Full Focus: Thunder secure NBA championship.
OKLAHOMA CITY — The players stood, braced, smiled but didn’t break out in celebration. Not yet. Maybe they were frozen by the moment, by disbelief. You could understand — the Thunder had never won this big before after 17 years in this city. How do you react when your dream is realized?
So it required a veteran of these types of situations to step forward. Guard Alex Caruso, crowned in 2020 as a member of the Lakers, took the lead.
With 32 seconds left in the 20th Game 7 in NBA Finals history, and the outcome finally safe, as Paycom Center buzzed, Caruso faced the crowd, pulled on his jersey, cupped his ears and waved his hands in a let’s-hear-it manner.
Yes, finally: “O-K-C, O-K-C!”
Yes, 2025 champions.
The Thunder dominated the league all season, setting point-differential records with dominant defensive ratings along the way, but this series against this Indiana Pacers team made them sweat, pushed them to the limit.
Turns out nothing comes easily or automatic after all, not in the NBA and certainly when a title’s at stake. The Thunder would discover plenty about themselves in this series — their stamina, composure, determination.
Also, they revealed plenty as well — their defense, depth, overall talent of course, and the season-long brilliance of Shai Gilgeous-Alexander.
As he checked out of the game Sunday with seconds left, Jalen Williams, the capable co-star, pulled his jersey over his moist eyes and needed a bro hug from Isaiah Hartenstein. It finally hit him a lot harder than Hartenstein’s shoulder — Williams was a champ at 24.
“My mom was crying in the stands,” he said, “so that made me tear up.”
Small market, big dreams, massive payoff for the second-youngest team to win a championship, behind only the 1976-77 Portland Trail Blazers.
Here are five takeaways from the 103-91 victory and the crowning moment for the Thunder, who subscribed to and met the Game 7 challenge — win and go home:
1. You could OKC this title coming
This franchise arrived from Seattle to Oklahoma, much in the manner of stagecoaches centuries earlier, hoping to strike it rich in fertile land — in this case, hoop heaven.
Oklahoma City was teased with basketball previously when the Hornets fled New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, and those two seasons (2005-07) in their temporary Oklahoma home were robust. The arena — then called the Ford Center — averaged 18,168 fans in the final year and struck up an OKC appetite for the NBA.
The Thunder’s previous run to the NBA Finals came and went rapidly. That season, 2012, was only their fourth in OKC. But projections of a dynasty with the young core of Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook and James Harden evaporated when Harden was traded to Houston that fall.
The franchise followed with more strong seasons than down years — KD and Russ, then Russ and Paul George. But injuries to KD and Westbrook torpedoed realistic title hopes. When Gilgeous-Alexander arrived in 2019, the next rebuild eventually proved fruitful, helped by the clever drafting of Williams, and here they are.
This championship is the just reward for Sam Presti, the estimable general manager who, until now, had achieved everything except a title. Presti swung the trade for Gilgeous-Alexander and drafted Williams at No. 12. Those two decisions weren’t so simple, yet made this possible.
A down year allowed Presti to draft Chet Holmgren, then last summer he added Caruso and Hartenstein. He hired Mark Daigneault, who eventually became Coach of the Year. And by the way, Presti and OKC have four first-round picks in 2026.
“This isn’t the end of the road,” Holmgren said. “We have a long ways to go as a team. Everybody understands that. This is a huge moment for everybody here, the city, the fans, (chairman) Clay (Bennett), Sam, Mark, all the players, the staff.”
Pacers coach Rick Carlisle made a pregame point to wonder why victory parade buses parked outside already had “champions” painted on the side. Annoyed then, Carlisle gave an update following the game:
“The way this season started and everything, they may have had those buses painted up back in December.”
2. Shai sets tone again
Forget the 29 points and drawing enough contact to attempt 12 free throws. Gilgeous-Alexander was all about sharing in Game 7. In a rare example, his passing proved just as important as his scoring, if not more.
It’s the part of his game that, over the years, needed the most work and received as much. But who could’ve imagined that in the most important game of his life, Gilgeous-Alexander would deliver 12 assists, his postseason high and tying the most for a game all year?
He had to atone for his sloppy Game 6 and his eight turnovers. He knew he needed to be more secure in a winner-take-all game where the margin for error is slim.
“Yeah, coming off of Game 6, I obviously had a lot more turnovers than assists,” Gilgeous-Alexander said. “That’s not a recipe for a win. I wanted to do whatever it took tonight to get a win.
“Whether that was me playing in space or it was them not letting me play in space, some of my teammates are open, just trying to make the right basketball play. Just do whatever it takes to win at the end of the night. I got enough done.”
He becomes the first player to win the scoring title, regular season MVP, conference finals MVP and Finals MVP since conference MVPs were first awarded in 2022.
2025 NBA Finals: Thunder build a champion with defense and sacrifice
3. Defense and depth deliver
All season, all series, all Game 7. Yes, some context is important — the Pacers were weakened by the loss of Tyrese Haliburton, and more on him in a minute — still, this was a signature-like win by OKC which stayed true to its identity.
OKC had 14 steals, with three players (Caruso, Lu Dort, Cason Wallace) getting three each. The Thunder forced 21 turnovers. These led to transition baskets or at the very least prevented an Indiana surge. When the defense sets up the offense in this manner, the Thunder are difficult to beat.
Like, if you’re T.J. McConnell, how do you avoid Dort stalking you from behind and poking the ball loose? Or if you’re Andrew Nembhard, catching sight of Dort when he strips the ball? These happened in the fourth quarter to finally extinguish the final breath of the plucky Pacers.
Holmgren had five blocks, the most ever in a Game 7. Just an overall defensive effort from a team that made such efforts a habit all season.
4. This couldn’t have gone worse for Indy, Haliburton
It was a scene that, in so many ways, was unfair and unfortunate. All you need to know is this: Haliburton received a standing ovation, on the road and in a Game 7, as he was carried off the floor. This united all basketball fans.
He had a hot and aggressive start to Game 7 — five shot attempts in the first five minutes, scored nine points. Then, while planting his right foot, he fell, began pounding the floor and cried. Shai came over. Then the entire Pacers’ bench circled around Haliburton. Everyone knew this was bad. Everyone suspected an Achilles injury, though the Pacers released no information.
Instantly came a flashback: Kevin Durant suffered a calf injury into the 2019 series that caused him to miss nine playoff games. He was cleared for Game 5 and, after scoring 11 points in the first quarter on a hot start much like Haliburton, he tried to drive past Serge Ibaka and dropped.
The next game came Klay Thompson’s knee injury; the Warriors were haunted twice in the same series. Here are other key injuries in Finals history:
1958, Bill Russell, Celtics. An ankle sprain limited him against St. Louis in the only Finals series he lost.
1970, Willis Reed, Knicks. The famous scene of Reed limping from the tunnel against the Lakers for Game 7 still endures.
1980, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Lakers. With the captain sidelined by a sprained ankle, Magic Johnson jumped center in place and delivered his classic 42-15-7 line in Game 6 to beat the Sixers.
1988, Isiah Thomas. He courageously scored 25 points in one quarter of Game 6 on one leg for the Pistons, but the ankle sprain cut short his next game, and the Lakers prevailed.
2015, Kyrie Irving. He broke his kneecap in Game 1 against the Warriors and the Cavs, who also lost Kevin Love, had little else besides LeBron James.
Haliburton must now carry his injury into an uncertain 2025-26 season.
5. And yet, Pacers proved stubborn to the end
Take a bow, Pacers. This was quite the ride since Jan. 2, when Indy flipped its season and went 49-22 the rest of the way, postseason and Finals included.
Still, this was somewhat unexpected if only because the defending champion Celtics loomed, the Cavs had the best record in the East and the Knicks were rejuvenated. Not to mention the 68-win Thunder standing in the way.
There are two what-ifs — losing the lead in Game 4 and a chance to go up 3-1 on OKC, and Haliburton’s untimely calf injury.
The Pacers refused to go out softly anyway. After Haliburton departed, they ran on emotion. They led by one at halftime, then tied the game midway through the third quarter. That was McConnell’s quarter, again; he came off the bench for 12 points, making six of seven shots, much like he changed the tempo in the previous two games.
Without Haliburton’s playmaking, the Pacers eventually were stretched. OKC threw two and three defenders at Pascal Siakam. Indiana never cut the deficit to single digits in the fourth.
“To me, the fourth quarter, the effort that our guys poured into the fourth quarter to win the quarter by one point was epic, and it was symbolic of what this team stands for what basketball in Indiana stands for,” Carlisle said. “There was no surrender. It was just, you know it, was all defiant fight until the end.”
This was the Pacers’ mind frame throughout the postseason and the Finals. They were trying to become the second-lowest seed to win a title in league history. They took a 68-win team to seven games. They just came up short against OKC and history; road teams in Game 7s of the Finals have now won only four times in 20 tries.
Until another year and another day, the franchise’s three ABA titles will have to do.
“There’s no moral victories in the NBA Finals,” center Myles Turner said.
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Shaun Powell has covered the NBA for more than 25 years. You can e-mail him here, find his archive here and follow him on X.
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