Andrew Nembhard (left) has spent most of the 2025 NBA Finals shadowing Shai Gilgeous-Alexander all over the court.
INDIANAPOLIS — No one in the 2025 NBA Finals has a harder job than Indiana guard Andrew Nembhard.
Oh, there’s plenty of pressure and heavy-lifting to go around. Oklahoma City’s Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is the man of the hour, the league’s newly minted Kia Most Valuable Player and scoring champion, charged with leading the Thunder to their first NBA championship.
Tyrese Haliburton, Nembhard’s backcourt mate, is more the man of the moment, a clutch player who added to his late-game heroics to win Game 1, who, nonetheless, seems to face a goofy referendum on a nightly basis on just how special he is.
But Nembhard is right there, an X-factor on both ends of the court for the underdog Pacers, who host Game 3 tonight (8:30 ET, ABC).
The third-year combo guard from Canada has been tasked with grabbing a tiger by the tail while lassoing a tornado as Indiana’s primary defender on Gilgeous-Alexander. The MVP is a lethal scorer, a volume shooter, a high-usage ballhandler and a pitcher, as his coach Mark Daigneault likened him, with a full repertoire of nasty offerings beyond a 100-mph fastball.
Offensively, Nembhard is Indiana’s second- or third-most important option in its share-the-wealth attack. He is one of seven who averaged better than 10 points or got up three 3-pointers per game, but his timely scoring from deep and mid-range opens up the most space in which Haliburton or Pascal Siakam can operate.
Both talents were in the spotlight in the closing moments of Game 1 on Thursday. Nembhard’s dazzling step-back 3-pointer over Gilgeous-Alexander in front of him kept hope alive, getting Indiana within 108-105. Then it was Nembhard stiffening to help thwart SGA’s final 12-foot shot, the miss that led to Haliburton’s stunning game-winner with 0.3 seconds left.
Andrew Nembhard's handles on this triple 😲
The @Pacers guard came up HUGE down the stretch in Game 1! pic.twitter.com/zz7mZX29EU
— NBA (@NBA) June 6, 2025
“He loves the challenge,” Pacers coach Rick Carlisle said on the eve of Game 2. “He has a great intellectual curiosity about defense and the challenge of trying to — I mean, you don’t stop players today. You try to make it hard.
“This is the ultimate challenge, a guy like [SGA] who is the MVP. … There’s no breaks. But Drew is one of these guys that he has an equal focus on the defensive end as the offensive end, and that’s — it’s a bit rare with today’s players.”
Said Nembhard: “I’m not really too worried about the individual battle. I’m not focusing on it. It’s a team job to stop him. And we know that.”
‘A job that has no breaks’
Oklahoma City's supporting cast stepped up in Game 2. Shaq thinks flipping that script is key for Indiana in Game 3.
Nembhard and the Pacers didn’t fare as well in Game 2. Gilgeous-Alexander’s point total dropped from 38 to 34, but he was far more efficient (11 of 21 shooting, 11 of 12 from the line) and OKC won handily. Nembhard slipped from 14 points in the opener (eight of those in the final quarter) to 11, and from plus-11 to minus-17 on a rough night for his whole team.
Still, Nembhard remained the best choice to dig in against Gilgeous-Alexander. According to NBA.com stats, he has been the most successful defender against the Thunder star, limiting him to 15 points on 38.5% shooting (5 of 13) in 14:07 of direct match-up time.
That’s more than four times what any of his teammates have logged against SGA, and their smaller sample sizes have not been pretty. Consider: 7 points in 3:51 vs. Aaron Nesmith, 14 points in 3:31 vs. Bennedict Mathurin and 13 points in 1:21 vs. Haliburton.
Already, Gilgeous-Alexander has totaled more points (72) in his first two Finals outings than anyone else in NBA history. Just slowing his roll without being turned into Bryon Russell vs. Michael Jordan or Dikembe Mutombo’s jaw vs. Shaquille O’Neal’s elbow would rate as a success.
“It’s definitely a job that has no breaks,” Nembhard said. “It’s a consistent 48-minute job for our whole team.
“Ever since I’ve gotten into the league, I’ve taken those [defensive] responsibilities. My success with them has probably gone up, and that’s what you guys are seeing. I’ve just gotten more comfortable, more experience understanding the game in the NBA and work around the foul situation.”
Impressively, Nembhard was whistled for just four fouls in the first two games while coping with the Thunder’s reputed “free throw merchant.” Indiana teammate Ben Sheppard spoke of Nembhard’s “high defensive IQ,” a term more often associated with offensive acumen.
“It’s a feel thing,” Nembhard said. “It’s understanding tendencies, what guys like to do and what we are trying to accomplish as a team and being in the right spots early. And then also just figuring out on the fly when things don’t go well in emergency situations.”
Countrymen turned competitors
Andrew Nembhard limited Shai Gilgeous-Alexander to 15 points while defending him through the 1st two games of the NBA Finals.
It’s a familiarity thing, too. Gilgeous-Alexander said he has been playing against Nembhard since he was nine years old. The pair is two of four Canadians playing in the Finals, along with OKC’s defensive ace Lu Dort and Indiana’s Mathurin.
Gilgeous-Alexander is from Hamilton, Ontario. Nembhard was born in Aurora, Ontario, and raised in Vaughan, a city of more than 300,000 that is north of Toronto. They each played club basketball, with Nembhard — who is 18 months younger — coached by his father, Claude. He was pitted frequently against the guy he’s guarding now on the game’s biggest stage, as well as Gilgeous-Alexander’s cousin, Nickeil Alexander-Walker, and Toronto Raptors swingman RJ Barrett, two more NBAers from north of the border.
Eventually, they were teammates with Canada’s Junior Academy. Then they each finished high school in the U.S., Gilgeous-Alexander in Chattanooga, Tenn., and Nembhard in Monteverde, Fla. Last summer, they were on the same squad again, helping Canada win the bronze medal at the Paris Olympics.
“It’s been an amazing journey,” Gilgeous-Alexander said. “To see him having success, my own success, obviously Lu’s success, Ben’s success, it’s special. It’s hard to even wrap your head around…”
Gilgeous-Alexander spent one year at Kentucky. Nembhard split his college time into two years at Florida, two at Gonzaga (where he teamed for one season with OKC’s Chet Holmgren). SGA began his MVP arc as the No. 11 pick in the 2018 Draft. Nembhard arrived four years later at No. 31, the first pick of the second round.
But he made his presence felt, earning Carlisle’s and the Pacers’ trust, as well as a four-year, $8 million contract to start and a four-year, $59 million extension signed last year.
Nembhard has been holding up his end of the bargain. In his three seasons, Indiana has gone from 25 victories to 35, then 47 and now 50, and from the 2024 Eastern Conference Finals to these Finals. He rises to the occasion, too, his career regular-season stats — 9.6 ppg, 46.4% shooting, 33.5% on 3-pointers — jumping to 13.8, 51.4% and 46.9% on 3-pointers in 35 playoff games.
Based on his duty under this spotlight, Nembhard also figures to get considered when All-Defensive ballots go out in the coming seasons. Don’t forget his Game 6 work against New York’s Jalen Brunson in the previous round, either, when he tormented the Knicks’ star into a sub-par 19 points and got six steals.
Seemingly unflappable, he has shown his grit in the Finals, exchanging a few comments, bumps and shoves with Gilgeous-Alexander. Not to intimidate, but at least to maintain equilibrium.
“I’m not too worried about making friends out there,” Nembhard said, as he continued to make a bigger name for himself.
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Steve Aschburner has written about the NBA since 1980. You can e-mail him here, find his archive here and follow him on X.
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