Instead of telling your team that you're going to circle back, try saying, let's sauce these nugs later.

Good morning, sweet world, and welcome to the No Dunks podcast on the Athletic Network.

It's Tuesday, June 17, 2025. I'm Jay E. Skeetsets here in the Classic Factory and alongside me, as always, Tass Melis. Fans of the best game in the world. This is for you. Next to him, it's the bearded one, Matapsia hot boy, Trey Kirby. Hey, oh. And over yonder, making the magic happen, super producer, JD. Hello. There he is. Here here we are hello to everybody on youtube take a second

hit the like button subscribe share the show as well podcast listeners five star ratings and

reviews we'll play a little true or false later in today's pod but we start with the game five

recap the thunder one win away from a title led by Jalen Williams career playoff

high, 40 points.

OKC earned the 120 to 109 win against the Pacers in game five.

OKC has a 3-2 lead here in the series.

We go back to Indianapolis for game six later in the week on Thursday.

And this is the first time, Trey, that the Pacers have lost back-to-back games in these playoffs. But they made it a game. They got back into it. But where do you want to start from OKC taking game five? How can we not start with J-dub? 40 points, six rebounds, four assists, and a steel. I think they showed the graphic of his makes in the first half at halftime, and it was like the cool animated graphic where you see all the shots he made. And that's why I was like, wait a second, all of these have been layups or dunks. It felt like he was in the paint all night. Turns out he went nine of 16 at the rim, and he really got started with back cuts, running in transition. Hartenstein was finding him for a couple of cuts from the slot when the Pacers just kind of lost track of him. Tough game, I think, for Aaron Neesmith in this one. He's on the receiving end of a lot of these highlights, but J. Dub was just special in this game. After he was able to get kind of unleashed playing in transition.

That's when he got into the dribble drive game.

That's when he got into the stepback jumper game, had that beautiful twisting one over knee Smith again.

Just an incredible performance by this guy to really bring it when the Thunder needed it.

He's got a lot of Scotty Pippen in his game.

He's got the size and the versatility on defense.

But I think even offensively, he plays a lot like Pippin does, running in transition.

He's kind of been the point guard for the Thunder the past couple of games here,

getting to the rim and finishing.

I'm including his high off the glass layup as a Scotty Pippen move.

Back when I was young and small, everybody in the playground, everybody in the driveway would work on shooting Scotty Pippin layups higher than the glass or like higher than the square on the glass. You saw that from J. Dub last night in the fourth quarter. So I'm hoping Andrew Schleck's kids are out in the driveway today. Shooting high arcing layups like Jalen Williams like

Scotty Pippen. This was a great performance by the Thunder like you're saying. The Pacers

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