NBA Finals odds: What team has best shot to win championship in 2025?
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Thunder knock off Knicks, will battle Thunder for NBA Finals crown
USA TODAY Sports' Lorenzo Reyes breaks down how the Indiana Pacers fought their way into the NBA Finals.
Sports Pulse
The 2025 NBA Finals are set. The Oklahoma City Thunder and Indiana Pacers begin their best-of-seven championship series with Game 1 on Thursday.
The Thunder have been the best team in the NBA all season. They backed it up with dominating series wins over the Memphis Grizzlies in the first round of the NBA playoffs and the Minnesota Timberwolves in the Western Conference Finals, with an encouraging Game 7 performance to beat the Denver Nuggets in the conference semifinals. NBA MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Jalen Williams, Chet Holmgren lead what many consider the deepest roster in the league and its best defense.
The Pacers weren't among the favorites to make the NBA Finals entering the 2024-25 season, or even the 2025 playoffs, despite a run to the Eastern Conference Finals last year and a late-season surge up to the No. 4 slot in the Eastern Conference standings this year. But Indiana might be the only team with depth to perhaps match Oklahoma City.
The Pacers' ability to wear down the Knicks with its entire rotation proved almost as crucial as Tyrese Haliburton and Eastern Conference Finals MVP Pascal Siakam delivering when it mattered most to defeat the Cleveland Cavaliers in the conference semifinals and then the New York Knicks to reach the NBA Finals. Indiana will nonetheless be an underdog in the first NBA Finals since 2003 involving two teams that didn't spend over the luxury tax in player salary.
Here's a look at the NBA championship odds entering the 2025 NBA Finals:
NBA Finals odds 2025
BetMGM odds for NBA Finals winner as of Monday, June 2:
PERSPECTIVE: Small-market Pacers party down in big way with NBA Finals trip
2025 NBA Finals odds: Series result
1. Thunder in 5 games (+200)
2. Thunder in 4 games (+325)
3. Thunder in 6 games (+425)
4. Thunder in 7 games (+500)
T5. Pacers in 6 games (+1200)
T5. Pacers in 7 games (+1200)
7. Pacers in 5 games (+3000)
8. Pacers in 4 games (+5000)
Watch the NBA Finals with Fubo
NBA Finals schedule 2025
All times Eastern.
Game 1, June 5: Pacers at Thunder | ABC, Fubo | 8:30 p.m.
Pacers at Thunder | ABC, Fubo | 8:30 p.m. Game 2, June 8: Pacers at Thunder | ABC, Fubo | 8 p.m.
Pacers at Thunder | ABC, Fubo | 8 p.m. Game 3, June 11: Thunder at Pacers | ABC, Fubo | 8:30 p.m.
Thunder at Pacers | ABC, Fubo | 8:30 p.m. Game 4, June 13 : Thunder at Pacers | ABC, Fubo | 8:30 p.m.
: Thunder at Pacers | ABC, Fubo | 8:30 p.m. Game 5, June 16 : Pacers at Thunder | ABC, Fubo | 8:30 p.m.*
: Pacers at Thunder | ABC, Fubo | 8:30 p.m.* Game 6, June 19 : Thunder at Pacers | ABC, Fubo | 8:30 p.m.*
: Thunder at Pacers | ABC, Fubo | 8:30 p.m.* Game 7, June 22: Pacers at Thunder | ABC, Fubo | 8 p.m.*
*if necessary
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