Sunday’s Sport 7 between the Thunder and Pacers is a “excellent coda” to an enthralling playoffs and an “all-time basic” NBA Finals, writes Sam Amick of The Athletic. It’s the primary Sport 7 within the finals since 2016, when Cleveland got here again from a 3-1 deficit to defeat Golden State.
“I’m very a lot trying ahead to Sport 7,” Pacers head coach Rick Carlisle mentioned (story by way of Tim Reynolds of The Related Press). “The final time we’ve had one in every of these within the finals, I feel, was ’16. These are particular moments definitely for each groups however for our league, for the sport, for the worldwide curiosity within the sport. It’s a time to have a good time.”
As Amick particulars, the 2025 postseason has had quite a few excessive factors, with getting older stars going through off towards their youthful counterparts, high-level protection, game-winning pictures — many from Tyrese Haliburton — and general glorious play from groups in each conferences. Most of all, it has been a showcase of the depth and high quality of league’s two finest groups.
The Thunder had been traditionally dominant throughout the common season, with a 68-14 document and +12.7 internet ranking, and are one win away capping off an epic 2024/25 marketing campaign. They swept Memphis within the first spherical, defeated Denver in seven video games within the semifinal, then dispatched Minnesota in 5 within the West remaining.
Indiana, the underdog on one of the vital memorable playoff runs in NBA historical past, began out 10-15, then went 40-17 the remainder of common season for a 50-32 document. With compelling late-game heroics, the Pacers dispatched Milwaukee in 5 video games, 64-win Cleveland — the East’s prime seed — in 5, and New York, which beat defending champion Boston in spherical two, in six video games.
The collection has been a back-and-forth affair, with every workforce taking leads earlier than the opposite equalized. Oklahoma Metropolis shall be at residence tonight after being blown out on the street in Sport 6, which was the workforce’s first try to say the title.
“It’s a contest of wills,” Thunder coach Mark Daigneault mentioned, per Joe Vardon of The Athletic. “I feel the rationale it swung between the 2 groups is as a result of these are two groups which have leaned on that closely to get thus far. It’s two groups the place the entire is healthier than the sum of the elements. It’s two groups which are extremely aggressive. Two groups that play collectively. Two groups that sort of depend on the identical stuff for his or her success which are squaring off towards one another.”
Listed below are some extra notes about Sport 7:
- 11 workers members from The Athletic predict who will win the collection finale, with six selecting the Pacers and 5 votes for the Thunder. In our ballot, a little bit underneath 54% of our readers picked Oklahoma Metropolis to win.
- A number of NBA insiders at ESPN.com compiled a listing of “all the pieces you want to know” concerning the Sport 7 showdown, together with the keys to successful for each groups, the finals MVP contenders, the gamers who might swing the sport, and extra. Eight ESPN staff additionally predicted who would win — seven chosen the Thunder, with just one selecting the Pacers.
- Regardless of which workforce emerges victorious, the NBA will crown its seventh completely different champion in as many seasons. The league has been searching for parity for years, notes Mike Vorkunov of The Athletic, and this 12 months’s playoffs have proven that small-market golf equipment like Oklahoma Metropolis and Indiana can attain the head of the game.
- The Pacers are searching for their first title in franchise historical past, whereas the Thunder are searching for their first championship since shifting to Oklahoma Metropolis in 2007, the league famous in a press launch (Twitter hyperlink). This would be the twentieth Sport 7 in NBA historical past.
