The 2025 NBA Finals will tip off on Thursday, as the Thunder host the Pacers for Game 1 at the Paycom Center in Oklahoma City.
For all the hand-wringing leading up to the series about market size and TV ratings, this year’s Finals matchup features two highly entertaining teams led by All-NBA point guards who have established themselves as NBA superstars.
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, this season’s Most Valuable Player, leads the way for the Thunder, who submitted one of the most dominant regular season performances in NBA history in 2024/25. Only four teams have compiled more wins in a single season than Oklahoma City’s 68 in ’24/25, and the Thunder’s +12.7 net rating ranks second all-time, behind only the 1995/96 Bulls.
While Gilgeous-Alexander, who led the NBA with 32.7 points per game, is the engine of an offense that ranked third in the NBA this season, he gets plenty of help from a strong supporting cast. Jalen Williams (21.6 PPG) and Chet Holmgren (15.0 PPG) headline the group of six more Thunder players who averaged double-digit points per game this year, along with Aaron Wiggins, Isaiah Hartenstein, Isaiah Joe, and Luguentz Dort.
Many of those same players, with the help of reserves like Alex Caruso and Cason Wallace, were responsible for making the Thunder’s defense the NBA’s best by a comfortable margin. The gap between Oklahoma City’s league-leading 106.6 defensive rating and Orlando’s 109.1 second-place mark was bigger than the gap between the Magic and the seventh-place Warriors (111.0).
Dort and Williams both earned All-Defensive spots and Caruso and/or Wallace would’ve been legitimate candidates to join them if they’d played enough minutes to qualify for consideration.
The Thunder had the league’s lowest turnover percentage (11.6%) and generated the highest opponent turnover percentage (16.9%), resulting in a ton of transition opportunities and a significant edge in the possession battle. Oklahoma City’s average of 92.1 field goal attempts per game was easily the top mark in the NBA, well ahead of second-place Milwaukee (87.8). The Thunder also ranked in the top five in free throw attempts per game.
While the Thunder’s formula will be tough to crack, the Pacers have been one of the NBA’s best teams in their own right since January 1. After a shaky start to the season, Indiana caught fire in 2025, finishing the season on a 34-14 run and then going 12-4 in the first three rounds of the postseason.
Led by All-NBA third-teamer Tyrese Haliburton, Indiana – like Oklahoma City – was one of the league’s best teams at moving and taking care of the ball despite playing an up-tempo style. From January 1 onward, no team had a better assist-to-turnover ratio than the Pacers’ 2.44-to-1 mark, and only the Thunder had a lower turnover rate than Indiana’s 12.2%.
Although Haliburton leads the Pacers’ offensive attack, he’s not the scorer Gilgeous-Alexander is, having averaged a relatively modest 18.6 PPG during the regular season. It was actually star forward Pascal Siakam who led the team in scoring during the regular season (20.2 PPG) and has done so again in the playoffs (21.1 PPG).
But the club has a deep, balanced offense that also features contributions from Bennedict Mathurin (16.1 PPG during the regular season), Myles Turner (15.6 PPG), Aaron Nesmith (12.0 PPG), Obi Toppin (10.5 PPG), Andrew Nembhard (10.0 PPG), and T.J. McConnell (9.1 PPG).
While the game typically slows down in the playoffs, the Thunder and Pacers have continued to play fast well into the spring — only the Grizzlies, who faced Oklahoma City in the first round, rank ahead of Oklahoma City and Indiana in postseason pace.
Given those numbers, the Pacers will need to do all they can to keep the Thunder from dominating the boards. Indiana ranked 28th in the NBA in rebounding rate during the regular season, including 29th in offensive rebounding rate. With the two teams likely to be racing up and down the court and the Thunder’s ability to generate turnovers typically giving them the possession edge, getting consistently out-rebounded would compound that issue for the Pacers.
Whichever franchise wins the series won’t technically be getting its first title. The Pacers won three ABA championships in the 1970s and the Thunder claimed an NBA title back in 1979 as the Seattle SuperSonics, long before relocating to Oklahoma City. But fans in Indiana and Oklahoma City haven’t seen their respective teams win an NBA Finals.
With Game 1 set to tip off in less than 12 hours, we want to know what you think. Will the heavily favored Thunder make it a quick series? Will it go to six or seven games? Can the Pacers pull off the upset?
Vote in our poll, then head to the comment section below to weigh in with your predictions!
The Battle of Tur’nover
My prediction:
Thunder in 6
Battle of Pace, 3 pointers and Turnover
If Pacers go wild, Pacers in 7
Play small, Go pace, Take out Thunder both big men
Wild wild wild
Not going to happen Sillivan.
The Pacers will be blown out of the water every game.
Take it from me, I’m never wrong lol just kidding. Don’t put any money on that lol.
Think in this way
At full strength – fully healthy
Nuggets are likely to take down Thunder in the 2nd round
The Nuggets are very good. But let the record show, they didn’t win. They lost.
Never “think of it that way.”
Never use injuries as an excuse. Never use what if?
Every team has injuries. Many teams have been down star players in the last 20 years of the playoffs. Warriors have actually benefited from some of those teams losing guys.
Injuries and the refs. You complain about those and you’ve lost all basketball respect. Teams are built with 10 guys in reserve. They’re on the team for a reason and they practice and play and it’s next man up.
If he’s not good enough, get someone else. That’s up to the GM, who by the way is part of the team and organization.
I dont know who will win, but I really want the Pacers to win after the ECF. I havent cheered for a team in the finals for a while (usually I just want one of the teams to lose, so I cheer for the opposite team) but I feel really invested in this Pacers team. There’s some magic in the air ☆
And OKC is likely to be dominant for awhile if Presti keeps playing his cards right. Can’t go wrong either way, but this may be the Pacers best and only shot.
I voted OKC… if healthy they have the pieces and have been battle tested through the west.
Carlisle has been here before so the Pacers can’t be written off.. 7 game series is easily on the cards…
Everything I know about ball tells me that OKC wins in 5-6 games. But damn if I don’t want the Pacers to win.
I understand your sentiment, but when I look at how OKC is built, I really think there’s a compelling reason to love them.
They are all grinders and play for each other. They’re like a college team and play with effort and hustle and covering for each other.
Most of the team are homegrown draftees and built from the ground up. There really is a lot to like about them.
Gary, You put it extremely well. OKC is so unselfish, and the whole is so much greater than the sum of the parts. IMO, we’re witnessing the beginning of an important change in pro basketball.
Rarely mentioned is how long it takes to build a defense this good. It’s more than effort and defensive principles. This peak is achieved after 3 years of playing together. Roster continuity breeds cohesiveness. Against Denver, OKC often changed back and forth between zone and man-to-man on the same possession. A machine.
If other NBA teams want to play defense this well, they’ll need to commit to the principles, and, especially, to roster continuity. You’ll never play defense like this if you’re cycling veterans through the middle and bottom of your roster every year. Nor (sorry Steve Kerr fans) if you’re using different rotations every single game.
OKC’s defense is going to influence other NBA teams to follow. It’s also how USA basketball must evolve to remain dominant internationally. We need to maximally exploit our superior athleticism on team defense to achieve reliable advantage over the increasingly skilled Europeans.
Great point on the D. Other teams need to follow suit if they want success but this defensive scheme is a tough sell.
I give Dort a lot of credit for spearheading the play on the floor that the coaches have planned out.
He’s done it year in and year out without a peep of complaint.
So if your team doesn’t have a L. Dort or Alex Caruso or Greymond Green, it’s going to be difficult to get guys on board with expelling the energy and dedication to get this to work.
Agree, Dort makes a huge contribution. He’s their rock.
> So if your team doesn’t have a L. Dort or Alex Caruso or
> Greymond Green, it’s going to be difficult to get guys on board
> with expelling the energy and dedication to get this to work.
Agree that it’s harder without a stud to show the way, but I think we’ll see many teams change to OKC’s principles of going “defense-first”. The first 2 principles are obvious, the 3rd and 4th less so.
1) Stop concentrating payroll in 2-3 offensive stars. It leaves too little for defenders. OKC had $50M in cap space last off-season to work with to upgrade. Some criticized them for passing on Lauri Markkanen, and using the $50M on “defense-only” Alex Caruso and Isiah Hartenstein.
2) Get younger. Older players can’t play this kind of defense. Caruso is oldest player on OKC at 31 years old. There are no roster spots or salary spent on players in decline.
3) Achieve defensive continuity by locking up great defenders on inexpensive, long-term contracts. You can’t build great defense without continuity and quality. Kenrich Williams, Aaron Wiggins, and Isiah Joe are all on 4 year deals. Caruso is also on a $20M/year deal for 3 more years. Dort has 2 more years at $17M. Cason Wallace has 2 more years at $6M/yr Basically, OKC will be spending $65M/yr for the next 3 years on roster slots 6-11 to guarantee the best defense in the NBA.
3) Use the 2nd round of the draft on “defense and dogs”, like OKC has done. Don’t draft on offensive potential, shooting, etc. These are the guys that feed into category 2).
4) Lottery picks must be great defenders. Chet, Jaylen Williams, Cason Wallace, and, even this past year’s 6’7″ PG Nikola Topic were all known for defense.
Gary I appreciate the way they did it and I’d be rooting for them if not for Rick Carlisle(a Celtic!)
Rick Carlisle is an under-appreciated coach who should be celebrated. He didn’t get the credit he deserved for building the Pistons championshp teams in the early 2000’s. He was great in Dallas, and he’s doing it again here.
I agree 100%.
I agree OKC is well built and I appreciate the team culture BUT… SGA hunting for fouls all game long is frustrating and watching him on the foul line all night is boring. I understand the top players have been doing this since the Big O and Wilt the Stilt but… I prefer Indiana’s approach.
Thunder in 6 seems likely, but the Vegas best odds 5 games wouldn’t be a huge surprise.
I absolutely love choosing the underdog. I do it all the time because if you’re right, you’re a genius and go against the crowd. If you’re wrong, hopefully people forget lol
There’s no way the underdog has a smidge of a chance here.
Indiana will look lost, frustrated, and totally outmatched in every way possible.
I agree with the first part of your comment, but I always think there’s a chance, even if its a small one. One or two injuries and Pacers are no longer outmatched. And Haliburton has shown he can frustrate the other team too. Celtics were supposed to beat the Knicks for most of these same reasons. But overall I can’t disagree too much! If Indy shows something in game 1 it should be a fun series.
Yep you’re not wrong. Nobody really knows what’s going to happen.
But I think of it this way, there’s 2 guys on the thunder bench that are just as good as Nembhard and Nesmith. I’m thinking of Wallace and Wiggins.
So the thunder come at you in waves, and they have so much talent and so deep that I don’t see them letting off the gas here at this point.
Obviously there is no substitute for your own favorite team being in the Finals. But outside of that, I think this is the most exciting matchup we can possibly have.
Looking forward to an intense and evenly matched series.
I’m not sure why Rick Carlisle gets a pass?
Myself included, everyone is all over Doc Rivers for just one ring in 25 years of NBA head coaching jobs.
Rick Carlisle? NBA head coach 25 years. How many championships? One.
I am not on Doc because he has 1 ring, I’m on Doc because he’s a bad coach who has consistently had awful offensive gameplays on every team he coaches. He’s a defense-only coach.
It was also reported by several sources back then that, in the year he won a ring, the main playmaker (Rajon Rondo) didn’t actually listen to him.
Carlisle seems like a fine coach.
Gary, Carlisle has a well-deserved rep as a “builder”. He commits to a team for years, and he improves the team. Doc Rivers has failed at every stop (and there have been a bunch) since Boston. Every team is worse than when he arrived.
1. Pistons. Don’t forget that Carlisle built created those Detroit Pistons teams, including its defense, only to get fired and have Hubie Brown replace win a Chip in his first year.
2. Dallas. 1 Chip, earned in year 3. (Followed by ups and downs)
3. Pacers. From the ground up. There was nothing when he arrived. The Pacers have won more games than the previous year in each of his 4 years. All of his players have gotten better along the way.
That Dallas run to the Championship was EXCEPTIONAL.
The NBA reffing is allowing physical defense, both of the 2 teams play tough defense. Carlisle may have the defensive edge. However the most dominant offense is OKC with Shay at the helm. In the end it’s a win for small market teams. Let’s see how viewership goes? (Will a “woke” NBA) still get poor ratings? Hopefully we will see a good 7 game series, and the NBA will stay out of politics.
Great points. I certainly hope SGA does not receive the benefit of crap refereeing.
There should be no reason the NBA would want one or the other team to come out ahead so just call it fair. Call it even stop putting the stars on the free-throw line and call it straight. That’s all I’m hoping for here.
It would be such a darn shame to see Tyrese Halliburton in foul trouble early because he’s guarding SGA and the refs suck.
> (Will a “woke” NBA) still get poor ratings? Hopefully we will see a good
> 7 game series, and the NBA will stay out of politics.
“Woke” (whatever you mean by that) is paying off, since the NBA’s ratings for these playoffs are the best since 2011.
link to nba.com
(Because of the move to streaming, it’s a misconception that NBA *television* ratings equate to overall attention and profit, but that’s another discussion. Suffice it to say that over all media channels world-wide, the NBA’s revenues are growing at 31%, about 8% more than the “non-woke” NFL.)
> Carlisle may have the defensive edge.
By any statistical measure, OKC is the most dominant defensive team in decades., with the biggest margin of victory per game ever. Indiana’s defense is better than average, but better than OKC’s?
As for a 7 game series, the NBA would like that, but the odds are heavily against a close series. OKC is favored -700/+500 — an implied probability of 88% of winning the series. Over the last 30 years, only 4 teams have been considered a bigger underdog than IND.
Most likely, this NBA Final disappoints the league financially because it’ll be over in 5 games.
I want Indiana to win because they’re an underdog, but it’s just not happening. OKC in 4 or 5. Indiana has shown some pretty basketball, but they have also shown some ugly tendencies in that NY series.
1. They can’t rebound a basketball, idk how many times did Myles Turner tip the ball out of bounds or to an opponent, but it must have been a record of some kind by 1 player. OKC will destroy them on the boards.
2. “James Harden disease” – retracting into the shell and not taking the shots, especially from 3, which is virtually everybody, apart from Siakam, is prone to at Indy. I think it was game 3 when they took 4 trees collectively in the 2nd half and just kept driving into the paint with no success, or passed the ball late in the clock.
3. Turnovers, losing 50-50s. And OKC will magnify that more than any other team.
OKC are peaking; everybody who plays them can’t dribble the ball out of their own half. All of their opponents looked like they didn’t want to be on the court, including Jokic. I can’t see how it will be any different in the finals.
I predicted that OKC would lose 4 or fewer games on their way to the title, winning it all with a 16-4 record or better. And one of the surprises of the play-offs for me was that OKC lost 4 games in their Western bracket, 3 against Denver. That’s too many, they are better than that.
Best analysis I’ve read in a month. Great job Peter.
Yeah Jokic just wanted to hide !!!!
“In the 2025 playoff series against the Thunder, Nikola Jokic averaged 28.4 points, 13.9 rebounds, and 5.9 assists per game. In 10 games, he has averaged 28.1 points, 14.8 rebounds, and 7.4 assists against OKC.”
Yeak Jokic just couldn’t hide his stats ……
Nuggets showed Thunder can be beat. Were Pacers watching though ….
Jokić didn’t want to hide Al. He could just see they weren’t coming out ahead in that series. When you know you know.
Nuggets were banged up and had a major coaching change. Pretty tough road at the time. Jokić wasn’t hiding.., he was reading the tea leaves.
But they’ll be back next year strong as ever.
I didn’t say Jokic hid, he didn’t at all. I didn’t say Murray hid, he didn’t either. They tried as hard as they could to be the best versions of themselves, had good performances (had very ugly ones too). But OKC were just brilliant at putting them in a position no player, even Jokic, wants to be. Made them uncomfortable, put them on the edge with their peskiness (and good basketball, ofc). Jokic didn’t do a Ben Simmons, not at all. But he himself admitted that he didn’t understand what to do with OKC, and looked annoyed and even out of ideas for large portions of that series. And that’s OKC’s merit.
OKC had more shots in 6 out of 7 games, including all 3 losses, and many of their shots were of higher quality than what Murray and other Denver players were shooting. Denver perhaps chanced their way to some wins a bit thanks to OKC’s poor shooting. OKC shot better against Minnesota, and that series looked more like what you would expect an OKC vs. any-other-of-the-29-teams series to look like.
I would love for Indiana to surprise us all, but can’t see it, really.
I agree with your points. I’ll add that I think Turner will really get exposed in this series as the obvious weak point. Not because he isn’t talented, but because Indiana just needs a different set of skills at the C ( ahem, Ayton 😀 ).
On the other hand, I think Carlyle is the far better coach and I can’t wait to see how their game plan unfolds.
The key for IND will be the transition offense; if OKC can keep those points down, then this series will be a sweep.
Carlyle is a brilliant coach, but I’m afraid it will be one of those “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face” series.
Indiana did offer Ayton an offer sheet with a max deal in 2022 when he was a RFA, didn’t they? :) Phoenix matched, and we all know how it ended.
Not sure many Seattle Sonic fans think OKC should claim that 1979 championship.
They are all behind Indiana right now
“The 1976-77 Portland Trail Blazers are widely considered the youngest team to have won an NBA championship, with an average age of 25.03. Their average age was only slightly younger than the 2025 Oklahoma City Thunder, who have an average age of 25.56. The 1976-77 Blazers were led by Bill Walton, who was 24 years old.”
SGA is 26 yrs old. Just so everyone here can learn how ready real stars. Were when they came out of college as 4 yr players. Not the one and done spoiled overrated players of today. Bill Walton was considered better than Alcindor at the time. Although I consider SGA one of the better talents. True bigs always made bigger impacts on winning. A 2way big like Walton are beasts ….
OKC depth is the strength here. And SGA the MVP is best player in this series. Thunder should win this. Pacers depth shows up. And their shooting shows up. This can be a competitive series.
I wouldn’t classify Haliburton as a Superstar. But if plays like one this series. Pacers could shock the World ……. Let’s do This
Walton’s injuries were unfortunate
Agree with the bit about bigs having a bigger impact on winning. At its simplest, winning basketball is making shots with high accuracy (and no shots are better than dunks and layups) and preventing your opponent from doing the same on the other side of the floor. Plus, having more attempts on goal than your opponent, which is most straightforwardly achieved by rebounding more. So basically doing things that big men do.
It doesn’t mean that just by having good bigs the team would win the most; the games still have to be shaped in a way that allows shooting from close and being in better positions to rebound.
But the general idea is true. That’s pretty much why all advanced stats, such as WS, love big men so much. The eye test confirms it, too. Zubac is the player who contributed to the Clippers winning games more than anyone else on that team this season. And Alex Sarr is one of the worst rebounding bigs in the league (often collecting 4-5 rebs in 30 mins as a center) and is literally the worst 2p shooter in the league, again despite being a center. Result? The Wizards are the worst team in the league this season, led by the most destructive player in all of basketball.
I guess we can all be happy a small market is going to win
OKC sweeps the Pacers. It wont be close at all.
Game 1 OKC wins by 20+.
This will be a short and bad series. Pacer fans are delusional. The only two teams that can beat the Thunder in 7 are healthy Cavs and Celtics teams, which does not exist any longer.
Congrats to OKC, this is OVER. Now lets see if you can keep this team together for a back to back.
Yeah, I have zero confidence in the Pacers.
I love Miles Turner, but he will be exposed on D, Holmgren will have a great series. They cannot play McConnell much bc he is small and OKC will hunt him, and Shepard. Pacers have to put Nesmith on SGA and I don’t think he can guard him. Pacers have the same issues that they have playing the Celtics. Wings are better, bigger and more skilled than the Pacers and they are not the best 3 pt shooting team in this matchup.
OKC in 4.
OKC in 6.