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ESPN Senior Writer- Co-author, Pro Basketball Prospectus series
- Formerly a consultant with the Indiana Pacers
- Developed WARP rating and SCHOENE system
With a 125-108 win in Game 6 of the Eastern Conference finals on Saturday night, the Indiana Pacers clinched a spot in the 2025 NBA Finals, setting up one of the most surprising championship matchups in league history.
In some respects, the fourth-seeded Pacers and the top-seeded Oklahoma City Thunder couldn't be further apart. OKC entered this season among the favorites for the title and dominated the Western Conference from start to finish, while Indiana scuffled to a losing record until flipping the switch in January. The Thunder have the league MVP in Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, plus another All-NBA honoree and two All-Defensive selections; the Pacers' only recipient of any season honor is Tyrese Haliburton, who landed on the All-NBA third team.
Yet in other respects, the finalists have a lot in common, as two young teams led by dynamic guards who play in the middle of the country. These are the first NBA Finals since the introduction of the luxury tax in which neither team is a taxpayer. Both finalists play in a fun, engaging style and are set up for more postseason success in the seasons to come.
Before the Finals tip off on Thursday (8:30 p.m. ET on ABC), here are the stats, trends and head-to-head wrinkles to know about this unexpected Thunder-Pacers showdown.
A rare battle of All-NBA point guards
Tim Legler joins Scott Van Pelt to break down the Thunder clinching their spot in the 2025 NBA Finals.
Although it's unlikely the two players will actually spend much time guarding each other -- more on that below -- the point guard matchup will be well worth watching in this series. Gilgeous-Alexander and Haliburton are the first pair of All-NBA picks at point guard to meet in the Finals since Stephen Curry and Kyrie Irving a decade ago. Sadly, that matchup was short-lived: Irving suffered a left patella fracture in Game 1 of the series. (However, we got to see the two players square off again in both the 2016 and 2017 Finals.)
Gilgeous-Alexander and Haliburton succeed offensively in wildly different fashions. The MVP has never averaged more than this season's 6.4 assists per game; but he led the NBA by scoring 32.7 points per game, the sixth-highest average all time for a full-time point guard. Meanwhile, Haliburton is the ultimate table setter, having led the league in assists per game in 2023-24 at 10.9 and finishing third this season at 9.2. Haliburton is a dangerous scorer too, having topped 30 points twice in the conference finals, but he is capable of dominating a game without scoring 20.
Both players enjoyed strong play en route to the Finals. After a slow start to the playoffs that saw him shoot just 35% in the first three games of the Thunder's sweep of the Memphis Grizzlies, Gilgeous-Alexander has more than validated his MVP award. He leads all players in wins above replacement player (WARP) during the playoffs by my metric. Haliburton entered Game 6 of the conference finals third in WARP behind Gilgeous-Alexander and Anthony Edwards of the Minnesota Timberwolves.
-- Kevin Pelton
Haliburton has a passive history vs. OKC
In theory, the Thunder's defense is ideally suited to stop Haliburton, with Luguentz Dort, Cason Wallace, Jalen Williams and Alex Caruso all bringing different defensive strengths to the fore against elite guards.
It has played out that way against Haliburton. In four meetings between these teams over the past two seasons, Haliburton has averaged just 12 points per game, his lowest average against any opponent during that span.
Haliburton has been largely passive against the Thunder's fleet of perimeter stoppers. His 10.2 field goal attempts per game are his second fewest against any opponent in that stretch; and his 0.5 free throw attempts -- he has drawn just one shooting foul in four games -- are his fewest. The Thunder have largely limited his playmaking too, as Haliburton's 8.5 assists per game against the Thunder are tied for his fourth fewest against any opponent over the past two campaigns.
Remarkably, Haliburton scored just eight points on 10 shot attempts in 122 matchups when he was guarded by Dort, per GeniusIQ tracking. That is Haliburton's lowest shot rate against any individual defender with a minimum of 50 matchups in that span. (Haliburton's highest shot rate, conversely, came when he was matched up against Jalen Brunson, but the Thunder's stout defense doesn't offer any similar targets whom Haliburton can attack like he did in the conference finals.)
Suffice it to say, the Pacers point guard must play much better -- and much more aggressively -- for his team to have a chance at a Finals upset.
-- Zach Kram
The Finals feature the No. 2 offense vs. the No. 1 defense
It's strength on strength when Indiana has the ball during the Finals. The Pacers rank second among all teams in playoff offensive rating, trailing only the Cleveland Cavaliers, who feasted on the Miami Heat in the first round before losing to Indiana. On the other side, Oklahoma City's fearsome defense is allowing 3.4 fewer points than any other team per 100 possessions.
This is the first time since 2022, when the No. 1 Golden State offense faced the No. 2 Boston defense, that we've seen this kind of matchup in the Finals and the 14th occasion since the NBA began tracking possessions in 1997.
Over that span, neither elite offense nor elite defense has had the clear upper hand. The top-two offense has won seven of the 13 series. Performance on the non-strength end of the court has tended to be a good predictor. In nine of the 12 series during which one team ranked better than the other on the opposite side of the ball, the superior team has won. That's good news for the Thunder, who are third in offensive rating so far in the playoffs. The Pacers rank just ninth in defensive rating.
-- Pelton
Don't expect another 3-point barrage from Indy
A key reason Indiana's offense is so electric and Oklahoma City's defense so dampening is each unit's mastery of 3-point range.
Indiana's 40% 3-point accuracy leads all playoff teams by a wide margin, and Haliburton is the only Pacers starter below that mark individually.
That unstoppable force will meet an immovable object at the 3-point line. Oklahoma City allowed its opponents to shoot just 34% from distance in the regular season, which led the league, and it is down to 33% in the playoffs.
It has long been a debate among NBA analysts whether opponent 3-point percentage is primarily the result of skill or of luck; at any rate, it seems clear the Thunder's defense has both on its side. According to GeniusIQ tracking, the Thunder ranked third in opponent 3-point shot quality during the regular season (based on factors such as defender distance and shooter identity) and were second in opponent 3-point shotmaking (actual accuracy minus expected accuracy).
But the Thunder have one weakness in their 3-point defense. In the regular season, they allowed the third-most 3-point shots in the league, per Cleaning the Glass, with 41% of their opponents' shot attempts coming from beyond the arc. And that figure is still high at 40% in the postseason, even though they've played a plurality of their playoff games against the Denver Nuggets, who ranked last in offensive 3-point rate this campaign.
Oklahoma City strategically chooses to cut off shots at the rim. But that focus comes with a tradeoff: It has to live with its opponents firing from deep, even if they're quality shooters, such as Donte DiVincenzo and Michael Porter Jr. in earlier rounds. That approach might prove disastrous in the Finals if the Pacers stay this hot.
But at the same time, the stats suggest Indiana players such as Andrew Nembhard (a 29% 3-point shooter in the regular season) and Pascal Siakam (39%) probably won't continue to make nearly half their 3-pointers. Whether they can stave off regression a bit longer could swing the series.
-- Kram
Prepare for faster Finals?
Typically, as the stakes rise and the games get more tense, NBA teams play slower and more methodically. Here is the average pace for the past eight Finals:
2024: 93.0 possessions per team per game
2023: 91.7
2022: 95.4
2021: 97.3
2020: 94.6
2019: 96.9
2018: 92.7
2017: 100.7
But Oklahoma City and Indiana have shown no evidence they want to play slower. The Thunder are averaging 100.6 possessions per playoff game this season, which ranks second behind only the Grizzlies, who lost against the Thunder in a first-round sweep. In third place behind OKC is Indiana, with 98.4 possessions per game.
Put another way, the last truly fast-paced Finals was in 2017, when the Warriors -- in Kevin Durant's first season with the team -- knocked off the Cavs in five games.
But based on how both the Thunder and the Pacers like to play, they might be poised for another high-octane, up-and-down matchup.
-- Kram
Indiana's run among the most unlikely in Finals history
Although the Pacers reached the conference finals last year, getting swept by Boston, oddsmakers gave them little chance of going a round further this season. Indiana started the season with 20-1 odds to win the East at ESPN BET, tied for sixth best in the conference. After adjusting for the house edge, that implied about a 4% chance of the Pacers reaching the Finals.
In terms of championship odds, just two teams -- the 2019-20 Heat (75-1) and the 2001-02 New Jersey Nets (60-1) -- that reached the Finals over the past four decades have been bigger preseason long shots to win it all than Indiana at 50-1, per ESPN Research.
In addition to those Heat and Nets, the other four teams with preseason odds of 30-1 or higher that reached the Finals all lost the series. Thus far, the 2014-15 Warriors (28-1) are the most improbable title winners on record in terms of preseason odds. If the Pacers go on to win this series in yet another upset, they'd smash that mark.
-- Pelton
Two more chances at history
If the Pacers were to win the Finals, they'd stand out against the ranks of past title winners, all but two of which entered the playoffs as top-three seeds. The only exceptions are the 1994-95 Houston Rockets, who were the West's No. 6 seed when they claimed their second consecutive title, and the 1968-69 Boston Celtics, who were the East's No. 4 seed when they won their 11th title in 13 years.
In other words, the Pacers could become the first champion in league history that wasn't either a top-three seed or a defending titlist.
Indiana also looks like an unusual championship candidate because of its plus-2.2 point differential. Since 1960, the 1994-95 Rockets (plus-2.1) and 1977-78 Washington Bullets (plus-0.9) are the only champions with worse regular-season figures.
The Pacers' résumé looks extremely similar to that of the 2023-24 Dallas Mavericks, who had a chance to achieve all of these same feats that are now on Indiana's doorstep. Indiana landed the East's No. 4 seed with a 50-32 record and a plus-2.2 point differential; last year's Mavericks landed the West's No. 5 seed with a 50-32 record and a plus-2.2 point differential. Of course, that inferior track record paved the way for Dallas' five-game loss in the Finals.
On the other side, Oklahoma City also would rank toward the extreme end of a historical leaderboard if it were to win the Finals. The Thunder went 68-14 in the regular season and with four more wins would reach 84 total wins for the season; the 1995-96 Chicago Bulls, who went 72-10 before cruising through the playoffs, are the only champions in NBA history with more total victories.
For this achievement, it helps that Oklahoma City will have to rack up 16 playoff wins to clinch the title, while teams in earlier eras with more condensed playoff formats didn't need to win so many.
Still, only four champions in NBA history finished with a better regular-season record than the Thunder: the 1995-96 Bulls (72-10), the 1996-97 Bulls (69-13), the 1971-72 Los Angeles Lakers (69-13) and the 1966-67 Philadelphia 76ers (68-13).
-- Kram