Thunder -star Isaiah Hartenstein warns Indiana Pacers what Oklahoma City ‘Special’ makes for NBA Finals

The Oklahoma City Thunder produced the NBA’s best defense During the regular season, and I also did the same during these play -offs.

Now, on the largest stage of the competition in the NBA final, they are ready to show the pacers why they are ‘special’ to that end of the field.

“I think our defense is special because we don’t have weak ties,” Centrum Jesaja Hartenstein told the International Media Sunday on a zoom call.

‘Because normal teams can hunt a little on a player. We don’t really have that much.

“We are a real team,” he continued at another point. “We support each other. If you play a lot of minutes, if you don’t play many minutes. I think that is what makes it special is that we support each other a lot.

‘And when it comes to the field, we are always defensively connected, we are attacking, we are connected. And I think that is what makes it difficult to play against us, because nobody is never on the same page. ‘

Isaiah Hartenstein is seen with the Western Conference Championship Trophy after the Thunder has defeated the Timberwolves

Hartenstein has been a large part of the stifling defense of the Thunder this season

The Thunder – the youngest final team since the blazers of 1977 – has seen their national profile increase in this late season, although the basis for such a run has been there throughout the season.

The team of Mark Daigneault led the competition with a historically good 68 regular seasonal gains, have an MVP in Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and a swarm defending stoppers such as Hartenstein, Lu Dort and Alex Caruso.

However, the last two series have been a real explanation for the competition and his fans.

Three-time MVP Nikola Jokic and proverbial ‘future face of the competition’ candidate Anthony Edwards were sometimes both used to, and Gilgous-Alexander came through at great moments.

But Hartenstein knows that the Pacers will yield a new series of challenges.

“It’s a new series. You have to prove yourself again, “he said.

‘And we don’t really buy a little in who the favorite is, not the favorite. We want to go outside from 0-0, and you have to prove ourselves. ‘

The thunder is in fact open when Extremely crooked favorites, Although the Pacers have entered their first finals since 2000 after they have made their own announcement for the competition.

Tyrese Haliburton – voted the ‘most overrated player’ of the competition Because of his colleagues not long ago – it turned out to be something else, except, while Pascal Siakam showed the championship tree tree that helped him win a ring with the Raptors in 2019.

Indiana showed how powerful their attack was when she grabbed the most steeling knicks in the game 6 Eastern Conference Finals Clincher (and 130-plus in two other games), and their preference for pace will be something for OKC to keep an eye on.

Hartenstein, for his part, said that the Thunder should delay them and hit them on stage.

The Thunder will hope that the newly crowned MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander can be demonstrated

Gilgeous-Alexander and Lu Dort have both seen the team grow since he arrived in OKC in 2019

For the former Knicks star, things are quickly advanced since he joined the team last summer.

Jalen Williams also won mainly since the team set him up in 2022, while Chet Holmgren (who missed his true Rookie season due to injury) has a fairly stunning regular record of 83-31.

However, Dort was in OKC, because the team team barely broke 20 victories a year until 2020-22 and tried to rebuild Na-Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook.

If the longest regular player of the team (Gilgous-Alexander came to him on the same day in July 2019 via trade), he can now look at the final of the team through the lens of that trip.

“When I arrived here for the first time, we all had a vision … And I have the feeling, you know, we have checked many of those boxes to get about to get today,” Dort said. ‘You know, credit our organization and coaching staff, and then the players who have been here, it all really shaped us to get to this point.

‘It would mean a lot to get it done, not just for us, but for the city, for the organization. I mean, we just put so much work on this. And now we are so close to the end. So we have to think about everything, use all that motivation to get it done. ‘

The Thunder organizes Game 1 of the Finals on Friday.