NBA Finals are set: Oklahoma City Thunder vs. Indiana Pacers, starting Thursday night
The seeds for the 2025 NBA Finals began getting planted unknowingly in 2017, back when Shai Gilgeous-Alexander was about to enroll at Kentucky and Tyrese Haliburton was getting ready for his senior year of high school in Wisconsin.
That was the year the Indiana Pacers traded Paul George to the Oklahoma City Thunder. The Pacers landed Domantas Sabonis in that deal. The Thunder would trade George in 2019 to the Los Angeles Clippers for a package that included Gilgeous-Alexander. The Pacers would trade Sabonis in 2022 to the Sacramento Kings for a package that included Haliburton.
And here we are.
Gilgeous-Alexander is the NBA's MVP and Oklahoma City's best player. Haliburton is an Olympic gold medalist and Indiana's best player. They'll lead their teams into Game 1 of the NBA Finals on Thursday night in Oklahoma City, the start of a series that will decide who hoists the Larry O'Brien Trophy.
'Man, I'm just so proud of this group,' Haliburton said in the on-court televised interview with TNT after the Pacers' 125-108 victory over the New York Knicks on Saturday in Game 6 of the Eastern Conference finals. 'I don't even have words right now. It's really exciting. We'll enjoy this one for now. There's four more, there's a lot more work to do, against a really tough team.'
The Thunder — depending on how you count — are in the finals for either the second or fifth time. The franchise, when it was the Seattle SuperSonics, lost what was then called the NBA World Championship Series to the Washington Bullets in 1978, won the title in a rematch in 1979 and lost to the Chicago Bulls in 1996. Oklahoma City got to the finals in 2012, losing to the Miami Heat.
The Thunder went 68-14 in the regular season and are 12-4 in the playoffs — sweeping the Memphis Grizzlies in Round 1, surviving seven games against the Denver Nuggets in Round 2 and then ousting the Minnesota Timberwolves in five games for the Western Conference title.
'When you win, that's a special thing,' Thunder forward Chet Holmgren said. 'It's not guaranteed in this league. If everybody was guaranteed to win, it'd be a participation trophy instead of a Larry O'Brien.
'So you have to kind of take it in and understand what you've accomplished to that point, but then the next day you have to start turning the page, get rid of the emotions and start focusing on preparation and what you have to do to conquer the next step. And that's where we're at.'
Indiana is in the finals for the second time, having lost to the Los Angeles Lakers in 2000. The Pacers won ABA titles in 1970, '72 and '73. They got out of the Eastern Conference as the No. 4 seed, beating the Milwaukee Bucks in five games in Round 1, the top-seeded Cleveland Cavaliers in five games in Round 2 and the Knicks in the conference finals.
The Pacers were 10-15 through the first 25 games this season — then went 40-17 to finish the regular season. They are the fourth team to start 10-15 or worse and go on to win a conference title, joining the 1977-78 SuperSonics (8-17), the 1958-59 Minneapolis Lakers (10-15) and the 1956-57 St. Louis Hawks (10-15). None of those teams won the NBA title.
'In 49 states, it's just basketball,' Pacers coach Rick Carlisle said. 'But this is Indiana. … Our guys earned this. Congratulations to our guys.'
Oklahoma City swept the season series 2-0, part of a regular season in which the Thunder — who finished with the NBA's best record — went 29-1 against the East. That doesn't include a loss to the Bucks in the NBA Cup final that didn't count in the standings.
So the matchup is set. It's the Paul George finals — albeit without George, who had arguably the best season of his career with the Thunder, averaging 28 points and finishing third in MVP voting for 2018-19.
'Obviously he wasn't here long, but he had great years here,' Thunder coach Mark Daigneault said Saturday when asked about George's impact. 'I mean, one of the best years of his career was here, one of the best individual seasons a player's had here — which is saying something here with the guys they've had. So I have a lot of respect for him.'
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