They've determined a formula that works, and they trust it and they believe in it. And their belief is that basically in the fourth quarter, they're going to have more juice than you because they're going to trust. They're younger guys, they're second unit to run at you, to exhaust you, and they trust that you'll be tired at the end of games and they won't. And it's worked at every step of the way.

So I mean, again, when you it's a proven formula at this point, so I'm not going to sit there and say that it's not going to work all the way. Still think Thunder are really good, still think they can win the series, but they definitely have an advantage of formula that works that it is surprisingly less and less with every game they win.

Well, Dustin, you've been following this team. I know you were in the building yesterday for the first finals game, as you mentioned, in 25 years. Even still now, after what we've seen the entire season, we got Tyrese Halliburton who's still having to answer questions about who and what he is, even after a lot of these shots. I mean, there was a whole conversation on television this morning whether or not he was a star or a superstar. Is it even kind of played out at this point in time?

I mean, it's played out it's played out because I don't think anybody's adjusting the quest. Um and and 'cause really you you have to put him on the Magic Johnson scale. Um that's where you have to operate. That doesn't mean he's a Magic Johnson. But you have to look at it as, okay, like you have to start with the idea that he's a distributor first.

And sort of consider your scale on that note that he's not a scorer first. And he's also, look, he's a skinny guy. He's not going to be like Jalen Brunson or Shea Gojus Alexander or somebody that just drives into the paint and pulls up and draws fouls and hits eight footers and bounces off of people. That's just not who he is. It's not how he's built physically, it's not how he's built in terms of how he plays the game.

He views it as he's looking to make the right play every time. And a lot of the time, he thinks the right play is the pass. He's a pure point guard. He's a guy that believes in involving everybody. That's his driving force.

Like that, that's his North Star: making sure everybody's involved. And that's what makes the pacers as good as they are. And so when he gets his own shot, you know, that means that the offense is just working really well. Like his scoring and his field goal attempts, people think of them as they're the cause with whether they win or lose because, you know, generally when he scores a lot, they tend to win. But it's more in effect.

It's effective in the sense of if they're running offense really well, he'll get open shots too. If the whole system is working the way that it's supposed to, he'll get opportunities and so will everybody else. And so if you're thinking of him like you're judging Jalen Brunson, or you're judging Shake Oldis Alexander, or you're judging Donovan Mitchell, if you're judging any of these high scoring guards, you're putting him on the wrong scale and he's never going to make it for you. But if you judge him on the magic scale, if you think, okay, assists matter, assist the turnover matters, total offensive production for the team matters. you know, and you judge him that way and you look at how he affects that, then you're going to see him differently.

You're going to see the way that he opens a game up. And it but like if you're just thinking of him as a high scoring guard because he can score a lot of points, you're going to miss a lot of the other things he brings and you're just going to miss that. Look, he is going to have games like this where the thing isn't working the way it's supposed to and he's not going to be as productive. He it's easier to slow him down that way, but he can also be the guy that gets the thing really spinning and makes the offense unstoppable or creates these late game surges that he's at the forefront of, you know, that he's making these wild crazy shots at the end of games. Like you just you have to reconsider the scale on which you're judging him.

If you're looking at it at him as the same as all these other guys, you're going to miss what he brings. And Dustin Doper, accuser with us, covers all things basketball for Indiana, the state of Indiana, the city of Indianapolis. I still think the Thunder will win this series. You believe that they're in shotgun position to win this series. What do the Pacers need to do the rest of the way?

To pick up another two wins. Is Ben Matherin, does he got to now drop 20 plus a game? Like, what do we need to see? For them to shock the world. I mean, you just certainly can't bank on that.

I mean, I think time has sort of told us as far as bench guys are concerned. You have to be happy when they get it. You can't presume that it's going to happen again. You just look at what the Thunder in Game Two got, how many points each from Wiggins and Caruso. You just cannot presume it's going to be there every time.

Matherin's capable of being a really good scorer, but you can't just pencil, you know, you can't look at it as, well, you've got to get 27 out of Matherin if you're not, or you're not going to win. You know, like you, you, you have to presume there's going to be a significant amount of rise and fall. I mean, like, you almost have to look at it like, all right, you have to think, okay, Mathram's, you know, you're going to be lucky if you get 10 out of Matherin tomorrow. Or the other possible problem, the likely problem, honestly, is that Matherin is going to ride that one and think, I am chucking it today, buddy. And you run the risk of that becoming a problem because Matherin obviously has very high confidence in himself, and you could see him hunting shots and driving into crowds.

and doing things that are that he feels confident in that aren't necessarily always going to work. But no, I think the biggest thing, what they did well, you know, one, caused turnovers. You know, basically you're not going to cause as many as you did game three, probably. But if you can still cause a good good bit and turn that into transition buckets, I think that's important. It's just sharp execution.

I mean, I think what they really felt like they had out of game two is they just got too stale. And what Halliburton said, I mean, and Halliburton is just terrific at picking the game apart and being honest about it in post-game is he said, you know what, I think what I did, he says, like, I'm good in high pick and roll. And I just kind of realized I kept running high pick and roll, but you can't keep doing the same thing to this team because he said he used the phrase, they'll crawl up in you. And because the way they can just pack the pain, the way they can just collapse and swarm you, you know, forces you into bad decisions. He had some turnovers in those scenarios in game two.

And I think he just looked at it as like, all right, we got to do something different. One thing he mentioned was playing off the pitch. And I think He meant basically kind of throwing it ahead and getting it back, you know, kind of hitting somebody. kind of top of the key, you know, kind of catching it with their back to the pat basket and then kind of underhanded pitching right back to him.

So he could kind of get some space, you know, kind of get that defender to get off of him a little bit and then get some downhill action. And I think that's really what it was, is just not allowing Yeah, just Just incredibly suffocating Thunder defense to square up on you. If you make it harder for them to know where to be, you have a chance of creating some space and some gaps and just being able to get into some nooks and trendies in that paint score. They had a really hard time doing that in the first two games. They got 50 in the paint, I think, in game three.

So that's something they're shooting for. Obviously, just trying to keep Make Shea work, make Jalen Williams work, make all of those guys make it more difficult for them. You're not going to shut them down, but you're, you know, basically, if you could just make everybody a little bit more inefficient, you have a better shot. And so it's just. Like Carlisle said, it's a lot of stuff along the margin.

If they just keep making these margin plays and doing it right, then that's the way they can win the game. Yeah, Dustin, let's see if they shock the world. Dustin, I always appreciate the time. Before you get out of here, one last simple question. When is Caitlin Blark coming back?

I'm ready to see her bust some ass. Give me an answer. I haven't been following it close enough, but the the people I heard around this week that were uh talking about it are the reporters, I mean, nobody is in the fever, uh, but just other reporters who cover this or, you know, that that uh that some of which also came from elsewhere to go cover uh Kaylin Clark, hoping they were gonna get both uh at at this point in time, are hoping to see her, you know, within a couple of games, you know, maybe one or two more before she kicks off. Awesome. Looking forward to that.

Well, Dustin, looking forward to seeing her play in the rest of the finals. Tell everybody where they can follow you and your work with the ND Star. Absolutely. At Dustin the Pirac is the Twitter handle. I've got a blue sky.

I think it's Dustin.The Pirak dot B Sky.social where you can find that stuff. And IndyStar dot com is where we have all of our all of our all of our everything.

So that's that's me and everybody else. We we've we've thrown a lot of people uh at this obviously first time in twenty five years.

So we're we're bringing it Many people as we can to this. Hey, thank you, Dustin. If we talk to you again in a few weeks, maybe it'll be at a parade. Let's see. Appreciate the time, man.

All right, sounds good. Thanks so much.