Anatomy of a comeback: How Pacers staged one of the largest comebacks in NBA Finals history
In four series in these NBA playoffs, the Pacers have pulled off four comebacks with a historic level of improbability.
On Thursday night, they managed to win a game they trailed for 47 minutes and 59.7 seconds, never once holding an advantage until Tyrese Haliburton hit his pull-up jumper with 0.3 seconds to go to claim a 111-110 win over the Oklahoma City Thunder in Game 1 of the NBA Finals.
The other comebacks the Pacers pulled off in these playoffs have been 3-5 minute blurs. This one was more of a slow-burn in which what was coming wasn't entirely clear until Haliburton's shot splashed.
Here's a look at the key plays that made the comeback, starting with the one that gave the Thunder their biggest lead.
The Thunder turned the Pacers' 20 turnovers in the first half to just nine points and rarely got the clean runouts steals would usually provide as Indiana did a good job getting back on defense. But T.J. McConnell's giveaway with 9:42 left in the fourth quarter gave the Thunder one of their easiest buckets of the night.
On a baseline out of bounds play, McConnell tried to lob a pass to Thomas Bryant at the top of the key and overthrew it, allowing Jalen Williams to run under it and take it the distance for an easy dunk. The Thunder had outscored the Pacers 9-3 to start the fourth at that point with the Pacers playing a mostly sub lineup with McConnell, Bryant, Bennedict Mathurin and Ben Sheppard on the floor with Pascal Siakam.
Immediately after the dunk Pacers coach Rick Carlisle called timeout and brought in a whole new lineup with starters Haliburton, Andrew Nembhard, Aaron Nesmith and Myles Turner plus Obi Toppin to try to turn things around.
The new lineup started their shift with a 9-2 run that included a three-point play by Nembhard and 3-pointers by Toppin and Turner. Oklahoma City's Alex Caruso matched Nembhard's and-1 but didn't convert the free throw and the Pacers immediately jumped on that opportunity with two stops and two 3s.
Oklahoma City went back up double figures, but once again the Pacers got another 1-2 punch of 3s from Toppin and Turner. Turner's was a bank shot from the left wing. The Pacers had already taken a double-figure deficit and trimmed it to two possessions.
Haliburton drove to the hole to make it a four-point game after the Thunder had built the lead back up to six points. Haliburton had a hard time getting space to operate most of the night as he was being defended by Luguentz Dort and Cason Wallace and this was his first bucket of the fourth quarter, but he was attacking off the bounce and finding some space to operate.
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander put the Thunder back up eight with a driving layup and then two free throws to put the Thunder back up eight points. Siakam then drew a foul and missed two free throws, but he got another opportunity on the second one because the Thunder committed a lane violation. He made his second chance at a second free throw and that ended up making a difference later.
Two more Gilgeous-Alexander free throws put the Thunder up nine again, but once again the Pacers stacked 3-pointers. This time it was their silent warriors who came through — Nesmith and Nembhard. Nesmith hit one in the left corner off a handoff from Toppin, and Nembhard hit a step-back 3 over his Team Canada teammate Gilgeous-Alexander. Suddenly it was a one-possession game with less than two minutes to play.
Siakam was all the way in the left corner when Nembhard pulled up for a 3-pointer from the top of the key, but he blitzed past Gilgeous-Alexander on the baseline to grab the rebound and get the immediate putback. In a playoffs in which the Pacers have struggled to rebound.
Jalen Williams missed a driving floater off the backboard which fell off the rim. Siakam and Oklahoma City's Cason Wallace scrambled for it and the ball went out of bounds off Siakam, but the Pacers believed he was fouled and challenged the call. While they awaited the challenge, they schemed for what might happen next.
The challenge didn't go the Pacers way, but they got the ball back anyway with just the right amount of time to win the game. Gilgeous-Alexander spun into Nembhard, took a step-back jumper and missed. Nesmith grabbed a rebound in the middle of the lane, and the Pacers had already decided to play through and not call timeout. Haliburton drove right from the top of the key on Wallace, got enough space to stop and pull-up and hit his latest miracle game-winner in these playoffs.
Ball game.
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So recently named MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (who is also one of the five players featured on the second season of Netflix's show) showed out like he almost always does, finishing with 38 points before missing several late buckets that could have turned the tide. Haliburton's late heroics meant he earned the spotlight afterward, when he showcased his flashy side by donning sunglasses at the news conference podium and shamelessly promoted his new signature sneaker that — talk about timing — launched on that same day. Like him or not, all of his most marketable qualities were there for all to see. Best sneaker rollout EVER? Tyrese Haliburton hit an NBA Finals game-winner in the same game he debuted his first signature shoe…then he put the shoes on FULL DISPLAY ON THE TABLE at the postgame press conference 😂😂 — Hater Report (@HaterReport_) June 6, 2025 Regardless of what comes next, the Indiana win in the series opener quieted all that noise about these NBA Finals being a Thunder coronation while legitimizing the Pacers in a way few saw coming. And Haliburton, who plays this underdog role so well, isn't about to go quietly. If he goes at all. 'After you have a run like last year and you get swept in the Eastern Conference finals, and all the conversation is about how you don't belong there and how you lucked out to get there and that it was a fluke, guys are going to be pissed off,' he said after Game 1. 'You have an unsuccessful first couple months (the Pacers started 10-15), and now it's easy for everyone to clown you and talk about you in a negative way, and I think as a group we take everything personal. … It's not just me. It's everybody. I feel like that's the DNA of this group, and that's not just me. … We do a great job of taking things personal, and that gives this group more confidence. Advertisement 'I'm really proud of this group. We've just all got each other's back at every point. Any negative thing that's said about anybody, we've got full belief in each other. So the more that's talked about, like right now, we're whatever underdog that gives us more confidence as a group. We enjoy that.' Especially when it ends like this. watching Tyrese Haliburton's game winner on repeat 🔁 — Indiana Pacers (@Pacers) June 6, 2025 'Tyrese has a special energy to him,' Buchanan said. 'You know that, when the game is really on the line, (that) he's got a lot of self-belief. But I think the most important part is he feels it from everybody else around him, a belief in him and that we trust he's gonna make the right play when the ball's in his hands. 'When you feel that from the people around you, that they know you and trust you and believe in you, that just gives you a little extra confidence and sometimes the great things like you're seeing right now (happen).' Tyrese Haliburton is unique in every single way as a playmaker. Because of that, so are his Indiana Pacers. (Top photo of Tyrese Haliburton: Gregory Shamus / Getty Images)
