Finals things to know: Shai nearing a milestone, and don't expect close games

San Francisco Chronicle​

2 days ago

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — Shai Gilgeous-Alexander has a chance to make a whole slew of history in these NBA Finals.
The Oklahoma City star is the first reigning MVP who'll play in the finals — they start Thursday night when the Thunder play host to the Indiana Pacers — since Golden State's Stephen Curry in 2016. He could become the first player to win a scoring title and an NBA title in the same season since Shaquille O'Neal did it for the Los Angeles Lakers in 1999-2000.
And sometime in Game 1 or Game 2, Gilgeous-Alexander will likely hit another milestone.
He comes into this series with 2,960 points this season — officially, anyway, more on that in a second — between the 82-game regular-season slate and now the postseason.
With 40 more points, he will record the 25th instance of a 3,000-point season when combining the regular season and the playoffs. The most recent to do it was Luka Doncic, who had 3,005 points for Dallas last season.
If the NBA Cup championship game counted statistically, which it doesn't, Gilgeous-Alexander would only need 19 more points for 3,000. He had 21 in that OKC loss to Milwaukee at Las Vegas in December, but those points don't count toward his season total.
Michael Jordan had 10 seasons with at least 3,000 points, Wilt Chamberlain had five and nine other players — Bob McAdoo, Elgin Baylor, James Harden, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Kevin Durant, Kobe Bryant, Rick Barry, Shaquille O'Neal and Doncic — have one.
Last year, it was Oshae Brissett for Boston and AJ Lawson, Olivier-Maxence Prosper and Dwight Powell for Dallas.
This year, it's Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Luguentz Dort for Oklahoma City, along with Bennedict Mathurin and Andrew Nembhard for Indiana.
'I played against Andrew when I was 9 years old,' Gilgeous-Alexander said. 'It's been an amazing journey. To see him having success, my own success, obviously Lu's success, Ben's success, it's special. It's hard to even wrap your head around. ... For us to make it to this stage, is a testament to our hard work, our character, people around us that helped us get here. It's been a blessing. It's been super fun.'
Dort said he hopes Canadians enjoy seeing four of their own in the finals.
'Obviously we represent our teams here,' Dort said. 'But at the end of the day we represent our country as well.'
And it's certain that Montreal will get a title: Dort and Mathurin are both from there.
'I think it's a great opportunity for me, Lu, the whole Montreal city,' Mathurin said. 'I think it's a great step in the right direction just to be able to go against each other. You know, Lu's a great friend of mine. I would call him brother right now, but we're enemies.'
Finally, the finals, for James Johnson
Indiana's James Johnson has been in the NBA for 16 seasons. He has played for 10 different franchises. He has played under 11 different coaches.
He has finally made the NBA Finals.
Johnson came close in 2019-20, starting the season with Miami — which wound up making the bubble finals that season. But Johnson was part of a three-team trade about a month before the pandemic hit and ended up in Minnesota.
'Getting here now means that I was fortunate enough to be on a team of guys that only want winning," Johnson said. "I was fortunate enough to join a team of guys that just want to win — and they want to win by any means necessary.'
Where are the close games?
The last time Indiana's Rick Carlisle coached in the NBA Finals, every game was basically decided at the end. All six games of the Dallas-Miami series in 2011 were decided by 10 points or less.
Since then, those games are rare.
Out of the last 73 NBA Finals games, starting with the 2012 Heat-Thunder matchup through last season's Boston-Dallas series, the average margin of victory has been 12.4 points per game.
There hasn't been an instance of more than three consecutive single-digit finals winning margins in that stretch, and 45 of the 73 games have been decided by at least 10 points.
And there have been only six games in the last 12 finals decided by three points or less — while 10 have been decided by 20 points or more.
Record drought between overtimes
There hasn't been an overtime game in the NBA Finals since Game 1 of the 2018 series between Golden State and Cleveland.
The seven-year drought and counting without a finals overtime game is the longest in NBA history. There was a six-year stretch from 1984 through 1990 without an OT finals game, but never seven — until now.
The division champion quirk
If Oklahoma City wins the NBA title, it will mark the 13th time in the last 14 seasons that a division champion has wound up winning the finals.
The only exception in that span was Golden State in 2022. Before that, the last team to not win their division but win the NBA title was Dallas in 2011 — coached by current Indiana coach Carlisle.
Playoff pool totals
The Thunder and Pacers are playing for the NBA championship, the Larry O'Brien Trophy and about $5 million.
Technically, $5,002,359. That's what one team will get added to its share of the league's annual playoff pool by winning the NBA Finals this season.
The total pool this year, which will be divided by the 16 playoff teams, is $34,665,698. The Thunder have already secured no worse than $7,418,145 from the pool. The Pacers have secured at least $6,160,260.
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