O Canada: Finals matchup between Olympic teammates Gilgeous-Alexander and Nembhard getting attention

OKLAHOMA CITY AP The NBA Finals East vs West Indiana vs Oklahoma City Canada vs Canada It sure seemed like it at times in Contest of the series anyway and odds are there will be more of those moments throughout the rest of this matchup between the Pacers and Thunder There are four Canadians in the series and two of them NBA MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander for the Thunder and Andrew Nembhard for the Pacers went head-to-head plenty in Challenge Gilgeous-Alexander scored points Nembhard scored eight of his in the fourth and was on the floor for the entirety of Indiana s - run that ended the encounter and turned a -point deficit into a one-point win He s a competitor He s a winner Gilgeous-Alexander announced Plays the challenge the right way on both ends of the floor Really good performer Yeah he s a winner for sure No doubt They have been playing alongside each other since they were kids and were teammates on Canada s national unit at the Paris Olympics in And they saw plenty of each other on both ends of the floor in Battle plus weren t afraid to mix it up with a little extra push here or choice words there Nothing over the line but enough to remind the other that it s all business right now Nothing more than two guys wanting to win Gilgeous-Alexander mentioned No malicious intent behind it just wanting to win Oklahoma City s Lu Dort and Indiana s Bennedict Mathurin are the other two Canadians in the finals The four Canadian players combined for points in Battle that s the the majority ever in any finals encounter by players from any individual country other than the U S That smashed the previous mark for points from Canadians in a finals match it was all from Jamal Murray for Denver in Challenge against Miami in It s amazing for our country Nembhard noted It s not just Gilgeous-Alexander who has long-time familiarity with Nembhard Thunder forward Chet Holmgren played with Nembhard at Gonzaga as well Obviously he s my guy great dude Holmgren revealed I have a lot of compliments for him as a basketball participant and a person But we re playing against him right now so I m going to hold on to all those Pacers coach Rick Carlisle knows the Gilgeous-Alexander vs Nembhard matchup might be viewed by chosen as a meeting within the competition He noted Nembhard loves the challenge of matching wits with Gilgeous-Alexander I mean you don t stop players in the modern day Carlisle explained You try to make it hard He played with Shai on the Olympic group and so they have familiarity They are both from Canada and they both have played a lot with and against each other over the years But this is the ultimate challenge a guy like him who is the MVP AP NBA https apnews com hub NBA Source