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

[tsherkin]

Game 2 is a must win game for Thunder
I don't see them winning the series being down 0-2 with next 2 games being played in one of the loudest arenas

It might sound crazy now but Knicks might actually be worse matchup for Pacers because of KAT's scoring inside the paint and Knicks' rebounding
Thunder's defense is elite but they don't have strong bodies to protect the boards unlike Knicks

Game 2 is going to be very interesting.

We're going to see if OKC can get it up to even things up, because if they go into game 3 down 0-2, this is going to be a huge problem for them. But we'll have to see what happens with Shai's support, because outside of Dort and Hartenstein, the Thunder were BRUTAL in backing up Shai with scoring. They shot under 40% as a team, which probably isn't going to happen again. And with that happening, this was a nail-biter, single-possession victory which Indy struggled to manage.

So I'd expect a pretty dominant performance from the Thunder in Game 2.

[Dadouv47]

Why is the game not on tonight??? So dumb

Definitely benefits OKC unfortunately.

Pacers wanna wear you out, these long breaks help with rest.

Also bizarre they didn’t want a game on Friday or Saturday night.

acting like OKC is an old team that didn't play 11 players in game one

[cupcakesnake]

Game 2 is a must win game for Thunder
I don't see them winning the series being down 0-2 with next 2 games being played in one of the loudest arenas

It might sound crazy now but Knicks might actually be worse matchup for Pacers because of KAT's scoring inside the paint and Knicks' rebounding
Thunder's defense is elite but they don't have strong bodies to protect the boards unlike Knicks

Game 2 is going to be very interesting.

We're going to see if OKC can get it up to even things up, because if they go into game 3 down 0-2, this is going to be a huge problem for them. But we'll have to see what happens with Shai's support, because outside of Dort and Hartenstein, the Thunder were BRUTAL in backing up Shai with scoring. They shot under 40% as a team, which probably isn't going to happen again. And with that happening, this was a nail-biter, single-possession victory which Indy struggled to manage.

So I'd expect a pretty dominant performance from the Thunder in Game 2.

I felt the Thunder controlled the pace and dictated terms during game 1, willfully entering into the turnover battle with Indiana and demolishing them at it. The Pacers stayed in the game mostly on the back of continuing to hit 3s. They won the 4th quarter by dialing up the heat even more, going 6-10 on 3s.

I'll credit the Pacers for defending OKC well in the half court, with the caveat that every opponent has managed to guard OKC's halfcourt offense pretty well, particularly if J.Dub and Chet aren't shooting it well. Pack the paint against Shai/J.Dub drives and hope OKC shoots badly/reluctantly. Every team has done this, and OKC has shoot poorly in 2 of their 3 series so far (with another poor shooing output in game 1 of the finals).

I think we're wracking our brains to figure out how Indiana KEEPS GETTING AWAY WITH THIS! At the same time, this is a little bit like the 2023 Heat in that crazy hot shooting is making everything they do work. We've seen some amazing offense from the Pacers, and I don't want to overly detract from that. Game 1, however, their offense was not at its best, but the Pacers shot 46% from distance and hit 7 more 3s than their opponent.

I'm enjoying this Pacers run as much as anyone. Carlisle is my favorite coach. Siakam and Nembhard are amongst my favorite players. I don't want to detract from what they're doing, but I feel as we're gushing about their brilliance we're ignoring some ridiculous hot shooting that is giving them a much nicer margin for error.

[tsherkin]

I'll credit the Pacers for defending OKC well in the half court, with the caveat that every opponent has managed to guard OKC's halfcourt offense pretty well, particularly if J.Dub and Chet aren't shooting it well. Pack the paint against Shai/J.Dub drives and hope OKC shoots badly/reluctantly. Every team has done this, and OKC has shoot poorly in 2 of their 3 series so far (with another poor shooing output in game 1 of the finals).

That's true, but they've had SOME good games, regardless. If their shooters connect, well...

I think we're wracking our brains to figure out how Indiana KEEPS GETTING AWAY WITH THIS! At the same time, this is a little bit like the 2023 Heat in that crazy hot shooting is making everything they do work. We've seen some amazing offense from the Pacers, and I don't want to overly detract from that. Game 1, however, their offense was not at its best, but the Pacers shot 46% from distance and hit 7 more 3s than their opponent.

Yep, it obviously makes a difference. And, last shot notwithstanding, it's not like Hali had that stunning a game either, so they do have an extra gear to hit at some point.

I'm enjoying this Pacers run as much as anyone. Carlisle is my favorite coach. Siakam and Nembhard are amongst my favorite players. I don't want to detract from what they're doing, but I feel as we're gushing about their brilliance we're ignoring some ridiculous hot shooting that is giving them a much nicer margin for error.

I'm with you on that one.

But, it's nice to see OKC having to work for this. I hope it keeps up. I'm all in for a tight series, and honestly, I don't REALLY care who wins. Both of these teams have been earning it the whole time.

[cgf]

I've got Indy in this one as well. This time, more decisively...prompting adjustments that help OKC win game 3, setting up a must-win game 4 for the young thunder.

[cgf]

Game 2 is a must win game for Thunder
I don't see them winning the series being down 0-2 with next 2 games being played in one of the loudest arenas

It might sound crazy now but Knicks might actually be worse matchup for Pacers because of KAT's scoring inside the paint and Knicks' rebounding
Thunder's defense is elite but they don't have strong bodies to protect the boards unlike Knicks

Game 2 is going to be very interesting.

We're going to see if OKC can get it up to even things up, because if they go into game 3 down 0-2, this is going to be a huge problem for them. But we'll have to see what happens with Shai's support, because outside of Dort and Hartenstein, the Thunder were BRUTAL in backing up Shai with scoring. They shot under 40% as a team, which probably isn't going to happen again. And with that happening, this was a nail-biter, single-possession victory which Indy struggled to manage.

So I'd expect a pretty dominant performance from the Thunder in Game 2.

I felt the Thunder controlled the pace and dictated terms during game 1, willfully entering into the turnover battle with Indiana and demolishing them at it. The Pacers stayed in the game mostly on the back of continuing to hit 3s. They won the 4th quarter by dialing up the heat even more, going 6-10 on 3s.

I'll credit the Pacers for defending OKC well in the half court, with the caveat that every opponent has managed to guard OKC's halfcourt offense pretty well, particularly if J.Dub and Chet aren't shooting it well. Pack the paint against Shai/J.Dub drives and hope OKC shoots badly/reluctantly. Every team has done this, and OKC has shoot poorly in 2 of their 3 series so far (with another poor shooing output in game 1 of the finals).

I think we're wracking our brains to figure out how Indiana KEEPS GETTING AWAY WITH THIS! At the same time, this is a little bit like the 2023 Heat in that crazy hot shooting is making everything they do work. We've seen some amazing offense from the Pacers, and I don't want to overly detract from that. Game 1, however, their offense was not at its best, but the Pacers shot 46% from distance and hit 7 more 3s than their opponent.

I'm enjoying this Pacers run as much as anyone. Carlisle is my favorite coach. Siakam and Nembhard are amongst my favorite players. I don't want to detract from what they're doing, but I feel as we're gushing about their brilliance we're ignoring some ridiculous hot shooting that is giving them a much nicer margin for error.

When you've got a bunch of guys who can get hot and a system that typically generates a lot of good looks for everybody, you make it a lot easier for someone to go supernova for you to ride down the stretch...or to just catch fire as a collective. Especially if you are the fresher team in crunch time. It keeps happening for a reason

[azcatz11]

Game 2 is a must win game for Thunder
I don't see them winning the series being down 0-2 with next 2 games being played in one of the loudest arenas

It might sound crazy now but Knicks might actually be worse matchup for Pacers because of KAT's scoring inside the paint and Knicks' rebounding
Thunder's defense is elite but they don't have strong bodies to protect the boards unlike Knicks

Game 2 is going to be very interesting.

We're going to see if OKC can get it up to even things up, because if they go into game 3 down 0-2, this is going to be a huge problem for them. But we'll have to see what happens with Shai's support, because outside of Dort and Hartenstein, the Thunder were BRUTAL in backing up Shai with scoring. They shot under 40% as a team, which probably isn't going to happen again. And with that happening, this was a nail-biter, single-possession victory which Indy struggled to manage.

So I'd expect a pretty dominant performance from the Thunder in Game 2.

I felt the Thunder controlled the pace and dictated terms during game 1, willfully entering into the turnover battle with Indiana and demolishing them at it. The Pacers stayed in the game mostly on the back of continuing to hit 3s. They won the 4th quarter by dialing up the heat even more, going 6-10 on 3s.

I'll credit the Pacers for defending OKC well in the half court, with the caveat that every opponent has managed to guard OKC's halfcourt offense pretty well, particularly if J.Dub and Chet aren't shooting it well. Pack the paint against Shai/J.Dub drives and hope OKC shoots badly/reluctantly. Every team has done this, and OKC has shoot poorly in 2 of their 3 series so far (with another poor shooing output in game 1 of the finals).

I think we're wracking our brains to figure out how Indiana KEEPS GETTING AWAY WITH THIS! At the same time, this is a little bit like the 2023 Heat in that crazy hot shooting is making everything they do work. We've seen some amazing offense from the Pacers, and I don't want to overly detract from that. Game 1, however, their offense was not at its best, but the Pacers shot 46% from distance and hit 7 more 3s than their opponent.

I'm enjoying this Pacers run as much as anyone. Carlisle is my favorite coach. Siakam and Nembhard are amongst my favorite players. I don't want to detract from what they're doing, but I feel as we're gushing about their brilliance we're ignoring some ridiculous hot shooting that is giving them a much nicer margin for error.

Hey buddy - is your pod retired? It was good listening. I would encourage you to bring it back

[SA37]

Spoiler:

This is very simplistic (and wrong) way of looking at it
SGA is top 3, Hali is top 10 after this run, he wasn't considered top 10 before, and everyone has significant gap between SGA and Haliburton.
JDubb and Siakam are similar, both top 25 players, most would have JDub over Siakam.
Siakam is much bigger key to Raptors championship than Caruso to the Lakers.
Chet > Turner, it's not really close, and OKC have Hartenstein and JWill to boost, much better than Toppin/Bryant.
Caruso/Dort/Wallace > Nembhard/Nesmith/Sheppard, again it's not really close.

Carlsile > Diagnault, more experienced, more creative, and has lots of tools at his disposal.
If Pacers win they'd be overcoming a serious talent gap, maybe next year we'd be saying different things, Neismith will establish himself as a elite 3&D wing, Nembhard as great 3&D combo guard, but before this series started, there was a significant talent gap between the 2 teams.

Speaking of simplistic ways of looking at things, this entire take is X team made it to the Finals, therefore their players must all be top-X.

The sum of the parts of both teams is greater than their individual talents, save for SGA and Haliburton. But SGA is neither top-3, nor is Haliburton a top-10 player. And forget Siakam being top-25. For context, I say this in the sense that, if every player became a FA and teams had to put the most competitive team together over the next 2 seasons, these guys don't get selected in the ranges you've mentioned.

This type of thinking is how we've gotten to the point where people think role players like Jrue Holiday, Rudy Gobert, Draymond Green, Jarett Allen, Mikal Bridges...etc are top-25 players when they're really just the product of a specific system/team.

SGA is a top 3 player in the league and he’s not 3.

We'll have to agree to disagree.

If the NBA held a draft of the entire league, I think Jokic goes 1st and Giannis goes 2nd. From there it's preference, but I think a lot of GMs would take Luka, Wemby, and Edwards 3-5, although not necessarily in the order I listed. Were it not for injury concerns, Kwahi and Embiid potentially go ahead of SGA at 6 & 7, but those injury concerns are there so I don't see SGA going lower than 6th.

[boomershadow]

Why is the game not on tonight??? So dumb

Definitely benefits OKC unfortunately.

Pacers wanna wear you out, these long breaks help with rest.

Also bizarre they didn’t want a game on Friday or Saturday night.

acting like OKC is an old team that didn't play 11 players in game one

People casually into the nba go out and do stuff on Friday and Saturday nights, not stay home and watch sports games on TV. The die hards will watch either day.

[OldSchoolNoBull]

I got curious, so I looked at all the Finals all the way back to 1980, excluding 2020 because there was no HCA in the bubble. So that's 44 Finals.

The home team has won Game 1 34 times. Of those 34, that home team has gone on to win the title 27 times, for a record of 27-7, or 79.4% of the time.

The home team has lost Game 1 10 times. Of those 10, that home team was gone on to win the title 6 times, for a record of 6-4, or 60% of the time.

So by stealing Game 1, Indiana - judging by history - has increased their chances of winning the title from just over 20% to 40%.

If you're curious, the six teams that lost Game 1 at home and still won the title:

84 Celtics
88 Lakers
91 Bulls
01 Lakers
13 Heat
22 Warriors

And the four teams that lost Game 1 at home and lost the title:

82 Sixers
93 Suns
95 Magic
04 Lakers

And for good measure, the seven teams that won Game 1 at home and lost the title:

85 Celtics
98 Jazz
06 Mavs
11 Heat
12 Thunder
16 Warriors
21 Suns

[Dadouv47]

I got curious, so I looked at all the Finals all the way back to 1980, excluding 2020 because there was no HCA in the bubble. So that's 44 Finals.

The home team has won Game 1 34 times. Of those 34, that home team has gone on to win the title 27 times, for a record of 27-7, or 79.4% of the time.

The home team has lost Game 1 10 times. Of those 10, that home team was gone on to win the title 6 times, for a record of 6-4, or 60% of the time.

So by stealing Game 1, Indiana - judging by history - has increased their chances of winning the title from just over 20% to 40%.

If you're curious, the six teams that lost Game 1 at home and still won the title:

84 Celtics
88 Lakers
91 Bulls
01 Lakers
13 Heat
22 Warriors

And the four teams that lost Game 1 at home and lost the title:

82 Sixers
93 Suns
95 Magic
04 Lakers

And for good measure, the seven teams that won Game 1 at home and lost the title:

85 Celtics
98 Jazz
06 Mavs
11 Heat
12 Thunder
16 Warriors
21 Suns

with the old system if u won one game on the road, you were able to win the championship at home.Think it changed in 2013 or 2014!?

Not that it matters much. Indiana obviously increased his title odds by a lot.

[ball_takes23]

the Mathurin block on JDub's dunk attempt was a big game swinger. If JDub yams that the game probably starts to get out of hand for Indy

[ball_takes23]

7 teams this playoffs have gone down 0-1 at home

Lakers vs Minny
Houston vs GSW
OKC vs Denver
Minny vs GSW
Celtics vs NYK
Cavs vs Indy
NYK vs Indy

the two teams that bounced back for blowout victories in G2 (OKC vs Denver, Minny vs GSW) went on to win their series, the other 5 teams lost their series

[BrianInPhilly]

It is absurd there is so much rest in this series imo. For several reasons but 1 is players are used to playing every other day during the season , now suddenly they’re getting more rest in between games, more then they’ve gotten (over a stretch of 2 weeks) all year … just seems a surefire way to get guys off rhythm and an extreme overreaction to idk players saying they were tired? Games should be every other day just like the rest of the playoffs

[Nuntius]

Why is the game not on tonight??? So dumb

Definitely benefits OKC unfortunately.

Pacers wanna wear you out, these long breaks help with rest.

Also bizarre they didn’t want a game on Friday or Saturday night.

acting like OKC is an old team that didn't play 11 players in game one

I think that his point is that since OKC is the more talented team, wearing you down is how we can even it out.

OKC is definitely young, deep and athletic enough to withstand our attempts at wearing them down.

[MoneyTalks41890]

Thought this was a big boy answer from Jalen. He’ll need to back it up tomorrow.

Read on Twitter

[KP Duty]

I really frowned at how ESPN/Steven A. had chalked up a Thunder win in the pregame on Thursday. I'm like...STFU...did you not see Denver do it?!

[fanofthegreats]

Spoiler:

Speaking of simplistic ways of looking at things, this entire take is X team made it to the Finals, therefore their players must all be top-X.

The sum of the parts of both teams is greater than their individual talents, save for SGA and Haliburton. But SGA is neither top-3, nor is Haliburton a top-10 player. And forget Siakam being top-25. For context, I say this in the sense that, if every player became a FA and teams had to put the most competitive team together over the next 2 seasons, these guys don't get selected in the ranges you've mentioned.

This type of thinking is how we've gotten to the point where people think role players like Jrue Holiday, Rudy Gobert, Draymond Green, Jarett Allen, Mikal Bridges...etc are top-25 players when they're really just the product of a specific system/team.

SGA is a top 3 player in the league and he’s not 3.

We'll have to agree to disagree.

If the NBA held a draft of the entire league, I think Jokic goes 1st and Giannis goes 2nd. From there it's preference, but I think a lot of GMs would take Luka, Wemby, and Edwards 3-5, although not necessarily in the order I listed. Were it not for injury concerns, Kwahi and Embiid potentially go ahead of SGA at 6 & 7, but those injury concerns are there so I don't see SGA going lower than 6th.

? Embid and Edwards above sga? Lmao

[Dadouv47]

7 teams this playoffs have gone down 0-1 at home

Lakers vs Minny
Houston vs GSW
OKC vs Denver
Minny vs GSW
Celtics vs NYK
Cavs vs Indy
NYK vs Indy

the two teams that bounced back for blowout victories in G2 (OKC vs Denver, Minny vs GSW) went on to win their series, the other 5 teams lost their series

add Houston that won G2 against GSW.

HCA didn't mean much in the West tbh and Indy being way too good for their playoff seed.

[Beethoven]

Indiana has to take this game 2 as a GAME 7 as if their lives depends upon it.


If they lose this game, I really don't see them winning the championship.