INDIANAPOLIS — Shai Gilgeous-Alexander told anyone who would listen earlier in these 2025 NBA Finals: Yes, he’s the one with the Most Valuable Player trophy and the matinee idol billing, but the Thunder are far from a solo act.

“No one-man show achieves what I’m trying to achieve with this game … those guys are the reason why we’re as good of a team as we are,” he said following Oklahoma City’s series-leveling Game 2 win. “I just add to it.”

Gilgeous-Alexander added plenty on Friday: a game-high 35 points, headlined by an all-time-clutch, postseason-career-high 15-point fourth quarter, to propel the Thunder past the Pacers to a series-evening — and possibly season-saving — 111-104 win at Gainbridge Fieldhouse.

But surviving a physical, nasty, fever-pitched Game 4 to send this best-of-seven series back to Oklahoma City all knotted up at two games apiece took much, much more than just a handful of final-frame buckets by the MVP.

“We had a lot of guys make winning plays that can kind of be invisible to the untrained eye,” said Thunder big man Chet Holmgren, who scored 14 points and pulled down 15 rebounds in 37 hard-fought minutes. “It’s not showing up necessarily in the stat sheet. It’s not like a highlight that’s going to be played over and over. It’s not one single instance.”

It didn’t take one single instance; it took everything that everyone had to offer. And two nights after Indiana’s bench tilted the series in its favor, Oklahoma City reminded the basketball-watching world that it’s got a hell of a lot to offer.

Jalen Williams certainly felt like he had a lot more to offer. He scored a team-high 26 points in OKC’s Game 3 loss, but point totals don’t necessarily tell the whole story of a performance.

“I don’t think Dub played his best game last game,” ace reserve Alex Caruso said. “I don’t think he would say that either. I kind of just expected him to come out and answer the call.”

He did:

With Gilgeous-Alexander once again wearing Pacers stopper Andrew Nembhard all over the court like an ill-fitting orange or blue tuxedo, Williams carried the OKC offense early, scoring 12 points in 11 first-quarter minutes. He brought the ball up the court more often in Game 4 than he had all series — a ploy by Thunder head coach Mark Daigneault aimed at saving SGA some of the hard-driven miles of advancing the ball with Nembhard stationed squarely in his shadow the full 94 feet, as he was in Game 3. When the Pacers pushed their lead to double digits late in the third quarter, Williams got to the free-throw line for a pair and hit a tough closing-seconds fadeaway to get OKC back within seven heading into the fourth — a more manageable distance from which to mount a comeback effort to save their season.

“There’s a reason he’s an All-NBA player, an All-Star, at just, I think he’s 23, if that’s correct,” said Caruso. (Just turned 24 in April, Alex. Probably want to get him a belated birthday card.) “I mean, he’s a phenomenal talent.”

A versatile one, too. Williams battled on the defensive end, jousting with Pascal Siakam and doing his damnedest to keep the Pacers’ ascendant demigod from snatching the series in his two bare hands. (Siakam finished with 20 points, eight rebounds, five assists, five steals and a block in 35 massive minutes, but went scoreless in the deciding fourth quarter.) He competed on the glass, grabbing seven rebounds, including a pair of big defensive boards late.

And with Indiana leading in crunch time, it was Williams who paired with Gilgeous-Alexander in the two-man game, with the MVP trotting up to set ball screens knowing Indiana would switch the action, resulting in Nembhard shifting over to Williams while Aaron Nesmith guarded SGA — a matchup he clearly felt much more comfortable attacking. The result, as Daigneault said, was “kind of our best rhythm of the night” — and a game-sealing 12-1 run.

“We’ve worked on that over the course of the last couple years,” Gilgeous-Alexander said after the win. “Both of us can do multiple things with the basketball: shoot, pass, handle. We try to just play off our instincts and play off each other, be aggressive, make the right basketball play. If we do so, we usually end up with a pretty good shot, because of the players we are.”

The player Williams is, as Gilgeous-Alexander noted, is one capable of doing “so many things … on a basketball court.” And after a monster Game 4 — 27 points on 8-for-18 shooting, seven rebounds, three assists in 36 minutes spent running point and guarding an All-Star staring down an existential deficit in the NBA Finals — we now know Williams is capable of coming up with precisely what his team needs, precisely when the Thunder need it.

“I think my biggest thing is just stepping into the moment, success or fail, just kind of living with the results,” Williams said. “I put a lot of work into my game, so I just go out there and play. I just don’t want to ever play a game and look back where I wasn’t aggressive, afraid to do a move, whatever the case may be.”

“Aggressive and unafraid” pretty well encapsulates the way Luguentz Dort approaches every single possession he plays, especially on the defensive end.

“Lu and all the other guys climbing up in the ball, really playing some hard-nosed defense, not only sets the tone for us and all the other guys guarding, but it also kind of sets the tone for the other team,” Holmgren said. “Just making things tough. That was huge for us tonight.”

As Daigneault saw it, the defensive pace the All-Defensive first-teamer set in the fourth quarter “was kind of contagious” for the rest of the Thunder, who held the Pacers to 5-for-18 shooting in the fourth with three turnovers, thanks in no small part to both Dort’s overwhelming physicality and the knock-on effects of watching him deploy it.

“Yeah, he was himself,” Gilgeous-Alexander said of Dort, who finished with six points, three rebounds and a steal in 33 minutes, a box score that dramatically undervalues his contributions to the comeback effort. “He was pressuring. He was making life difficult for them to get into offense. He was physical on-ball. He was disruptive. He was who he’s been all season.

“I think that’s the biggest thing: The more … we can be who we’ve been all season, our identity, the better off we’ll be.”

Who Caruso has been — not only this season, but throughout his career — is, as Daigneault put it, “a competitive monster, clearly.” What makes him so perfect for this Thunder team, though, is his ability to channel that competitive energy into specific, bespoke solutions at any given time.

“What makes Alex very good is that he’s able to figure out what we need, and be that,” Williams said. “Makes big shots, and obviously, the defense speaks for itself. He’s just really smart. He’s kind of like our fill-in: He does a really good job of seeing what the game needs and then doing it at 100%.

“Which is hard to do, since he’s, like, a hundred.”

After OKC lost Game 3 with Nembhard, Nesmith and Ben Sheppard working overtime to run Gilgeous-Alexander ragged and leave him spent, Caruso felt like he, in particular, had come up short — hadn’t done his job to help SGA, Daigneault and the rest of the crew solve the puzzle that Indiana had presented them.

“The way that Indiana is playing, it’s leaving opportunities for supplemental offense for other guys … I don’t think I was aggressive enough,” he said Friday. “I think I made a couple bad reads on the perimeter. I don’t think I tested the paint enough. I just didn’t feel like I was doing the same amount of work that I did in Game 1 and 2, where I found success and we found success as a team.”

In Game 4, Caruso redoubled his efforts to find the magic in that work. In addition to his standard über-caffeinated on- and off-ball defense, he brought the ball up the floor to ease some of the offensive initiation burden for Gilgeous-Alexander and Williams, seized opportunities to make hard downhill drives to the paint and try to either create offense for himself or others, made timely off-ball cuts behind the Pacers defense and, when the ball found him on the perimeter, shot it with confidence and without a conscience.

“A lot of times during my career, [my role has] been guard the best guy, spot up on the wing, or set pick-and-rolls and get to the dunker,” Caruso said. “This series — this playoffs, really — teams are forcing me to try and score the ball … I knew this was going to be the scout: take away the best players on the team and make the other guys beat you. So, just being confident in myself and being confident in the work I’m putting in and recognizing opportunities.”

That confidence, it turns out, was well-founded. Caruso made seven of his nine shots from the field, finishing with 20 points for the second time in three games — after not cracking 20 all season before the Finals. Not bad for a 100-year-old.

“I want to win,” Caruso said. “I don’t care if it’s pickup in September before training camp, I don’t care if it’s Game 45, 50, before the All-Star break, if it’s the Finals and you’re down 2-1. I want to win. That’s what I’m focused on … I wanted to make sure that I came out here and I made sure I had a concentrated effort to play as hard as I could, and to make as many plays to help the team win.

“That just comes down to really wanting to win — being super competitive. That’s why my career is the way it is. That’s why I’ve had success. That’s why I’m still in the NBA. That’s why I’m here talking to you right now.”

Holmgren’s in the NBA because he’s 7-foot-1 with the ability to run the floor like a gazelle, handle the ball like a guard, shoot 37% from 3-point range (though not necessarily on hang pulls, which would be odee) and protect the rim at a level few big men on the planet can match. It’s what the Gonzaga product did in space in the fourth quarter, though, that opened an awful lot of eyes — and helped keep the Thunder from being pushed to the brink.

On four critical possessions in the final three minutes of Game 4, Tyrese Haliburton and Nembhard tried the 23-year-old — put him under pressure, dragged him out into deep water, made him prove it. And on all four possessions — a Nembhard drive to the rim, followed by three different isolations up top — Holmgren stood his ground, held his own when switched onto Indiana’s quicksilver guards and prevented them from producing points.

“He held up great,” Daigneault said. “We don’t do that a ton with him, because he’s just so impactful at the rim. But he can really switch. It’s funny: When he was coming out of the draft, that was one of the things that they really recognized with him, is that he’s very switchable. He’s got great feet. We just found ourselves behind the ball in a lot of plays tonight. The switching was able to get that under control late. We can’t do that unless he can do that.”

The Thunder had to keep the Pacers coming up empty, had to keep stacking stops. They did, because Holmgren — on the biggest stage of his life — can do that.

“Special player,” Williams said. “Special players do special things. He’s really good. Me and him have always talked about, like, coming into the NBA together, it’s just always been, find something that you can do to impact the game. That makes you more of a special player.

“We try not to be one-dimensional. Shots fluctuate. Everybody is going to shoot bad; from Steph Curry to me, you name it, you’re going to have bad shooting nights. But there’s so many things you can do in a basketball game to affect the game. He understands that.”

He also understands that every possession you experience is one that you can build on and, hopefully, improve upon.

“I mean, I had just given up two drives right before that,” Holmgren said. “Just kind of trying to learn from those and play them better in those instances. I feel like I got a good contest. [Haliburton] was still able to get it off. He shoots a high-arcing shot; the whole time it’s in the air, a lot’s going through your mind.”

One thing that never went through the minds of any Thunder players, though? Being on the wrong side of the scoreboard when the clock hit triple zero.

“We never wavered — never thought we might lose this game,” Caruso said. “We were concentrating on trying to win it, on trying to solve the puzzle, figure out a way to make plays down the stretch to win the game. That’s just been our focus throughout the whole playoffs. It started from the whole season — just an extreme belief in each other to make plays and find a way to win.”

With their season on the line, they did it. It took everything — a fourth-quarter masterclass from Gilgeous-Alexander, Williams displaying his entire skill-set, Dort’s tone-setting, Caruso proving he’s more than just an agent of chaos, Holmgren proving he’s more than just a rim protector, and so much more — but they did it.

And now, they go back to Oklahoma City tied up, with home-court advantage restored, to try to do it again.

“No matter what happens — good or bad, pretty or ugly — we’re always going to stick together,” Holmgren said. “We’re going to win together, we’re going to lose together, we’re going to have great moments together, we’re going to fail together. No matter what happens, we’re going to do it together. I don’t really see that changing. Ever.”

“That’s what makes us a good team,” Gilgeous-Alexander said. “It’s more than just me. Way more than just me.”

INDIANAPOLIS — The moment was here — everyone playing knew it, everyone in Gainbridge Fieldhouse knew it, and it couldn’t be escaped.

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander said it as much: He knew what would happen if the Oklahoma City Thunder succumbed to these Indiana Pacers, if they fell behind three games to one.

Maybe he’s a steward of history, knowing what Game 4s have looked like in the more recent compelling NBA Finals. Maybe he’s not and just knew the score — nearly infinity to one in that 3-1 scenario and how unlikely it would be for this team to come back if they allowed the Pacers to keep growing in confidence after coming home for two games.

But he knew the moment was upon us all, and most importantly, the moment was upon the newly crowned Most Valuable Player.

He was gassed, the Pacers’ breakneck speed pushing the Thunder to the brink. The whispers of fraud were starting to bubble, and had he withered beneath this pressure and this moment, the bulk of the critique would be headed to him.

“I knew what it would have looked like if we lost tonight,” Gilgeous-Alexander said. “I didn’t want to go out not swinging. I didn’t want to go out not doing everything I could do in my power, in my control, to try to win the game.”

Nothing was easy. The ultimate rhythm player was off-key — hounded by fellow Canadian Andrew Nembhard. Gilgeous-Alexander could barely touch the ball without Pacers swiping, swinging and forcing him off his spots and into uncomfortable positions. Superman’s cape was ripped, tugged and twisted for the better part of 40 minutes.

But Gilgeous-Alexander sensed the opening, especially after the Pacers couldn’t completely close the door in the third quarter. He darted through the door of opportunity in the last four minutes.

Gilgeous-Alexander added his name to NBA Finals lore Friday night, scoring 15 of his game-high 35 points in the last 3:52 to lead the Thunder to a 111-104 victory to tie this unexpected NBA Finals at two games each. Make that 15 of Oklahoma City’s last 16 points, the most by a player in the last five minutes in the NBA Finals since 1971.

The Pacers will lament this loss, and should they lose the series, the pseudo-meltdown will be the thing they regret the most — the moment they lost control of a series that was seemingly there for the taking.

Gilgeous-Alexander’s catch-and-shoot 3 that looked true from the moment it left his fingertips — his only make from distance on the evening — cut a four-point lead to one. His step-back jumper once he was freed from the clutches of Nembhard gave the Thunder a 104-103 lead at 2:23 they wouldn’t relinquish.

“I relish those moments, love the moments, good or bad,” Gilgeous-Alexander said. “When I was a kid shooting at my driveway, I’d count down the clock for those moments. Now I get to live it. It’s a blessing, it’s fun, and I relish it.”

Game 4s in the last 15 years have produced performances that have validated premier stars — Stephen Curry, Giannis Antetokounmpo and Dirk Nowitzki stamped themselves in adverse circumstances.

Curry’s 2022 showing at TD Garden shut up his critics and Celtics fans — buoying the Warriors to their last title. Antetokounmpo’s defensive play the year before, blocking Deandre Ayton against improbable odds on a gimpy leg, was the catalyst for the Bucks to complete their comeback against Phoenix. Nowitzki was saddled with the flu in the 2011 Finals, and being playfully mocked by Dwyane Wade and LeBron James wasn’t received very kindly, and he battled through.

Each of those performances tied the series and pulled their teams from the brink. The Thunder were under no delusions, which of course is easier to say in the backdrop of a win.

“Our season is kind of on the line,” Thunder forward Jalen Williams said.

The Thunder gathered themselves in the last four minutes, in that final quarter — doing just enough in the third to not get knocked out. Pascal Siakam was putting some touches on a Finals MVP performance, and the Pacers made every corner 3 available, while the Thunder couldn’t hit anything and weren’t moving the ball like they’d been doing for the last eight months.

“I just thought we showed great will in the game. I thought we really hung in there in the third,” Thunder coach Mark Daigneault said. “I thought that was the key to the game. They really had the wind to their back. We had some deflating plays. It was an easy game to give up on. We kept it in striking distance, eight, 10, then able to close it in the fourth.”

When the moment is at hand, the stats don’t matter as much, the details truly become hazy through time. All we knew was the Thunder were being tested in ways they weren’t even in the second round against Nikola Jokić and the Denver Nuggets.

They advanced, but this series is a post-graduate course with Rick Carlisle on the other side, the master teacher who’s taking away so many of the things that have become hallmarks of Oklahoma City’s dominant campaign.

Maybe the Thunder weren’t ready. They’ve grown, but they hadn’t had real, extensive playoff heartbreak. Denver had some disappointments before breaking through. Boston had more than its share, as well as Milwaukee.

That’s been the path of recent champions, with very little exception.

That’s how the Thunder looked — bewildered for the better part of the night and ready to break. Gilgeous-Alexander didn’t look like an MVP but a bystander — although there’s a beauty in watching Williams play de facto point guard because no one would let Gilgeous-Alexander out of sight, and Chet Holmgren elevate his game on both ends with timely offensive scores and critical stops when the Pacers tried to hunt him.

And Alex Caruso shined as the vet with a championship ring doing the little things. Championships are won in the margins, even before you get to the moment.

“Just didn’t quit. We haven’t really had to show it a lot this year, with the success we had in the regular season,” Williams said. “We’ve had a lot of ups and downs during the playoffs. We’ve just learned from those experiences. That is something Mark is really big on us, every game you should be able to learn, then the next game you should be able to apply something and get better at it. That’s what we’re trying to do every time.”

The Thunder still needed their closer to bring closure to this game and reset the table for the rest of this series.

“When you’re on the road like that, it’s just you. That’s your unit,” Daigneault said. “Those guys did a great job staying in it because that was a hard game, a hard game for us. We could just not get a lot going, especially the third. Just to hang in there just kind of showed who we are.”

And the MVP showed who he is. He fouled out Aaron Nesmith and had just enough breathing room to become breathtaking.

It feels like the NBA Finals have turned, almost violently in the last 48 hours.

“Winning, especially this time of the season, it comes down to the moments,” Gilgeous-Alexander said. “It’s going to come down to late game. Every team is good. There’s rarely going to be a blowout. It comes down to the moments and who is willing to make winning plays on both ends of the floor.”

He made them, so they made them. More than winning, the Thunder survived — and advanced back home, back in control.

INDIANAPOLIS — In the grand scheme of things, following a 111-104 loss Friday night to the 68-win, top-seeded Oklahoma City Thunder, the fourth-seeded Indiana Pacers have done their job. They board a flight back to OKC after Game 4 in a tied series against one of the heaviest betting favorites in NBA Finals history.

But that is not how Indiana’s Obi Toppin sees it.

“Nah,” he said, “I felt like we should have got this one today.”

And they should have. Tyrese Haliburton’s driving layup gave the Pacers a 103-99 advantage with 3:20 remaining, and they had led for the entirety of the second half to that point. They could practically smell a 3-1 advantage in the best-of-seven set. Only once has a team come back from that deficit in the Finals.

Except, OKC’s Shai Gilgeous-Alexander outscored Indiana by himself, 11-1, over the final three minutes, delivering a series-saving — a season-saving — victory in the clutch. It was a legacy game for the league’s MVP, who had been held in check (20 points on 21 shots) through the first three-and-a-half quarters. For the majority of the game, the Pacers had done what head coach Rick Carlisle has called a “daunting” job.

“It’s the ultimate effort, endeavor, whatever you want to call it,” said Carlisle. “I mean, it’s long. It’s arduous. But it’s the greatest opportunity going. It’s the greatest opportunity going. It’s really hard, and it’s supposed to be hard. This is where we’re going to have to dig in, circle the wagons and come back stronger on Monday. This is a big disappointment, but there’s three games left.”

They do not give rings to the team that led most of the game, as the Thunder learned in Game 1, when Haliburton’s game-winner marked the fourth consecutive series the Pacers stole a game in the clutch.

And that is the thing. Even when two more Gilgeous-Alexander free throws gave Oklahoma City a two-possession lead in the final minute, you expected Indiana to make a run, because that is what they have done all playoffs.

But their magic ran out.

What happened? “I don’t really know,” said Toppin.

After registering 20 assists on 29 made field goals through the game’s first three quarters, the Pacers logged just one assist on their five made field goals in the final frame. For whatever reason, mostly because they could not get stops on the other end, their pace slowed, and the ball stagnated. One of the most pass-happy offenses in the league turned to isolation basketball when the title was in full view.

“I have to do a better job of keeping pace in the game,” said Haliburton. “We have to do a better job of, when we do get stops, getting out and running. A lot of times in that fourth we were fouling too much, taking the ball out, trying to run something vs. just random basketball. I’ve got to do a better job there. … That’s on me. I’ve got to get us playing faster down the stretch.”

“We just got too stagnant,” added Carlisle. “The ball was not being advanced quickly enough. We weren’t creating problems, and we were up against the clock a lot. Things got very difficult.

“But you’ve got to give Oklahoma credit. They made it very difficult.”

That they did. Lu Dort led an inspired effort on the perimeter, as Chet Holmgren protected the rim on the back end of Oklahoma City’s defense. They strangled the Pacers, forcing them late into the shot clock. Eight of Indiana’s 18 fourth-quarter shots were 3s, most all of them in isolation, and they missed all eight.

Prior to Game 4, the Pacers were 9-1 this postseason in clutch situations (when the score is within five points in the game’s final five minutes), scoring 145.7 points per 100 possessions on 49/41/91 shooting splits. On Friday, they scored 70 points per 100 possessions on 17/0/63 splits. And, obviously, they lost.

It did not help that Bennedict Mathurin, Indiana’s Game 3 hero and an 83.1% shooter from the free-throw line during the regular season, missed 3 of 4 free-throw attempts in the game’s final 24 seconds.

“It’s very tough. It’s a very tough time,” said Mathurin. “I have made those free throws, and I love making tough free throws, but the only thing I can do is knock them down next time.”

“They missed four [free throws]; we missed eight,” added Carlisle. “The difference of four is significant.”

As was Oklahoma City’s advantage on the glass in the fourth quarter. The Thunder out-rebounded the Pacers, 8-3, over the game’s final 12 minutes, scoring eight points on their four offensive rebounds. Essentially, everything that could go wrong for the Pacers did go wrong over the final quarter.

That included a wrestling-style promo from former Indianapolis Colts punter turned ESPN personality Pat McAfee, who, with 9:28 remaining in the fourth, hyped up the Gainbridge Fieldhouse crowd, as the Pacers led, 89-86, and seemed to be in control of the game, the series and their championship dreams.

“Even though we’re up 2-1 in the series with home-court advantage, coming into tonight’s game the Oklahoma City Thunder were favored to win the NBA title. Coming into tonight’s game, Oklahoma City was favored by 6.5 points,” McAfee said, as the crowd hung on every word. “That makes us the biggest underdogs in the history of the NBA Finals. That tells me the sportsbooks don’t know, Stephen A. Smith doesn’t know, and the Thunder are finding out, when you come to this state, not only are you playing the best team in the damn league, you’re also taking on the greatest fan base in the history of sports.”

It was a celebration inside the underdog’s house.

Only, from that point on, the Thunder outscored the Pacers, 25-15, shooting 64% (7-11 FG) to Indiana’s 29% (4-14 FG). Indiana practically became a different team, failing to register an assist in that final 9:28. The game slipped away, as did the Pacers’ lead in the series, and now you have to wonder if this was their golden opportunity, and the magic ran out. Or, at least it did for one night.

“We’ve got to bounce back,” said Carlisle. “I don’t need to motivate these guys. I think they have a sense of where they are. But this kind of a challenge is going to have extreme highs and extreme lows. This is a low right now, and we’re going to have to bounce back from it.”

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The Oklahoma City Thunder are facing the Indiana Pacers in the 2025 NBA Finals. The odds heavily favored the Thunder over the Pacers headed into this series, which is no surprise considering the Thunder were 68-14 in the regular season and the No. 1 overall seed in the Western Conference. However, the fourth-seeded Indiana Pacers are currently leading the Oklahoma City Thunder, 2-1 in the NBA Finals.

Game 4 tips off in Indiana tonight, June 13, at 8:30 p.m. on ABC. Here’s everything you need to know about how to watch the Pacers vs. Thunder NBA Finals.

How to watch the Oklahoma City Thunder vs. Indiana Pacers Game 4:

Date: Friday, June 13

Time: 8:30 p.m. ET

TV channel: ABC

Streaming: DirecTV, Fubo, Hulu + Live TV and more

NBA Finals channel:

All games in the NBA Finals will air on ABC — sweet and simple! 

How to watch the NBA Finals without cable:

Who is playing in the NBA Finals?

The Oklahoma City Thunder will face the Indiana Pacers in the 2025 NBA Finals.

2025 NBA Finals TV schedule:

All times Eastern.

Thursday, June 5

Game 1 – Indiana at Oklahoma City: 8:30 p.m. (ABC)

Sunday, June 8

Game 2 – Indiana at Oklahoma City: 8 p.m. (ABC)

Wednesday, June 11

Game 3 – Oklahoma City at Indiana: 8:30 p.m. (ABC)

Friday, June 13

Game 4 – Oklahoma City at Indiana: 8:30 p.m. (ABC)

Monday, June 16

Game 5 – Indiana at Oklahoma City, if necessary: 8:30 p.m. (ABC)

Thursday, June 19

Game 6 – Oklahoma City at Indiana, if necessary: 8:30 p.m. (ABC)

Sunday, June 22

Game 7 – Indiana at Oklahoma City, if necessary: 8 p.m. (ABC)

*if necessary

More ways to watch the NBA Finals:

One specific area where the Indianapolis Colts’ defense has to improve is in their tackling.

According to Next Gen Stats, the Colts were the only team to have four players record at least 100 tackles, but the efficiency wasn’t there. The Colts gave up a league-high 1,183 yards after missed tackles and had 10-plus missed tackles in all but six games.

From a pure quantity standpoint, no team missed more tackles than the Colts did in 2024, and it wasn’t particularly close.

During OTAs and minicamp, contact is not permitted. Even once training camp begins, there is relatively limited opportunities to hone in on this fundamental, yet key aspect of playing football.

So, how can new defensive coordinator Lou Anarumo get improved tackling out of this Colts’ defense this season? Well, it starts with teaching the players how to position themselves correctly to make the tackle.

“We’ll just take what we’re building from here, in the spring, and bring it over to training camp,” Anarumo said during minicamp. “There’s a number of different ways, I’ve always said coaching the DBs for a long time, tackling is about timing and angle and that’s all the non-physical part of it. We can handle the first three-quarters of the tackle by just getting in a good position, and then we drill the remainder of it both now and in preseason.”

To state the obvious, sound tackling limits yards after contact in the running game and yards after the catch in the passing game. This can then reduce explosive plays for an offense or turn what would have been a 3rd-and-2 into a 3rd-and-6, which should result in the defense getting off the field more often.

When Colts’ defenders are asked about Anarumo’s defense, a common word we hear to describe it is “aggressive.” That change in play-style can hopefully have players better positioned to make tackles, along with there being more players around the ball carrier to help bring him down.

“It’s generally the way it’s been over the years, with less tackling during training camp, you go through the first couple preseason games, it’s a little rusty,” Anarumo said of tackling. “Even in the first couple of games, you don’t want it to be, but generally by Week 3 or Week 4, you gotta be humming in terms of being a good tackling defense, and that’s how we’ll evaluate it.”

This article originally appeared on Colts Wire: How Lou Anarumo will help Colts’ defense improve its tackling

Seattle Storm React to Historic Skylar Diggins News originally appeared on Athlon Sports.

The Seattle Storm sit at 6-4 as of Friday, good for third place in the Western Conference standings, just behind the Minnesota Lynx (9-1) and Phoenix Mercury (7-4). 

Through the first 10 games of the season, the Storm have the fifth-highest scoring offense (81.7 points per game) and the second-highest field goal (47.4%) and 3-point shooting percentages (37.7%). 

While they might not top the league standings, they have one of the most potent offenses in the WNBA, thanks largely to veteran guard Skylar Diggins, who on Friday celebrated another major personal achievement.

The Storm took to X to highlight that Diggins has become the fastest player ever to amass 5,000 career points alongside 1,500 assists. 

Their post read, “Making HISTORY NO ONE in the WNBA has recorded 5000 points and 1500 assists faster than Sky ⚡ Make her an All‑Star ⭐️,” encouraging fans to vote her in as a 2025 All-Star. 

Making HISTORY 🤩

NO ONE in the WNBA has recorded 5000 points and 1500 assists faster than Sky ⚡

Make her an All-Star ⭐️👉 https://t.co/KzTTEqgCE5pic.twitter.com/9XzoF5JO33

— Seattle Storm (@seattlestorm) June 13, 2025

Drafted third overall in 2013, Diggins emerged at Notre Dame as one of college basketball’s premier guards, leading the Fighting Irish to three Final Fours and two national title games. 

Her pro resume includes six All‑Star nods, six All‑WNBA selections and the 2014 WNBA Most Improved Player Award.

That said, Diggins hasn’t made an All-Star or All-WNBA team since 2022. 

This season, Diggins leads the team in points (17.8) and assists (6.4) per game, while also averaging 2.4 rebounds and 1.4 steals per game on 44.6% shooting from the field and 38.2% from deep.

This strategic push underlines Diggins’ value to Seattle and aims to galvanize the fan vote ahead of the July 18-19 All‑Star Weekend in Indianapolis 

Related: Stephanie White Breaks Silence After Missing Chicago Sky Game

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This story was originally reported by Athlon Sports on Jun 13, 2025, where it first appeared.

Caitlin Clark Makes Clear Request Before Injury Return originally appeared on Athlon Sports.

Indiana Fever star guard Caitlin Clark is set to return to the lineup on Saturday afternoon against the New York Liberty after missing the last five games with a left quadriceps strain. Ironically enough, she suffered the injury against the Liberty back on May 24.

In the four games Clark has played so far this WNBA season, she is averaging 19.0 points, 6.0 rebounds and 9.3 assists per game. It’s clear Indiana needs her back on the floor after going 2-3 without her.

On Friday, the Fever took to social media to announce her return.

“she’s back 🔥,” the team captioned the post. “Caitlin Clark is ready to play tomorrow against New York.”

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A post shared by Indiana Fever (@indianafever)

Clark came across the post and headed straight to the comments, writing two messages.

“Happy,” she wrote in the first one.

In the second one, she replied to Cheez-It, the cheese cracker snack brand.

Cheez-It said, “Let’s gooooo 🔥.”

In response, the reigning WNBA Rookie of the Year requested that a lot of Cheez-Its be sent to the Fever’s practice facility.

“@cheezit squad needs a lot of cheez its to facility plzzzzz,” Clark said. “All the flavors. Duos and extra toasty for me :).”

Turns out it worked as Cheez-It then said, “on it 🫡.”

This isn’t the first time Clark has shared her love for Cheez-Its. During a sit-down with Sports Illustrated, she said, “I’m not a big snacker, but Cheez-It is the one.”

Her teammate, Kelsey Mitchell, also called her out for always having Cheez-Its with her when the team is traveling on the road.

Related: Caitlin Clark Had No Words After WNBA’s Big Announcement

Related: Candace Parker Doesn’t Entertain Caitlin Clark – Angel Reese Rivalry

This story was originally reported by Athlon Sports on Jun 13, 2025, where it first appeared.

Sam Burns matched the third-best US Open round ever fired at Oakmont, shooting a five-under par 65 to seize a one-stroke lead after Friday’s second round as big names struggled.

The 28-year-old American made six birdies against a lone bogey to stand on three-under 137 after 36 holes on the punishing layout.

“It felt like I played really well. Today was really nice,” Burns said. “There’s obviously a lot of golf left on a very tough course.”

The only two US Open rounds at Oakmont lower than Burns’s 65 were Johnny Miller’s final-round 63 to win in 1973 and a 64 by Loren Roberts in the 1994 third round.

American J.J. Spaun made bogeys on three of the last four holes to shoot 72 and stand second on 138 with Norway’s Viktor Hovland third on 139 after a 68 — the top trio being the only players under par after 36 holes.

“I was definitely anxious to get back out here and see how the game would pan out, and it ended up being a pretty good day,” Spaun said.

“It was more of a true US Open round, a lot of back and forth, a lot of grinding, bogeys. It was still an overall good day. I’m still right there.”

World number 14 Hovland marveled at 22nd-ranked Burns and his stunning round.

“Super impressive,” Hovland called it. “It just feels like you have to play absolutely perfect and have some good breaks going your way, as well, but it’s definitely doable.”

Heavy rains drenched Oakmont, halting play for the day at 8:15 p.m. (0015 GMT) with 13 golfers yet to finish their second rounds.

World number two Rory McIlroy struggled to make the cut, with double bogeys at the first and third holes, but sank a five-foot birdie putt at the 18th to shoot 72 and stand on 146, securing a spot inside the low 60 and ties to make the weekend.

Bryson DeChambeau fired a 77 to stand on 150 and miss the cut, the first defending champion to miss the US Open cut since Gary Woodland in 2020.

Also missing the cut was six-time US Open runner-up Phil Mickelson, who needed a win to complete a career Grand Slam.

Top-ranked Scottie Scheffler and Spain’s Jon Rahm were seven adrift on 144. Scheffler fired a 71 with five bogeys and four birdies.

“Felt like me getting away with one-over today wasn’t all that bad,” Scheffler said. “It could have been a lot worse.”

Rahm fired a frustrating 75.

“I’m too annoyed and too mad right now to think about any perspective,” Rahm said. “Very frustrated. Very few rounds of golf I played in my life where I think I hit good putts and they didn’t sniff the hole.”

– ‘A punch in the face’ –

With few exceptions, Oakmont was delivering blows to golf’s top talent.

“Everyone seems like they’re exhausted when they come in off the course just because it’s a punch in the face,” American Denny McCarthy said. “It just takes a lot out of you.”

Back-nine starter Burns drained a 21-foot birdie putt at 11, a six-footer to birdie the par-three 13th and back-to-back short birdie putts at 17 and 18.

Burns answered a bogey at the first with a five-foot birdie putt at the second and reached the green in two to set up a tap-in birdie at the par-five fourth hole, then parred into the clubhouse, sinking a 22-foot par putt at the ninth to close his round.

“It’s really difficult,” Burns said. “Sometimes the best thing is just to take your medicine.”

Burns, who shared ninth at last year’s US Open for his best major finish, last won at the 2023 WGC Match Play, but he fired a Sunday 62 before losing a Canadian Open playoff last week.

“I felt like my game was in good form coming in here,” he said.

Australian Adam Scott and American Ben Griffin shared fourth on 140.

France’s Victor Perez aced the par-three sixth hole from 192 yards, hitting the 54th hole-in-one in US Open history but only the second ace at a US Open at Oakmont. Perez shot 70 to stand sixth on 141.

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