Unpredictability is the only guarantee as Oklahoma City and Indiana vie for the championship in Game 7.
OKLAHOMA CITY – For every stat about Game 7 in the NBA Finals, it seems there’s a counter-stat.
For instance, home teams have had a considerable advantage in the previous 19 instances in league history. That naturally favors the Oklahoma City Thunder, who will play host to the Indiana Pacers at Paycom Center Sunday night (8 ET, ABC) in the finale of this best-of-seven championship series.
And yet, the four road teams that have left sticky champagne messes in visitors’ locker rooms all have come from the Eastern Conference (1969 Celtics, 1974 Celtics, 1978 Bullets, 2016 Cavaliers).
This seems odd, too: The past three Finals decided in Game 7 were won by teams that trailed 3-2 heading into the final two games. That Cleveland team did it nine years ago, famously become the first champion to dig out of a 3-1 hole, and so did the Heat in 2013 and the Lakers in 2010 (back in the 2-3-2 format days).
That’s something else from which the Pacers might draw a little inspiration as they reach the end of their improbable playoff run. The East’s No. 4 seed when this all began more than two months ago, they’ll need plenty to close out the Thunder, the NBA’s top team (68-14) in the regular season.
Obviously, both teams would have preferred to sweep the other – the parade already would be over and their rings on order. But the prestige of reaching and participating in Game 7, the stage for some of the most indelible moments in league annals, isn’t lost on the players or coaches.
“It’s a privilege for everybody that gets to participate,” OKC coach Mark Daigneault said Saturday. “We’re going to enjoy it. We’re going to throw our best punch. Go out there and be who we are.”
Said Thunder wing Jalen Williams: “It makes the hair on your arms stand up a little bit.”
The respect that has built up across six fiercely contested games, with minimal rancor or resentment, was evident in the answers offered up to reporters on the final day of interviews.
In fact, a comment from Indiana guard Tyrese Haliburton seemed to fit the series regardless of which team he had in mind when he said: “There’s not a group of guys I’d rather go to war with.”
In style and substance, the Pacers and the Thunder are more alike than different. Small-market teams, each seeking their first championships, each led by All-NBA point guards flanked by deep, young and notably close-knit rosters, stingy and stingier on defense, as happy to get points from backups as from starters, prepped by two of the most respected coaches in the league.
Said Daigneault: “These are two teams that have leaned on [intangibles] heavily to get to this point. It’s two teams where the whole is better than the sum of the parts. It’s two teams that are highly competitive. Two teams that play together. Two teams that kind of rely on the same stuff for their success that are squaring off against each other.”
Here are four things to look for as the Thunder and Pacers wrap up the 2024-25 season with the final 48 minutes:
1. Expect a close game
Wait, did we just say “48 minutes?” It would surprise no one if Sunday’s game required 53 or more to produce a champion.
For the record, two of the 19 previous Game 7s went into overtime. In 1957, in fact, it took Boston two bonus periods to eliminate the St. Louis Hawks, 125-123. Five years later, the Celtics did it to the Lakers, 110-107 in single overtime in the first of six times in the 1960s that Bill Russell’s crews dealt Finals defeat to Lakers legends Jerry West and Elgin Baylor.
The average margin of victory in Game 7 in the Finals is 6.9 points. That’s the smallest of all Finals games, and each of the past six Finals Game 7s have been determined by seven points or fewer.
But get this: Through the first six games of this one, the Thunder have outscored the Pacers just 662-655. Average margin of victory: 1.16 points per game. A lopsided denouement would be wholly out of character.
2. A few final Finals tricks
Playoff series swing on game-to-game, half-to-half, even possession-to-possession adjustments. But after 24 quarters, more than 1,300 points and 500 rebounds, you might think both sides have emptied their bags o’ tricks, putting every X and O on the table by now so that Game 7 comes down simply to which team executes better or which scorer gets hot.
Not so, apparently.
“Oh, there are more adjustments that can be made, for sure,” Indiana’s Rick Carlisle said. “So we’ll see.”
Carlisle’s group came up with a crafty change in Game 6. Known for their tenacity and pace both offensively and defensively, the Pacers throttled back as a surprise tactic Thursday to spark their 108-91 victory at Gainbridge Fieldhouse.
Unique (very nerdy) defensive wrinkle from the Pacers.
Haliburton rotates/stunts up from the dunker spot or corner on the two-side against the PnP anytime SGA or JDub are positioned one pass away at the wing. pic.twitter.com/mABy1xJHpn
— Caitlin Cooper (@C2_Cooper) June 21, 2025
All of a sudden, they weren’t pressuring the Thunder from the moment of the inbounds pass. They were hanging up, setting up more cohesively into a half-court defense, then sending more helpers at OKC’s lead ball handler Shai Gilgeous-Alexander than they had earlier in the series.
“We just didn’t do a good enough job adjusting to that and trusting the way that we played previously,” guard Alex Caruso said. “To that point, we’d seen every attack defensively this year, whether it be for Shai, Dub [Williams], the whole team.
“People play aggressive, people play soft, play zone, play trap, sit back and plug. We’re prepared for whatever it is, it’s about going out there and recognizing the right one and taking advantage of it.”
Daigneault surely has a card or two left to play as well, as long as it doesn’t shift his guys into thinking too much when they should be flowing and reacting.
“You certainly want to learn the lessons, get the game plan into the game,” he said, “but not at the expense of aggressiveness, confidence, instincts.”
3. Look to backcourts for X factors
When you have as many contributors as Indiana does – eight players scoring more than 200 points each through the playoff run, an NBA first – you’ve got several candidates to provide a spark, pick up slack or otherwise propel your squad to victory. Big man Obi Toppin and wing Bennedict Mathurin have had their moments so far, and either could step up again to reinforce what the Pacers’ starters begin.
The likeliest suspect to change things up or (if the situation requires) pile on is veteran backup guard T.J. McConnell. The 33-year-old native of Pittsburgh in Game 3 became the first bench player in Finals history to amass 10 points, five assists and five steals in a game. Now with a game to spare, he’s already alone among reserves in having at least 60 points, 25 assists and 15 rebounds in a Finals.
Parallels to J.J. Barea, the journeyman backup point guard who helped the 2011 Dallas Mavericks upset LeBron James’ Miami Heat in 2011, have been drawn.
“I do see similarities,” said Carlisle, who coached that Mavs team.
McConnell’s greatest worth isn’t in the counting stats he gets. It’s his floor burns, his elusiveness while rarely shooting from more than 12 feet away from the basket, his sneaky ability to reverse directions and swipe passes.
For the Thunder, guards Aaron Wiggins and Cason Wallace are full-service players and likely starters on many NBA teams. Isaiah Joe is a streaky threat from 3-point range. But Caruso is a two-way irritant most likely to go McConnell on OKC’s behalf. He has scored 20 points twice in the series and has 14 steals.
4. Still time for the centers?
The NBA is a long way from the days when big men such as Russell, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Hakeem Olajuwon or Tim Duncan had much to say about the outcomes of Game 7. Centers were chosen as Finals MVP eight times in the first 17 years the trophy was awarded (1969-85) but only once in the past 19 years (Nikola Jokić, 2023).
No one expected Oklahoma City’s or Indiana’s big men to dominate. But they have underperformed, offensively in particular, from their regular-season selves.
For the Thunder, Chet Holmgren is shooting 35% and just 2-of-17 from the 3-point arc after hitting at a 49% overall rate and 38% on 3s during the season. Isaiah Hartenstein has had his minutes cut by a third in this matchup, to 19.2 per game, and seen his double-double production in points and rebounds halved.
Meanwhile, Pacers center Myles Turner – noted for his ability to draw opposing bigs beyond their defensive comfort zones – has made only five of his 25 3-point attempts. He is shooting 36.8% overall. In 56 career playoff games before this Finals, Turner’s accuracy was 51.2%, including 40.1% on 3s.
Neither coach, however, was throwing in the towel on the bigs’ potential to still impact the Finals clincher. Their defensive work at least has been up to their usual standards.
Said Carlisle of Holmgren: “He has had a lot of stretches where we have not dealt with him well.”
Daigneault offered the lifeline that Finals teams historically take away elements upon which their opponents came to rely from November to April.
“There’s no point in the regular season where you play a great team seven straight times, and as a result of that, great players, great teams, they vacillate in and out of everything,” the OKC coach said.
“It’s very hard to sustain the same things over and over again, which is why in a playoff series some teams win games or lose games and why some players have really loud, great nights and then they have quieter nights.”
Regardless of positions and performance, expect nothing very quiet about Game 7.
* * *
Steve Aschburner has written about the NBA since 1980. You can e-mail him here, find his archive here and follow him on X.
The views on this page do not necessarily reflect the views of the NBA, its clubs or Warner Bros. Discovery.
