
Steelers players reveal their NBA Finals predictions: Pacers vs. Thunder
As the NBA Finals rage on — the Pittsburgh Steelers have weighed in on the exciting matchup between the Indiana Pacers and Oklahoma City Thunder.
Ahead of Game 3 on June 11, the Steelers asked their players to decide which NBA team will walk away victorious and recorded their answers. Here is the final tally of votes:
Indiana Pacers: 5 votes
Cam Heyward, Beanie Bishop Jr., James Pierre, and two others picked the Pacers to win the best-of-seven series — which may have provided Indiana with just enough good luck to walk away victorious in Game 3 later that night.
Oklahoma City Thunder: 11 votes
There is definitely a lot of OKC love in the Steelers locker room — as Calvin Austin III, Darnell Washington, Alex Highsmith, Patrick Queen, Nick Herbig, Broderick Jones, Jaylen Warren, and four more voted for the Thunder to win the NBA Finals.
Honorable mention:
Minkah Fitzpatrick was the last Steeler to cast his vote, and he said he'd pick the New York Knicks to win it all if they were in the Finals.
For up-to-date Steelers coverage, follow us on X @TheSteelersWire and give our Facebook page a like.
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34 minutes ago
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38 minutes ago
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A year ago Tyrese Haliburton was a punchline. Now he's the NBA's finest punch-out artist
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Thu 5 Jun Game 1: Pacers 111, Thunder 110 Sun 8 Jun Game 2: Thunder 123, Pacers 107 Wed 11 Jun Game 3: Pacers 116, Thunder 107 Fri 13 Jun Game 4: Thunder at Pacers, 8.30pm Mon 16 Jun Game 5: Pacers at Thunder, 8.30pm Thu 19 Jun Game 6: Thunder at Pacers, 8.30pm* Sun 22 Jun Game 7: Pacers at Thunder, 8pm* *-if necessary How to watch In the US, all games will air on ABC. Streaming options include or the ABC app (with a participating TV provider login), as well as Hulu + Live TV, YouTube TV, fuboTV, DIRECTV STREAM, and Sling TV (via ESPN3 for ABC games). NBA League Pass offers replays, but live finals games are subject to blackout restrictions in the US. Advertisement In the UK, the games will be available on TNT Sports and Discovery+. As for streaming, NBA League Pass will provide live and on-demand access to all Finals games without blackout restrictions. In Australia, the games will broadcast live on ESPN Australia. 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They just need the last word | Claire de Lune Counting the regular season and the playoffs this year, Haliburton is a robust 86.7% on shots taken inside the final two minutes (including overtime) to tie or take the lead. The same fans who once joked about Haliburton's smiles-per-game at the Olympics have shifted to likening his uncanny talent for upending win-probability trend lines to basketball terrorism. Nicknames for Haliburton on social media include The Haliban and, when he beat Thunder in Game 1 of the finals, Himothy McVeigh, a play on the Oklahoma City bomber (It should go without saying that such wordplay is in questionable taste.) All of this has put the league, already under fire for its muted NBA finals spectacle, in the unfortunate position of having to astroturf another Haliburton nickname, The Moment, in hopes of stopping the more charged ones from spreading further. (Newsflash: it hasn't caught on with fans.) 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I'm confident in myself and not concerned with what others think.' Haliburton has shown as much throughout the season, wearing a goofy smile as he rips hearts out from coast to coast. All the while he has navigated the ancillary controversies around his game – from the NBA banning his father, John, from attending games as punishment for taunting Antetokounmpo; to Haliburton himself nearly upstaging Pascal Siakam's acceptance of the conference finals MVP award – with grace and maturity. 'When we brought him here, we had a vision,' Haliburton said of Siakam, shrugging off his unwitting echo of a popular meme from a past NBA All-Star celebrity game. 'We envisioned doing something like this, doing something special.' It just confirms what teammates already know about Haliburton: he's not playing for the spotlight. That was obvious again in the Pacers' 116-107 victory over the Thunder on Wednesday night – a nip-tuck affair in which Haliburton made the difference with his defense and distribution of the ball, and Indiana's bench carried the day. In one late-game sequence, he managed to outfox Gilgeous-Alexander – a solid off-ball defender – in a clever half court set piece from the left elbow. Instead of dishing the ball off to a cutting Miles Turner, who only had SGA to beat in the lane, Haliburton fired the ball past Turner to Aaron Nesmith on the opposite wing – who then buried a three over a wrongfooted Shai Gilgeous-Alexander to give the Pacers an eight-point lead with three minutes left. No, the play wasn't as sexy or as seismic as a Haliburton desperation heave. But there's no doubt it was clutch. 'I mean, I was like three months old last time they made the finals,' Haliburton joked to NBA TV while considering the significance of helping the Pacers to their first finals trip first finals trip in 25 years. 'As a group, every year we've taken a jump. We're here now, and we don't want to take this time for granted.' Now two wins from delivering the Pacers' first ever NBA championship (they had previously won three titles in the defunct ABA), Haliburton is on the brink of turning a series that began with low expectations into one that may forever live in NBA lore. It's quite the turnabout for a player who seemingly couldn't make the grade.