NBA Finals quick hits: Tyrese Haliburton suffers heartbreaking injury, as Shai Gilgeous-Alexander's playmaking and Lu Dort's 'moonball' spark Thunder

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A heartbreaking injury ends Tyrese Haliburton's magical play-off run as Lu Dort's 'moonball' and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander's MVP mastery decides Game 7 of an epic NBA Finals.
Here are your quick hits from a thrilling series finale.
Pacers star Tyrese Haliburton came into Game 7 nursing a calf strain after suffering the injury earlier in the series.
Haliburton was able to be productive enough on his gimpy right calf in the Pacers' resounding Game 6 win, and started brilliantly in the decider, knocking down three early three-pointers.
Unfortunately, Haliburton's Game 7 would last just seven minutes.
Haliburton tried to drive left above the three-point arc and crumpled to the floor in tears, repeatedly slamming the court with his palm.
The Pacers initially termed the injury a "lower leg injury" before Haliburton's father confirmed to ESPN that he had suffered a dreaded achilles rupture, making him the third star player to suffer the same injury in these play-offs after Jayson Tatum and Damian Lillard.
Haliburton's teammates surrounded him immediately after the injury before he was helped off the court in tears with a towel wrapped around his face.
Game 7s are often tense affairs and feature a ton of ugly basketball, and this one was no different.
After going into the half-time break trailing by one point, the Thunder came out with much more aggression in the third quarter.
OKC's Lu Dort isn't known for his offensive game, but hit a crucial three-pointer at the start of the third quarter off a broken play.
Dort received the ball late in the shot clock on a broken play and hoisted up a three-pointer from well beyond the arc and somehow it went in.
After the Thunder had started 4-18 from three-point range, Dort's miracle shot seemed to spark the favourites, who went on an 18-8 run to start the second half.
Dort's triple gave the rest of his teammates life as well with OKC knocking down four of its first eight three-point attempts in the third quarter to put some breathing space between themselves and Indiana.
The Thunder have been one of the best defensive teams in league history all season long, and it was fitting that the defence came to the fore in this game.
OKC contains some of the best ball hawks in the league in Dort, Alex Caruso, Jalen Williams and Cason Wallace and the quartet and the rest of the team continued to force turnovers throughout Game 7.
The turnover battle is always the key to beating the Thunder, particularly in Oklahoma City, and it was a battle that the Pacers lost by a large margin.
Indiana coughed up the ball eight separate times in the third quarter, allowing OKC to turn a one-point half-time deficit into a 13-point lead in the final quarter.
When you're not a great three-point shooting team as the Thunder have been in this series, you need to make up the points elsewhere, and OKC did so via forcing turnovers.
The Thunder finished the game with 32 points off turnovers, and the key was them managing to take care of the ball themselves. After forcing 21 Pacer turnovers, the Thunder gave up just seven.
The result was an extra 17 more field goal attempts for OKC by the time the final buzzer sounded.
OKC's Shai Gilgeous-Alexander enjoyed one of the most efficient scoring seasons by a guard in NBA history.
With both defences turned up full blast, this was never going to be one of Gilgeous-Alexander's most efficient games, but it wound up being maybe his most complete.
Gilgeous-Alexander finished the game with 29 points and 12 assists and was masterful throughout the contest despite shooting 8-27 from the field.
A number of his Thunder teammates were nervy in the first half, but Gilgeous-Alexander set the table brilliantly, recording seven assists in the first half alone while finding away to still get his own points.
Gilgeous-Alexander isn't known for being a natural playmaker — he averaged just 6.4 assists per game this season — but his ability to facilitate allowed the Thunder offence to keep ticking over with timely buckets.
By the time the second half got underway, Gilgeous-Alexander setting the table meant all his teammates got more comfortable as the game went on.
Gilgeous-Alexander finished the Finals averaging 30.3 points, 4.6 rebounds, 5.6 assists and 1.9 steals per game and became the first player in the last 25 years to win the regular season MVP, the scoring title and the Finals MVP after Shaquille O'Neal accomplished the same feat with the Lakers in 2000.
All season long, every metric suggested the Thunder were champions in waiting, and the math proved to be the case in the end.
OKC's Game 7 win meant its combined regular season and play-off record ended up at 84-21.
The Thunder's 84 wins are the third-highest in NBA history, with only the 1995-96 Chicago Bulls (87) and the 2015-16 Golden State Warriors (88) having more. The 1996-97 Bulls also finished with 84 wins.
OKC was the 15th team to finish with 80 or more combined regular season and play-off wins. Of those 15 teams, only the 2015-16 Warriors went on to not win the title in that same season.
Having won the title, the question now becomes just how many titles this Thunder team can win.
All the teams to win 82 or more combined regular season and play-off games in a single season went on to win at least one other title in the surrounding years.
Winning the NBA title is the pinnacle for every player in the league, and is a feat that is celebrated roundly by their families and friends as well.
It is not uncommon for players to have their children on the dais as the team receives the Larry O'Brien trophy, and one of the Thunder kids stole the show.
OKC big man Isaiah Hartenstein had his young son in his arms throughout the trophy presentation.
Hartenstein isn't one of the star players on the team, so he had to wait a little bit to be interviewed by ESPN's Lisa Salters, who hosted the trophy presentation.
By the time Salters got to Hartenstein, his son was fast asleep in his arms as Hartenstein's teammates attempted unsuccessfully to balance his head on his father's shoulder.
"I don't know why he's asleep right now, I guess it's not loud enough," Hartenstein said, before attempting to get the Thunder fans to cheer louder.
"I'll tell him about it tomorrow."