The Indiana Pacers can’t stop winning. They have to be the favorites at some point, right?
Since the start of the calendar year 2025, the Pacers boast the most wins of any Eastern Conference team, yet they entered the playoffs well behind the reigning champion Celtics and Cavaliers in the conference’s pecking order. No problem for Indiana: the Pacers dispatched two division rivals, the Bucks and top-seeded Cavaliers, in a pair of definitive five-game series to reach the Eastern Conference Finals for the second consecutive year. Against the New York Knicks, a team that knocked off the title favorite Celtics, the Pacers staged a massive comeback in an overtime Game 1 victory and never looked back. The 4-2 series win sent Indiana to its second Finals appearance in franchise history.
And yet, after that gauntlet of a run, the Pacers still entered the NBA Finals as significant underdogs to the Oklahoma City Thunder, owners of the best regular-season record in the NBA and employers of the NBA’s 2024-25 MVP, guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. Incredibly, the Pacers’ trademark late-game heroics resurfaced in Game 1. Indiana silenced the doubters on the Thunder’s home court, rallying from a 108-99 deficit with 2:52 remaining to stun Oklahoma City 111-110 on guard Tyrese Haliburton’s mid-range jumper. Haliburton’s shot was Indiana’s first lead of the game, and Indiana’s win marked the first time in Finals history that a team trailing by nine or more points in the final three minutes ended up winning, per ESPN (previously, teams in that situation were 0-182).
Buzzer-beaters have been nothing new for Haliburton. After opening the playoffs with a game-winning layup against Milwaukee in the first round, the All-Star guard sank a three-pointer against the Cleveland Cavaliers to win Game 2 of the Eastern Conference semifinals, 120-119. A couple weeks later, Haliburton launched another crucial shot at the buzzer against the New York Knicks, this one a miracle fadeaway jump shot to send Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals to overtime in an eventual Pacers win. All three of those clutch shots have come on the Pacers’ opponent’s home floor, and while Haliburton’s extender against the Knicks went viral with his ensuing choking gesture (earning a smile from Pacers legend Reggie Miller), his buzzer-beater to shock the Thunder is his most impactful yet.
Whether due to their lack of an MVP candidate, their fourth-place seeding or their propensity to fall into seemingly insurmountable deficits, the Pacers have been counted out at every turn. But after staging an impressive comeback on the NBA’s biggest stage, Indiana has stolen a home game from the Oklahoma City Thunder and is now just three games from its first NBA championship. Is it time to give the Pacers their due and reframe the series with a new favorite?
Not so fast. Indiana has done everything possible to keep their title hopes alive and establish themselves as a legitimate championship contender, but the Thunder are title favorites for a reason. ESPN Bet currently has the Thunder as significant favorites from a gambling perspective, and Oklahoma City has a 60.7 percent chance of winning the pivotal Game 2 matchup, per ESPN Analytics. The Pacers are set to take this series much further than the four- or five-game clinic many NBA experts predicted, but Oklahoma City is still the team to beat in this matchup.
Making it to an NBA Finals requires 12 playoff victories, which is no small feat regardless of the season or field of competition. Indiana’s route to the final round has been unusually exciting. Each Pacers series has included a game-tying or game-winning shot in the final five seconds, and despite Indiana denying its opponents from pushing their series to seven games, the Pacers have had an unprecedented level of success battling back from daunting deficits.
The roster is legit, too: Haliburton is establishing himself as one of the best playoff performers of his generation, veteran Pascal Siakam has dominated the competition en route to winning Eastern Conference MVP honors and sharpshooter Aaron Nesmith is shooting a ridiculous 49.5 percent from behind the three-point line. While neither team is particularly experienced in competing in the NBA Finals (Siakam is the only Pacer with Finals experience), head coach Rick Carlisle is a title-winning coach from his time in Dallas and has shown once again why he is regarded as one of the league’s top coaches. Indiana leads all 16 playoff teams in field goal percentage and ranks second in points per game, while pulling off five comebacks of 15 points or more in 17 games. The Pacers have proven that they deserve to be in the NBA Finals, and their resilience has translated to the championship round.
The problem is, the Thunder have not only proven that they deserve to be in the NBA Finals — they are a true juggernaut in a class of its own.
Oklahoma City won 18 more regular season games than Indiana, led by league MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and the best supporting cast in the league. Naturally, the Thunder have experienced more turbulence in the playoffs, with matchups against the Grizzlies’ Ja Morant, Denver’s Nikola Jokic and Minnesota’s Anthony Edwards. OKC has still outscored its playoff opponents by a double-digit margin (positive 10.1 in points differential) and is tied for the lowest turnover average among all playoff entrants, while generating the most steals.
The issue for the young Thunder has been consistency, and Oklahoma City showed both flashes of dominance and concerning lapses in Game 1. Gilgeous-Alexander exploded for 38 points in his NBA Finals debut, but he attempted just four shots from the field in the fourth quarter, including a missed fadeaway that would have given the Thunder a three-point lead with 11 seconds remaining. Oklahoma City crushed the turnover differential category, winning 25-7, and accumulated 14 steals to the Pacers’ one. But Indiana used uncharacteristically high three-point shooting to stick around in a potential blowout, then catapult themselves into the lead. The Pacers connected on 18 of 39 attempts, good for a 46.2 percent clip, despite hitting threes at 36.8 percent in the regular season and 40.5 percent in the playoffs.
Between those two approaches, Oklahoma City’s penchant for taking care of the basketball and generating turnovers is better suited for a seven-game series. Hitting 18 three-pointers can compensate for a lot of deficiencies and errors, as was the case for Indiana in Game 1. If Indiana was a guarantee to do that every game on efficient shot attempts, there isn’t a single team in the NBA that would be favored against them. Additionally, the Pacers’ success could be a reflection of OKC’s lapses in perimeter defense, a promising sign for Indiana. But if the Pacers regress to the mean, or even to their postseason-best three-point average, that will drastically change their offensive success and allow the Thunder, who looked like the better team for the majority of Game 1, to capitalize on its talent, depth and ball security advantages.
Oklahoma City may also benefit from having time to recoup and refocus for Game 2. A similar situation happened in the Western Conference semifinal, when the underdog Nuggets staged a late-game rally in the Paycom Center and came away with an incredible first game victory on Aaron Gordon’s game-winning jumper. The Thunder won the next game by 43 points and the series in seven games. All that to say — the Thunder have been in the 1-0 situation before, and all is not lost if OKC can even the series before taking off for Indianapolis. And while Gilgeous-Alexander posted one of the finest Finals debuts in NBA history, the Thunder’s lack of Finals experience may have contributed to uncharacteristically quiet Game 1 performances by young stars like Chet Holmgren (2-9 from the field for six points). Carlisle had a clear Finals experience advantage over Oklahoma City head coach Mark Daigneault heading into Game 1, an edge that wasn’t too damaging in the first game and may be diminished going into the second matchup.
Given all the teams in professional sports who adopt the underdog, us-against-the-world mentality, I doubt the Pacers care all that much about being favored after their miraculous run to the Finals and Game 1 thriller. They just want to continue what they have made habitual this spring and summer — winning. Against some of the Western Conference’s recent champions, that would have been a less daunting task, but the Thunder are no typical Finals participant and are well-positioned to avenge its Game 1 loss and wrestle back control of the series.
The math changes if the Pacers win Game 2 on Sunday, then head back to Gainbridge Fieldhouse for two home games. Five teams in NBA history have recovered from a 2-0 series deficit in the Finals and won the series: the 2021 Milwaukee Bucks, the 2016 Cleveland Cavaliers, the 2006 Miami Heat, the 1977 Portland Trail Blazers and the 1969 Boston Celtics. The list of teams to recover from a 3-0 hole is nonexistent. But if Oklahoma City can even the series and keep its momentum intact on the road, the Thunder might prove to be the one team in the NBA that succeeds in putting an end to Indiana’s storybook season.
Riker's Block 