This moment was created for Lu Dort.

Protecting a one-point lead with under two and a half minutes remaining in what amounted to a do-or-die Game 4, the Oklahoma City Thunder’s brawny firecracker stayed on brand, picking up Indiana Pacers star Tyrese Haliburton full-court.

Such is Dort’s forte.

Haliburton proceeded with caution, avoiding the breakneck pace that Indiana tormented opposing defenses with all year. Before getting to half court, he pitched the ball ahead to Pascal Siakam, but getting rid of the rock did not get rid of Dort.

Dort watched the ball traverse over his noggin but did not divert his focus from Haliburton. Like an NFL cornerback in press coverage at the line of scrimmage, he jammed Haliburton at half court, extending two hands into the All-NBA guard’s chest. The contact halted any forward progress and forced Haliburton to run east or west to get the ball.

Haliburton still hoped to go north-south. But Dort, per usual, slid himself in the way.

The press coverage at the half-court line allowed the Thunder’s All-Defensive First Team guard to get between Haliburton and Siakam as they tried a dribble handoff. The purpose of the action was to slingshot the Pacers’ offensive engine downhill toward the rim. But Dort plowed through the 6-foot-8 forward like he wasn’t even there. He crowded Haliburton as he received the ball. Haliburton could not turn the corner, so he kicked it back to Siakam and let his teammate probe Oklahoma City’s defense on the other side of the floor.

As the Pacers worked their pass-heavy offense from side to side, Dort denied Haliburton from getting the ball back in his hands, which encouraged Haliburton to retreat out to the half-court line. And there, Haliburton and Dort stood and waited as the Pacers looked for a shot with just over two minutes remaining in Friday’s match, an eventual Thunder victory that tied the NBA Finals at two games apiece.

With 10 seconds remaining on the shot clock, Haliburton made his break for the ball. Naturally, Dort was ready. As Haliburton tried to grab it, Dort gave him a bump with his left hand and once again forced himself between the passer and receiver of the dribble handoff. In this instance, Dort got his left hand on the ball and tipped it into the backcourt for what turned into a clutch-time steal that added a point to Oklahoma City’s lead.

After the game, when referee talk dominated the public discourse, this play drew an awful lot of attention on social media.

pic.twitter.com/3njoS65ugk

— Young Simba (@the2kmessiah) June 14, 2025

From the opposite baseline, it appeared as though Dort’s physicality crossed the line. But the Thunder had already dictated the terms of the game with their relentless physicality. If it crossed the line, so be it.

After all, this isn’t just Dort’s brand. It’s also the Thunder’s.

Dort may not have picked up a foul on this particular play, part of a special second-half suffocation of Haliburton, but there are other moments like this when an official blows the whistle. The Thunder will take the fouls, whether from him, from fellow perimeter pests Alex Caruso, Jalen Williams and Cason Wallace, or from rim protectors Isaiah Hartenstein and Chet Holmgren.

In Oklahoma City, where the Thunder will bash offenses into submission, fouls are baked into the recipe, a necessary evil inside the league’s top defense.

“It’s kind of the cost of doing business with physicality. … A lot of it for us is learning which ones we don’t give,” Thunder coach Mark Daigneault said. “Like, a guy gathers the ball, is about to take a tough shot — (Pacers guard Andrew) Nembhard is good at that. You get caught with your hands in there. He knows how to sell those calls or get those calls. He deserves the calls. If you’re reaching in late, he’s about to shoot a long 2, those are the ones you wanna lay off of. But some of them is just the cost of physicality.”

The Thunder are in exclusive company, not just because of their success but also because of their style.

Historically, the best defenses can get stops without fouling. But Oklahoma City engulfs basketball’s gaudiest attacks not in spite of its hacking but because of it.

“You gotta look at the other stuff,” Caruso told The Athletic. “The turnover creation, the rebound rate, transition, those are the things that we win. We might give up something with fouls, but we are OK being aggressive and setting the tone that way when we don’t give up the other stuff.”

The Thunder are kleptomaniacs. After leading the league in takeaways during the regular season, their defensive turnover rate has somehow increased during the playoffs. Elite competition, whether it’s Haliburton or Anthony Edwards or Nikola Jokić on the other side, has not hindered what has been the NBA’s top defense all year.

Oklahoma City allowed the fewest points per possession of any team during the regular season and has stayed atop the league during the playoffs, as well. It makes the Thunder one of only two defenses since the NBA began tracking per-possession data in 1996 to lead the league in defensive efficiency, but also finish bottom five in free-throw rate (free-throw attempts per 100 possessions) allowed. The other is the 2008 Boston Celtics, who famously smashed their way to a title during Year 1 of a big three that included Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen.

In other words, the Thunder foul a ton but don’t give up many points. And the last squad that pulled off this strategy to the same extreme got a championship out of it.

“We’re going to play the way that we do,” Dort said. “We’re going to be aggressive.”

The first possession of an OKC game often includes some player swiping at another. Early, hard fouls or the patented swarming of the paint that’s become the team’s staple set a Thunder-friendly baseline from the jump, since refs can’t send players to the line each possession.

They aren’t the only team deploying this strategy. In fact, never before has what’s normally been a staple among the best defensive teams — guarding without fouling — been flipped on its head so aggressively.

Other teams around the league are adopting similar identities, including the only other one that’s still alive.

The Pacers have played their best defense of the season during a playoff run that has included victories over the Milwaukee Bucks, Cleveland Cavaliers and New York Knicks. Add in a matchup with the Thunder, and that’s four opponents that finished inside the top 10 in points per possession during the regular season. Indiana has humbled each of those top-notch offenses.

It stifles ball movement. Its perimeter defenders, led by Nembhard and Aaron Nesmith, provide the Dort treatment. It limits efficient shot selection. Even in a Game 4 victory, the Thunder couldn’t get into their offense against the Pacers, when OKC dished out only 10 assists and attempted just 17 3-pointers.

Meanwhile, one trend stands out: As the Pacers’ defense has ramped up, so has its foul rate. The Pacers have fouled significantly more during the playoffs than they did during the regular season, when fouling is supposed to decrease. They now own the highest free-throw rate allowed out of all 16 playoff teams.

“I think it’s because of the way they are pressuring the way they are,” Daigneault said. “They’re incredibly physical on the perimeter. They’re getting the ball up the floor. They’re pursuing over screens. And it’s disrupted the plays, but the trade-off of that is you end up getting whistles.”

If anyone knows, it’s Daigneault. But he and Pacers head coach Rick Carlisle aren’t the only ones.

The first defensive possession of every Orlando Magic game this season was indistinguishable from a brawl. Orlando would strategically come out swinging, similar to Oklahoma City, in the hopes of setting that baseline. The Magic ended the season second in points allowed per possession and 30th in free-throw rate allowed. They are the only team since 1996 to finish dead last in that stat and still own a top-five defense.

They are willing to concede the free throws, just like the Thunder.

Midway through the first quarter of Game 4, Siakam sprang on a fast break. Two OKC wings, Williams and Aaron Wiggins, stood in front of him, blocking the lane to the hoop. Siakam lofted the ball behind him to microwave scorer Bennedict Mathurin, who was in a position to attack.

That’s when the Thunder did what they do best.

Williams angled in front of Mathurin as Caruso throttled the length of the court to catch the dribbler from behind. Both defenders reached for the ball. In their best moments, which come often, the Thunder look like an angry colony of bees. But in this case, Mathurin got stung. Williams swiped him on the arm while going for the ball.

Two free throws.

The Thunder bets that a turnover will occur just often enough to justify a foul like this one.

It’s a mathematical equation. The Thunder’s defensive rating would have been 3.3 points per 100 possessions worse had they turned over opponents at a league-average rate instead of a league-best one (assuming their opponent scores at a league-average rate), a gap that doesn’t even take into account all the misses that OKC’s freneticism causes.

It might not sound like much, but 3.3 points per 100 was the difference between the second-ranked Magic’s defense and the 10th-ranked Detroit Pistons. It was the difference between the Pistons’ defense and the 24th-ranked Charlotte Hornets.

So the Thunder live with the fouls, not because they are impossible to fix, but because they are a product of their success.

“A lot of times, they just let us rock,” Williams said. “If we have fouls that we can learn from or we’re trying to do the right thing and we foul, we try to learn from those, but they try not to get too involved because it’s part of our identity a little bit.”

— The Athletic’s Sam Amick contributed to this story.

(Photo: Maddie Meyer / Getty Images)