2025 NBA FINALS: #1 Oklahoma City Thunder vs #4 Indiana Pacers (Series tied 1-1)

[xxSnEaKyPxx]

Pacers just need to minimize turnovers and they should be fine the rest of the way.

Looking at team stats it's obvious the Pacers are the better team.

Team stats point to OKC being one of the best teams ever, whatchu mean?

[MoneyTalks41890]

Read on Twitter

Haliburton was smiling after losing game 5 to the Knicks.

His had a “It’s okay, we’re ending this in 6 vibe.” to it.

Maybe SGA has the same mentality? I can’t speak on his confidence/competitiveness to say. Simply saying a smile doesn’t necessarily mean he doesn’t care or something.

That picture is from the Denver series

[xxSnEaKyPxx]

Read on Twitter

Haliburton was smiling after losing game 5 to the Knicks.

His had a “It’s okay, we’re ending this in 6 vibe.” to it.

Maybe SGA has the same mentality? I can’t speak on his confidence/competitiveness to say. Simply saying a smile doesn’t necessarily mean he doesn’t care or something.

That picture is from the Denver series

Gotcha…and we saw how that turned out. So yea, means nothing.

[Slimjimzv]

My original pick was OKC in 7, and I'm sticking with that pick. But these Pacers are every bit as potent as I feared. I hope this series continues to be great. I also hope OKC wins

[basketballwacko2]

Are the Pacers the new definition of a "Super Team?"

[Lunartic]

OKC's entire defense/offense is built around hacking the opposing team, forcing turnovers and SGA getting soft calls on offense.

Watch any opposing players driving into the paint, it's 2-3 different OKC defenders slapping him all over. No whistles.

And we're supposed to watch Caruso foul a player repeatedly and go "wow that OKC defense is soo elite!" Their defense would look a lot less "elite" if Caruso was sitting with 4 fouls in 10 mins. Offense would look a lot worse too if SGA was forced to actually play to finish instead of playing for freethrows.

[The-Stallion70]

Was just one game and lost by only one point but the fact that Turner seems to match up well with Chet is concerning for the Thunder, Chet shot 2-9.

Turner is a very different look for Chet than Gobert or Randle in the last round, going to be an adjustment for him.

[Nuntius]

Still cant believe they looked at that Pacers challenge at the end where Wallace pushed Siakam out of bounds and called it marginal... Luckily Pacers won and no1 is mentioning it now, otherwise it would be all over twitter.

Meh. Pacers fan here and I have no issue with the decision. Siakam was falling in an attempt to get the ball before Wallace nudged him. He didn't dislodge him or anything so I have no issue calling it marginal contact. It was still correct of Rick to challenge that because a reversal would be huge (plus, we had two timeouts remaining and didn't even need to use them all) but I'm okay with the no-call here.

[The-Stallion70]

this is the main reason why people are still picking OKC

https://www.teamrankings.com/nba/stat/average-scoring-margin

[jbsays]

That was a great game 1. Huge win for the Pacers and legendary shot by Haliburton. I bet on Thunder several months ago and I'm sticking with them. I think they'll win in 5-6 games.

I wouldn't mind being wrong though.

[WestbrookGOATed]

I saw a comment on another site that said, "The other team is scared to lose, but the Pacers are not scared to win."

Seems like Pacers opponents keep looking at the matchup and thinking they are better than Indy and going to win. Then they have a lead in the 4th and it confirms their belief that they are better and going to win.

Then Indy starts their comeback and game pressure mounts, and the other team starts playing not to lose instead of playing to win. And the Pacers feel super comfortable in those spots and play their best ball down the stretch. It's probably not very shocking anymore haha.

Good analysis. We were definitely playing scared in those last few minutes. I'm sure it'll be addressed though, if Mark is as good of a coach as I think he is.

[Zadeh]

The series depends on how many games Scott Foster whistle. If none, odds are even, probably Pacers win, for one game OKC wins 4-3 , two or more OKC win 4-1.

Bu 90% Foster will be reffere of the second game, and OKC will win with blowout.

[bisme37]

I had some thoughts before Game 1, but I was really wanting to see the runaway train of the Pacers offense meet the immovable object of the Thunder defense before coming to any conclusions.

Wasn't sure how it would go, but it made for a really great game and (hopefully) series. Fun!

[phanman]

I saw a comment on another site that said, "The other team is scared to lose, but the Pacers are not scared to win."

Seems like Pacers opponents keep looking at the matchup and thinking they are better than Indy and going to win. Then they have a lead in the 4th and it confirms their belief that they are better and going to win.

Then Indy starts their comeback and game pressure mounts, and the other team starts playing not to lose instead of playing to win. And the Pacers feel super comfortable in those spots and play their best ball down the stretch. It's probably not very shocking anymore haha.

Good analysis. We were definitely playing scared in those last few minutes. I'm sure it'll be addressed though, if Mark is as good of a coach as I think he is.

Even if the overall sentiment is true with how they closed the 4th, they had still built a big enough lead to hold on for the win.

SGA just came up short to close the game for them after scoring at will prior to his last 2 shots. He got blocked by Pascal trying to go up for that weak left handed layup and then on the proceeding play got lost on his box out responsibilities after Nembhard airballed the 3 leading to the rebound and layup by Siakam. Even with that final shot he created enough separation for that mid range J that he makes 9 out of 10 times normally.

[scrabbarista]

Pacers just need to minimize turnovers and they should be fine the rest of the way.

Looking at team stats it's obvious the Pacers are the better team.

Team stats point to OKC being one of the best teams ever, whatchu mean?

After G1, the Thunder are now 28-2 against the East. It was their second loss.

They haven't lost four out of any seven games for the entire season.

I still expect them to win in six, as I picked before G1.

Cheering for IND, though.

[Beethoven]

Amazin game. This is the sort of stuff NBA needs to continue to be great. Set up an invincible bad guy and knock them down with an underdog everyone is rooting for.

More of these please.

[xBulletproof]

I saw a comment on another site that said, "The other team is scared to lose, but the Pacers are not scared to win."

Seems like Pacers opponents keep looking at the matchup and thinking they are better than Indy and going to win. Then they have a lead in the 4th and it confirms their belief that they are better and going to win.

Then Indy starts their comeback and game pressure mounts, and the other team starts playing not to lose instead of playing to win. And the Pacers feel super comfortable in those spots and play their best ball down the stretch. It's probably not very shocking anymore haha.

Good analysis. We were definitely playing scared in those last few minutes. I'm sure it'll be addressed though, if Mark is as good of a coach as I think he is.

I was shocked that I could feel the crowds apprehension through the TV. I don't know if that was the team influencing the crowd, or vice versa. I was just shocked I could tell from my living room.

This was my hope for how the Pacers could swing the series, the Pacers are young-ish, but they had last years ECF appearance. This OKC team isn't young-ish, they're just young. That can manifest as .... you don't know any better overconfidence, or worse. Apprehension. Long term they'll 100% figure it out, I just hope it's next year.

[___Rand___]

Indy dominated the boards in game 1 56-39. This is the team that had trouble cleaning up the boards against Knicks. This was a factor in their come back. I don't see them being able to do that again.

[darkse1d]

https://awfulannouncing.com/ratings/nba-finals-game-1-viewership-down-despite-tyrese-haliburton-game-winner.html

Ouch. Least watched NBA finals game since 1988, outside of COVID. Down 19% from last year. Doesn't bode well despite being a somewhat of a good game in the last 5 minutes.

NBA really dropped the ball marketing outside of LeBron, curry, Durant. This is going to be a common occurrence going forward unless there's another LeBron/curry type superstar.

[mattg]

Indy dominated the boards in game 1 56-39. This is the team that had trouble cleaning up the boards against Knicks. This was a factor in their come back. I don't see them being able to do that again.

Rebounding is much too contextual and nuanced to blindly look at like this. OKC forced 25 turnovers, and thus shot way more shots, but because OKC missed those shots, Indy racked up the defensive boards. They had the same offensive rebounds basically.

There is no chance Indy turns the ball over 25 times again, which means that they won't have a massive defensive rebounding edge and OKC likely "wins" the rebounding battle. However, Indy will likely have a substantially better offensive game because they will get more shots up without turning the ball over 25 times and likely score double digit more points where as in game 1 they didn't even get shots up in those situations.

IMO this series comes down almost entirely to transition defense. If OKC can't score 20+ppg off turnovers and in transition every game they have no chance and if they are lucky will push it 6 games. If they can score 20+ every game off turnovers on the break then they'll win going away in 5 or 6 games.