In the famous episode, “The Gang Solves the Gas Crisis,” of the hit television series, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, the gang establishes their group dynamics and ordaining fan-favorite, Charlie Kelly, is deemed the Wildcard.
After a 27-point performance on a metric-breaking 101.4 percent true shooting en route to a victory for the Indiana Pacers in Game 3 of the NBA Finals, I couldn’t help but conclude Bennedict Mathurin is the league’s closest facsimile to Kelly. He’s the basketball equivalent of the group wildcard.
The last three players to drop 25+ points off the bench in the NBA Finals:
• Bennedict Mathurin
• Jason Terry
• Manu Ginobili pic.twitter.com/peHJaqIAoS
— ENJ🏀Y (@EnjoyBBall) June 12, 2025
Why Mathurin Is A Wildcard
After averaging 16.1 points per game in the regular season (third on the team in scoring), Mathurin’s minutes have been up and down all postseason. Among the 18 playoff games he’s appeared in (he missed Game 4 against the Milwaukee Bucks), Mathurin has seven games with fewer than 15 minutes and seven where he’s eclipsed the 20-minute mark. He also has five games where he’s scored at least 19 points and seven where he failed to tally more than five points.
Mathurin is a supremely gifted independent scorer, combining power, speed and a sweet shooting stroke to land a devastating flurry of pull-up jumpers and forays to the rim. When he’s feeling it, Mathurin gives the Pacers a potent scoring punch, one that can turn the entire layout of a game on its head, as he did Wednesday against the Oklahoma City Thunder.
Yet he lacks the offensive consistency of an All-Star-caliber performer and when his shot isn’t falling, he doesn’t have alternative methods for impacting a game. Mathurin isn’t a strong er (15th percentile er Rating), intuitive off-ball defender (24th percentile Defensive Estimated Plus-Minus) or credible spacer (34th percentile on wide open threes over the last three years).
So, when he isn’t having one of his out-of-body scoring experiences, the Pacers can’t afford to play him over those with more natural role player skills like Ben Sheppard or Obi Toppin. This conundrum creates the giant fluctuation in his minutes on a game-to-game basis.
The Pacers’ Depth Is Crucial
Since the Pacers have high-level creators in Tyrese Haliburton and Pascal Siakam, they don’t need Mathurin to bring his A-Game every single night. And with so many reliable role players such as Andrew Nembhard, Aaron Nesmith, Sheppard and Toppin, they aren’t hurting even though he hasn’t yet acquired all the complementary skills necessary to successfully function alongside top-tier talent.
This makes Mathurin’s volatility a great luxury for the Indiana. On the nights he doesn’t have it, it’s no big deal because the Pacers roster so many alternatives for minutes. And when Mathurin’s jumper is dialed like Tiger Woods on the golf course, the Pacers have the firepower they need to beat superior opponents.
The latter is what happened in Game 3, which, through 12 minutes, played out much like the early parts of Games 1 and 2. The Pacers were hanging in there and trailing by eight, but the Thunder looked like the clearly better team, one ready to blow the game open in one fell swoop.
Mathurin finally heard his number called to start the second frame. By the time he checked out with 3:27 left in the quarter, the Pacers had outscored the Thunder 27-19 and evened up the game at 51-51. Later on, Mathurin scored eight key points early in the fourth quarter to keep the Pacers within striking distance and give Haliburton some much needed rest.
a look at the highlights ⤵️ pic.twitter.com/AdCH0mhW6R
— Indiana Pacers (@Pacers) June 12, 2025
To fully unlock this sort of highly combustible chess piece, you need a coach who knows how to identify what nights will be a feast and which ones will end in famine. Head coach Rick Carlisle (who has pitched a wonderful postseason up to this point) has proven worthy of this task, allowing the Pacers to reap the benefits of the Mathurin/Kelly wildcard experience without suffering too many negative side effects.
Mathurin’s extreme strengths/weakness will force the Pacers to make some tough decisions when it comes time to extend him after his rookie deal expires. But in Game 3, when his team needed his unique boost more than ever, the wildcard came through for them. And now, Indiana holds an improbable 2-1 lead over the juggernaut Thunder in the NBA Finals.
