{"id":862779,"date":"2025-07-15T23:12:50","date_gmt":"2025-07-16T04:12:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2025\/07\/15\/the-smallest-player-on-the-floor-had-one-of-the-biggest-impacts-in-game-3-of-the-nba-finals\/"},"modified":"2025-07-15T23:12:50","modified_gmt":"2025-07-16T04:12:50","slug":"the-smallest-player-on-the-floor-had-one-of-the-biggest-impacts-in-game-3-of-the-nba-finals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2025\/07\/15\/the-smallest-player-on-the-floor-had-one-of-the-biggest-impacts-in-game-3-of-the-nba-finals\/","title":{"rendered":"The smallest player on the floor had one of the biggest impacts in Game 3 of the NBA Finals"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

INDIANAPOLIS \u2014 Early in the second quarter of Game 3 of the NBA Finals<\/a>, the Indiana Pacers\u2019 home crowd was in a bit of a lull. <\/p>\n

After leading nearly the entire first quarter, the Oklahoma City Thunder began the second period with an eight-point advantage, a sobering continuation from Game 2, which the Thunder led for the last 38 minutes of play. <\/p>\n

Despite it being the first finals game in Indiana in 25 years, the energy in the arena was fading. <\/p>\n

But then T.J. McConnell went to work.<\/p>\n

In the first three and minutes and 52 seconds of the second, Indiana went on a 15-4 run, taking its first lead of the finals since the first quarter of Game 2.<\/p>\n

In that time, McConnell recorded four assists, three steals, two points and one offensive rebound \u2014 a scintillating stretch of play that brought a tense home crowd back to life. <\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s a guy that inspires a lot of people,\u201d Pacers coach Rick Carlisle said postgame. \u201cHe inspires our team a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHis energy is unbelievable,\u201d guard Tyrese Haliburton said. \u201cYou guys know he\u2019s definitely a crowd favorite. I joke with him, I call him the \u2018Great White Hope.\u2019 He does a great job of bringing energy in this building.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s just so dynamic in terms of running the floor for us,\u201d forward Pascal Siakam added. \u201cAnd when you add those steals and just bringing the crowd into the game the way he does, he was special tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n

McConnell\u2019s energy boost and clutch play played a critical role in Indiana\u2019s 116-107 win, which also gave the team a 2-1 lead in a series that few expect the Pacers to win. McConnell finished the game with 10 points, five assists and five steals, the first player in NBA history to post those numbers off the bench in a finals game. He was also a plus-12 in only 15 minutes.<\/p>\n

Three of McConnell\u2019s five steals came via what\u2019s become his signature play \u2014 lurking in the backcourt and taking advantage of unsuspecting and\/or lazy inbounds passes for turnovers. Two of those steals led to points for Indiana, including a game-tying bucket in the fourth quarter, and all of them drew huge reactions from the crowd.<\/p>\n

McConnell, who is listed at 6\u20191\u201d, is the shortest player on either team in the finals. But despite taking up little space on the court, and playing the second-fewest bench minutes on the team, his impact was outsized. <\/p>\n

\u201cIn a series like this what\u2019s so important is the margins,\u201d Haliburton said. \u201cYou have to win in the margins. It\u2019s not necessarily who can make the most shots or anything. It\u2019s taking care of the ball, rebounding, little things like that. … He [McConnell] did a great job of consistently getting there and making hustle play after hustle play, and sticking with it, and I thought we did a great job of just feeding off of what he was doing.\u201d<\/p>\n

The entire Indiana bench, in particular, seemed to feed off McConnell. <\/p>\n

The Pacers\u2019 backups made a massive difference in Game 3, outscoring the Thunder reserves 49-18. Pacers guard Bennedict Mathurin was the game\u2019s leading scorer, racking up 27 points in only 22 minutes. <\/p>\n

A 10-year veteran in his sixth season with Indiana, McConnell has always been the type of player to make the most of his opportunity. He hasn\u2019t started more than eight games in a season since 2017, and he\u2019s never averaged more than 26.3 minutes a night in his career. <\/p>\n

On Wednesday, though, he changed the course of the game, and perhaps even the series.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s been like a big brother to me since I\u2019ve gotten here,\u201d Haliburton said. \u201cYou look at T.J. McConnell and his story is unbelievable. So I just enjoy being able to play alongside him and the energy he gives his teammates in this building is \u2014 he\u2019s a lot of fun.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

<\/span>Rohan Nadkarni<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Rohan Nadkarni is a sports reporter for NBC News.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

INDIANAPOLIS \u2014 Early in the second quarter of Game 3 of the NBA Finals, the Indiana Pacers\u2019 home crowd was in a bit of a lull. After leading nearly the entire first quarter, the Oklahoma City Thunder began the second period with an eight-point advantage, a sobering continuation from Game 2, which the Thunder led<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":862780,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22525,33660],"tags":[5678,142787],"class_list":{"0":"post-862779","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-player","8":"category-smallest","9":"tag-player","10":"tag-smallest"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/862779","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=862779"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/862779\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/862780"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=862779"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=862779"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=862779"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}