INDIANAPOLIS — Every time the Indiana Pacers have lost a game in the past three months, they’ve simply come back to win the next one.
Now that’s true even in the NBA Finals, which has a huge favorite in some trouble.
Bennedict Mathurin scored 27 points off the bench, Tyrese Haliburton finished with 22 points, 11 assists and nine rebounds, and the Pacers regained the lead in the best-of-seven title series by beating the Oklahoma City Thunder 116-107 in Game 3 on Wednesday night.
“This is the kind of team that we are,” Pacers coach Rick Carlisle said. “We need everybody to be ready. It’s not always going to be exactly the same guys that are stepping up with scoring and stuff like that. But this is how we’ve got to do it.”
Pascal Siakam scored 21 points for Indiana, which enjoyed a whopping 49-18 edge in bench points. The Pacers, who lost Game 2 in Oklahoma City on Sunday, improved to 10-0 since mid-March in the game immediately after a loss.