OKLAHOMA CITY — The Oklahoma City Thunder are now authors of one of the greatest seasons in NBA history after narrowly avoiding a stunning upset with the opponent’s best player first hobbled then seriously injured.
The Thunder won the franchise’s second championship — and first since it moved to Oklahoma City from Seattle in 2008 and rebranded from the SuperSonics to the Thunder — by capturing Game 7 of the NBA Finals over the Indiana Pacers 103-91 on Sunday.
This was the NBA Finals’ first Game 7 since 2016 and the 20th over the league’s 79 seasons of existence. The home team is now 16-4 in these games.
Oklahoma City won 68 regular-season games (tied for the fifth most in NBA history), set a league record for average margin of victory (12.9 points per game) and had the league MVP on its side before reaching its crowning achievement.
Speaking of the player deemed most valuable during the regular season, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, the 26-year-old Canadian and league scoring champ, scored 29 points and added 12 assists in the series-clinching win and was unanimously named finals MVP. He is the first player in 25 years to win regular-season MVP, the scoring crown and finals MVP in the same season. The Pacers made it tough on him — Gilgeous-Alexander shot 8-of-27 — but he was 11-of-12 at the foul line and also gave his team two blocks and a steal. He averaged 30.3 points in the series.
“Feels amazing — so much weight off my shoulders,” Gilgeous-Alexander said. “I am just glad and happy that every one of my dreams came true.”
Jalen Williams added 20 points and two steals for the Thunder and Chet Holmgren contributed 18 points, eight boards and five blocks. Alex Caruso and Cason Wallace each contributed 10 points and three steals off Oklahoma City’s bench.
The Thunder, who boasted the league’s No. 1 defense during the regular and postseasons, suffocated the Pacers by forcing 23 turnovers for 32 points. But there’s an asterisk — at least as far as the Pacers are concerned.
Indiana was led by Bennedict Mathurin’s 24 points off the bench and T.J. McConnell added 16 points — necessitated by a potentially devastating Achilles injury suffered by Pacers star Tyrese Haliburton in the first quarter. Pascal Siakam contributed 16 points but shot 5-of-13, and Andrew Nembhard scored 15 points.
Haliburton, who had been playing with a strained right calf since Game 5, fell without contact as he was attempting to dribble past Gilgeous-Alexander and immediately pounded the court in agony without getting up.
A replay showed his already injured calf ripple as he fell, and Haliburton’s father, John, told the ESPN broadcast that the injury was to his son’s Achilles. A non-contact injury, after a strained calf, immediately sparks fears of a torn Achilles, a la Kevin Durant in the 2019 finals.
“What happened with Tyrese, all of our hearts dropped,” Pacers coach Rick Carlisle said. “He authored one of the great individual playoff runs in the history of the NBA with dramatic play after dramatic play. It was just something that no one’s ever seen and did it as 1 of 17. You know, that’s the beautiful thing about him. As great a player as he is, it’s always a team thing.”
The Thunder led 18-16 at the time of Haliburton’s departure. Haliburton was off to a great start, connecting on three 3-pointers. Somehow, momentum didn’t swing after the injury. Nembhard’s 3-pointer at the second-quarter buzzer sent the Pacers into halftime with a 48-47 advantage.
The Thunder finally started to pull away in the third. Isaiah Hartenstein’s layup with 29 seconds to go in the period put the Thunder up by 13, and then Gilgeous-Alexander canned a 3 at the start of the fourth for an 84-68 advantage. Because these are the Pacers and no lead is safe with them, of course Oklahoma City’s 22-point lead in the fourth quarter was cut to 10 with 2:16 left. Williams’ two foul shots with 1:26 to go made it 100-87 Thunder and removed any serious doubt.
“I think in a couple days I’ll be able to come back down to Earth a little bit,” Williams said. “Right now, I’m just trying to enjoy the moment.”
Indiana was one win shy of becoming one of the biggest underdogs ever to win a championship and gave us a series that most prognosticators, and many fans, simply didn’t expect. The odds were swayed so heavily against the Pacers that Vegas bookmakers had them as the least-favored team to win a finals before it started since 2004.
The Pacers were kings of the comeback, with NBA records for 15-point comebacks in the postseason (five) and wins after trailing by seven or more points with a minute remaining (three). They pulled one of those stunners by erasing a double-digit deficit to beat the Thunder on Haliburton’s last-second shot in Game 1, and with the series even for Game 3, Mathurin stunned the Thunder with 27 points off the bench for another upset.
It looked like the Pacers might be 60 minutes away from their first NBA championship when they had a 10-point lead late in the third quarter of Game 4, getting close to building a 3-1 series lead — which only one team in finals history had ever overcome. But Gilgeous-Alexander scored 15 points over the final 4:38 to lead Oklahoma City to a Pacers-style comeback that altered the series.
Indiana nearly pulled off another rally in Game 5, cutting an 18-point deficit down to two in the fourth quarter, before four consecutive steals by the Thunder, coupled with Williams’ 40 points, swayed that game in their favor. The Pacers reciprocated in Game 6, blowing out Oklahoma City to force a Game 7. They led by 30 points after three quarters.
The Pacers’ challenge was fierce, and the magnitude of the stage made it feel more intense, but Oklahoma City battled through adversity at prior stops during the playoffs. The Denver Nuggets took the Thunder to seven games in the Western semifinals, and though Oklahoma City beat Minnesota in five games in the conference finals, the Timberwolves smashed the Thunder by a whopping 42 points in Game 3 of that series.
Whether they dominated, survived or a combination of both, the Thunder’s championship could be the most important for the league since the start of the Golden State Warriors’ dynasty in 2015 because of where Oklahoma City is as a franchise in this NBA era where dynasties are otherwise a thing of the past.
The Thunder are the second-youngest team in at least the last 70 years to win a finals, with an average age per player of 25.56, when weighted for playoff games played, according to the league. Only the 1976-77 champion Portland Trail Blazers were younger, by an average age of about half a year per player.
Oklahoma City went 29-1 against the East in the regular season and won the West by a dizzying 16 games. They have every rotation player under contract for next year, a lottery pick from 2024 (Nikola Topić) who didn’t even play this season because of injury, and a staggering collection of draft assets — including 13 first-round picks over the next seven summers, which could be used to build the team’s depth or packaged in trades to keep the team stocked with veterans and potential stars.
They are the seventh different team to win the finals in as many seasons, and this is the longest drought of repeat champions in NBA history, but they were constructed unlike any of the previous six champions.
It was the starting center from Oklahoma City’s worthy finals opponent, Myles Turner, who perhaps most eloquently described the potential sea change of how the best NBA teams are built.
“I think it’s a new blueprint for the league,” Turner said after the Pacers beat the New York Knicks to set a matchup with the Thunder in the finals. “I think the years of the superteams and stacking, it’s just not as effective as it once was, you know what I mean?
“Since I’ve been in the league, the NBA has been very trendy; it just shifts. But the new trend now is just kind of what we’re doing. OKC does the same thing — young guys get out and run, defend and use the power of friendship.”
Basically, Sam Presti has done it both ways. The Thunder’s executive vice president and general manager pieced together the first Thunder finals team — the one centered around three NBA superstars in Kevin Durant, James Harden and Russell Westbrook that reached the finals in 2012 and remained a West contender, even after trading Harden, until the team broke apart years later when Durant left in free agency in 2016.
When Presti decided to start over by trading Paul George to the LA Clippers in the summer of 2019, the centerpiece of the enormous package Oklahoma City received in return was Gilgeous-Alexander, a slender, cerebral, burgeoning talent who had just come off his rookie campaign. The Thunder were excited about Gilgeous-Alexander, but they could not have known they were getting a future scoring king and MVP.
Also unusual: Signing an undrafted free agent to split time between the G League and the end of the bench in the NBA, who becomes perhaps the sport’s best perimeter defender. That’s what happened the same summer that Oklahoma City traded for Gilgeous-Alexander when they signed Luguentz Dort, a walking muscle who developed into a lockdown defender and 3-point threat.
The Thunder won 22 and 24 games in their first two seasons with Gilgeous-Alexander and Dort, and then in June 2022, drafted Holmgren and Williams in the lottery. Holmgren missed his rookie year because of injury, but the team won 40 games in Williams’ first season. There was a liftoff.
Last year, with Holmgren on the court for 82 games, Oklahoma City became the youngest team to ever finish first in the conference. After a disappointing — but perhaps necessary for learning purposes — loss in the second round in 2024 to the Dallas Mavericks, the Thunder returned this season stronger by adding Caruso and Hartenstein.
Presti’s full, down-to-the-studs rebuild took six years.
“Oklahoma has a true team, not just a winner,” Presti said after Game 7 as confetti fell to the court.
Thunder coach Mark Daigneault’s first season on the bench was that 22-win season of 2020-21.
“I think we had clarity,” Daigneault said. “This was never the plan specifically. There was never a specific timeline. You plan as many seasons as you can and you tend to them, then you see what happens. We’ve gotten some good luck in this period of time, too, that we’re not denying at all. We’ve also tried to control what we can. The guys have done an incredible job. It’s landed us in a great spot.
“But as grateful as we are for that, we understand we have to keep investing if we want to keep reaping the long-term benefits of that.”
Young, run, defend, friendships.
Oklahoma City’s defense was tops overall, with a net rating of 106.6 (which is the number of points they allowed per 100 possessions — which may seem high, but keep in mind how much the game has changed over the years, with more 3s and possessions). They held opponents under 100 points in an NBA-best 19 games, led the NBA in steals, deflections, opponent turnovers and points off turnovers. Dort and Williams made All-NBA Defensive teams.
Young, run, defend, friendships.
The Pacers’ reputation is based on playing fast, at relentless, breakneck speed that includes pressing on defense the length of the court. But did you know the Thunder played faster than the Pacers all season — including the playoffs?
That pace, of course, was spearheaded by Gilgeous-Alexander, who led the NBA in scoring from his point guard position, at 32.7 points per game.
Born in Toronto, raised in Hamilton, Ontario, and a product of the University of Kentucky, Gilgeous-Alexander led the NBA with four games of 50 or more points and scored at least 20 in each of his last 72 regular-season games — the first player to have that long of a 20-point streak since 1964. He knocked off defending MVP Nikola Jokić to claim the league’s top individual honor.
Joining Gilgeous-Alexander as both an All-Star and All-NBA selection was Williams, who (along with SGA) is among only five players averaging at least 20 points, five rebounds, five assists and 1.5 steals.
“He is one of the biggest reasons why we’re here,” Gilgeous-Alexander said of Williams. “I think both of us just trust each other, have the same mindset, winning mindset, want the best for each other above all. Me and him are also naturally really good friends. We talk all the time on and off the court. Always together. That helps with it, for sure.”
Young, run, defend, friendships.
Williams and Holmgren, who was hurt for most of the regular season but put up big numbers in the 32 games for which he was available, are both extension-eligible this summer. Their contracts are likely to get more expensive, and under the NBA’s current collective bargaining agreement, it is harder to enjoy sustained excellence as salaries increase because of the punitive rules for going over the salary cap.
But the Thunder have the room to pay Williams and Holmgren massive raises and the draft capital to retool if tough decisions are needed on a veteran player’s salary. In the meantime, they seemingly have one superstar in Gilgeous-Alexander, two All-Stars or potential All-Stars in Williams and Holmgren, and a team that genuinely likes one another. After each win on national TV this season and last, when Gilgeous-Alexander would inevitably be stopped for a live interview, numerous teammates would often squeeze into the shot and stand with him during the interview. They sometimes barked like dogs.
“I feel like both teams, you look at Indiana, like a closer look at them, they’re like us,” Williams said. “You can see the team chemistry that they have. You can see they love playing with each other. They enjoy being in these moments together.
“They’re starting to look like what the blueprint of the NBA is. When you get a group of guys that like playing with each other, like doing stuff for each other, just are constantly willing to make the extra sacrifices, extra plays for each other, as we go through these ups and downs in the season, I think that’s what makes you a good team.”
To Williams’ point, and Turner’s before it, Indiana and Oklahoma City are similar. In the middle of a 25-win season in 2021-22, the Pacers traded franchise centerpiece Domantas Sabonis for Haliburton and Buddy Hield. The organization chose to build around Haliburton, whom it correctly predicted was destined to become a star, adding fast, gritty, talented shooters who could defend to supplement Haliburton’s speed and court vision. Last season, the Pacers traded for Siakam, the perfect co-star for Haliburton, who runs the court, plays with the ball in his hands and moves without it and defends.
After three consecutive years of missing the playoffs, Indiana not only returned to the postseason last year but reached the Eastern finals before falling to eventual champion Boston. This season started slowly, with 10 victories against 15 defeats while Haliburton was plagued with easily the longest, most severe slump of his career. Nemhard and Nesmith were out with injuries; Indiana often relied on G Leaguers to fill out its rotation during the season’s early months.
Fortunes turned with the calendar. From Jan. 1 through the end of the regular season, the Pacers went 46-18 to claim the No. 4 seed in the East.
Indiana steamrolled its way through the Eastern playoffs to reach its second finals. The Pacers stunned the No. 1 seed Cavaliers by beating them in Cleveland twice to open the conference semifinals, and then did the same thing to the No. 3 Knicks in the conference finals. Those first two wins at Madison Square Garden set them up to close out that series at home in Game 6, after which Carlisle said to a delirious Indianapolis crowd at Gainbridge Fieldhouse: “In 49 other states, it’s just basketball. But this is Indiana.”
But Indiana’s short-term prospects are now frustratingly in question, tied to the severity of Haliburton’s injury.
The Thunder’s present, and future, is shining brightly.
“We definitely still have room to grow, and that’s the fun part of this,” Gilgeous-Alexander said. “This is a great start, for sure. Couldn’t imagine it any other way.”
(Top photo: Justin Ford / Getty Images)
