After having his worst game of the series in Game 3, Myles Turner got the Pacers offense rolling immediately in Game 4 as he scored 9 of the Pacers first 13 points as he rolled to the basket and drew a foul, popped to the midrange like he was running a pick and pop with Darren Collison, finished in transition on a drive from the wing with a fake pass and lefty finish, and flashed to the rim with no defender nearby. He hit each of his first four shots.

“He was big time. I think, if you ask me, he probably didn’t have the game he wanted to have last game. I thought he got a lot of good looks and just didn’t knock them down. There was no panic from us after Game 3. We understood that we were getting a lot of good shots, especially between me and him both struggling last game. He set the tone early with a couple early buckets. When you see the first couple go in as a team, it makes the rim bigger. I thought we did a good job of continuously attacking.”

In Game 4, he was everything the Indiana Pacers needed him to be with a team-high 23 points on 9-of-13 shooting.

“I was aggressive offensively, just picking and choosing my spots. Tyrese (Haliburton) was doing a good job of getting me the ball in the pick-and-roll and I made some shots,” Turner said after the game. “It’s exactly what we talked about last game. Sometimes it’s a make-or-miss league. Missed a lot of shots last game, made a lot of shots this game. The difference was just staggering.”

After his shotmaking got the team rolling in the first quarter, it was his defense that popped in the second. The franchise blocks leader did what he does best as he protected the rim on consecutive possessions against Giannis Antetokounmpo, who Turner has blocked more than any other player in his career, by pinning an attempt to the backboard and forcing a jump ball on the following possession. The blocks that bounce off the backboard and immediately start a transition opportunity have always been the best kind of Turner blocks. He had a few of these 4 or 5-point swing plays in Game 1 of the series as well.

“Momentum changers, momentum shifters at that,” Turner said after the opening game of the series. “It’s huge when you’re at home. You have to keep the crowd in the game is something I’ve learned just in my experience. Momentum plays a huge part in our style of play as well.”

Those plays are just as crucial on the road in quieting a raucous crowd as often as possible. Turner was credited with 4 blocks in this game but there were many others where he altered the shot attempt to force a miss and got the Pacers running in the other direction. It felt like anytime Kyle Kuzma was near the basket, Turner was there to make sure the ball wasn’t going in.

In the second half, he added another poster playoff dunk to his collection as he dunked all over Antetokounmpo on the opening possession of the third quarter.

“That dunk definitely set the tone for the second half,” reserve forward Obi Toppin said. “He came out here and ran through one of their best guys to dunk the ball. Obviously that got everybody on the bench … everybody on the bench was going crazy. That was juice that fueled us (so) that we just came into the game with that good energy.”

After the Pacers lost the plot to open the third quarter in Game 3, that dunk immediately showed it wasn’t going to be the same story in this one. Turner was the conservation of momentum for Indiana once again.

“Outside of the play itself, it’s a momentum starter,” Turner said of his dunk. “It gets our bench going, it obviously gets us going on the floor, and it sparks some energy into the game. It was a timely play.”

The shooting and the rim protection are what make Turner such an invaluable player to the Pacers team. There’s no one quite like him. The spacing he provides on one end and the elimination of lanes to the rim he provides on the other are crucial to Indiana’s success. Let’s see if he can continue to keep the momentum on the Pacers side as they look to close out this series at home in Game 5.

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