With one more victory, the Indiana Pacers will cap arguably the most improbable championship run in league history, and an unlikely hero has underscored that journey since Indiana’s upset of the Oklahoma City Thunder in Game 1 of the NBA Finals.
Reserve guard T.J. McConnell has created all sorts of problems for the Thunder defense this series, which happens to be among the best in recent memory in terms of defensive rating, turnover margin and several other meaningful statistical categories of both the advanced and traditional varieties.
In fact, one can make the argument that McConnell is having the best NBA Finals of any bench player ever through six games based on the numbers he’s put up. According to the Pacers official X account, McConnell is the first bench player in league history to record more than 60 points, more than 25 assists and more than 15 rebounds across a Finals series — and he still has Game 7 on Sunday night, June 22, to add to those totals and potentially help the Pacers claim their first NBA title in franchise history.
Indiana won three ABA titles in the mid-1970s before the ABA-NBA merger.
Suffice it to say, prominent players around the league have taken notice. Among them is Los Angeles Lakers superstar and four-time champion LeBron James, who gave McConnell his flowers during a live episode of the “Mind the Game” podcast with co-host Steve Nash at Fanatics Fest in New York City over the weekend.
– LeBron shows TJ McConnell love 🤝
“You look at TJ McConnell, he’s not the tallest or fastest guy, but you don’t know what he’s going to do,” James said. “He’s the KEY reason there’s a Game 7 tomorrow night.”
T.J. McConnell Has Played Better in NBA Finals Than During Regular Season
GettyPoint guard T.J. McConnell of the Indiana Pacers.
McConnell serves as the Pacers’ backup point guard, running the show when All-NBA performer Tyrese Haliburton is off the court.
At 33 years old, McConnell averaged 9.1 points, 4.4 assists, 2.4 rebounds and 1.1 steals on 17.9 minutes of court time per night across 79 appearances in the regular season (one start), per Basketball Reference.
The 10-year veteran, who went undrafted out of Arizona, has upped all of those number through six games against the Thunder, averaging 11.3 points, 4.5 assists, 3.2 rebounds and 2.3 steals across 19 minutes per game in the Finals to this point, per ESPN.
T.J. McConnell Plays Somewhat Atypical Game for Small Guard
GettyJosh Hart of the New York Knicks (left) defending T.J. McConnell of the Indiana Pacers (right) during an NBA game.
McConnell stands at just 6-feet, 1-inch tall and weighs only 190 pounds, which typically renders him the smallest player on any NBA court any time he subs into a game.
He doesn’t shoot many 3-pointers, as most guards his size tend to do, but instead attacks the basket on offense and the ball on defense with an aggressive fury that has carved out a valuable niche for him in the modern game, and with this Pacers team specifically.
Inexplicably, McConnell has had multiple runs during the Finals, including in Games 5 and 6, where he was the best player on the floor for either team across stretches of several minutes. He may need to find some of that magic again in Game 7, as the Pacers head to Oklahoma City as 6.5-point underdogs against the Thunder, per ESPN BET.
LeBron James Makes Bold Claim About TJ McConnell Prior to Game 7