Oklahoma City Thunder 123, Indiana Pacers 107
Q. Aaron, throughout your career you've talked about always being ready no matter what role you were put in. What was it like to have this performance tonight?
AARON WIGGINS: Yeah, it was cool. Just tried to go out there, contribute to the team, help put us in a position to win. Got hot. The guys kept finding me, so just stuck with it.
Q. Critical must-win game. Shai was really looking for his teammates. Found you and five or six other guys. What does it say about the trust he has in the group?
AARON WIGGINS: It just shows his willingness to create for other guys. Obviously everyone sees the points and how easy it may be for him to go out there and get 30, 40 points.
When he's out there sharing the ball, getting other guys involved, that's when our team is at our best. Credit to him just going out there playing the game the right way, continuing to just help put us in good positions.
Q. By all accounts you've handled the up-and-down minutes pretty well. Internally, how do you deal with it? You can't like it, to not play in a game, play a little.
AARON WIGGINS: Obviously you're not going to like the downside to low minutes or not playing consistently a lot every night.
But it's the NBA. There's a lot of highs and lows. There's a lot of other guys going through similar things and guys who have just kind of earned their rights. Understanding that I'm still blessed to be in the NBA and do what I love. At this level, you can't take it for granted.
Just continuing to stay ready and take advantage of the opportunities I get.
Q. It may just be instinctual, part of this whole conversation is your ability to play off of and alongside every single one of your teammates. What is it about you and maybe your journey that allows you to be so fluid?
AARON WIGGINS: Just having learned. I think I've been in every different position, whether that's having the ball in my hands, being a second, third, fourth option, even coming off the bench.
Regardless of what's asked from me, I think I've just kind of had experiences. Regardless of what was asked for me tonight, regardless of what's asked for me come Wednesday, just being ready and going out there and wanting to win first allows me to just be myself.
Q. You've had some big scoring nights this season. This is your first NBA Finals. Do the regular-season nights help you adjust to this easier?
AARON WIGGINS: Definitely just gives you confidence because knowing that you're capable of -- you've done it before. Allows me to go out there and play my game, play confident, play free. It also just kind of allows me teammates to trust me, find me at times when I get going. Definitely plays a factor.
Q. You mentioned your journey and being ready for the moment. When you think about your hometown when you first picked up a basketball, how much of your hometown do you carry with you?
AARON WIGGINS: I think about it all the time. Being from Greensboro, kind of my journey early on, built me to be grateful and take advantage of the opportunities I get.
The teams that I played for. I was kind of like a late bloomer. That just kind of helped my journey. It kind of helped me mentally to not be afraid regardless what moment may be in front of me or regardless of what's asked from me.
I always think back to being at home and staying grounded.
Q. You were a part of that big 19-2 run in the second quarter to blow the game open. What were you seeing in terms of what allowed you to establish that separation? Building gets insane when that happens. What does that feel like?
AARON WIGGINS: Yeah, it feels great. I think we just kind of found a rhythm on both ends of the court. We were able to get stops, get out in transition, hit a couple shots. Once we kind of got going, you could kind of just feel the energy playing a factor in that.
Electric crowd tonight. They were a part of that 19-2 run in the second quarter.
Q. During the game you were able to have a lead for 15-plus points. During the third quarter, did you have in your mind that probably Indiana could make the comeback again?
AARON WIGGINS: Yeah, the game's not over. They did it Game 1. We've got to close out games the way we did tonight. We've got to make sure we don't take our foot off the gas, just continue to play the right way.
We did a good job of that tonight, executing down the stretch, making sure we closed that game.
Q. We talked about the big scoring nights you had during the regular season. Coming into this game, throughout the postseason, is there an up-and-down kind of flow to that in terms of you're itching to put a performance together like this or any game this could happen and that's your mindset?
AARON WIGGINS: Yeah, win-first mentality for me. Not thinking about how many points I'm going to score or what it looks like. I just want to go out there and play more than anything.
If I score zero points but I get 15 rebounds and I'm playing 20 minutes, I'm happy. Not itching to have a big game by any means. Just trying to help the team win.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports