NBA Finals: What to know as OKC Thunder and Indiana Pacers battle for title
Haliburton (No. 0) has had key moments for the Pacers' 2025 NBA playoff run.
By Ben Morse, CNN
(CNN) — The 2025 NBA playoffs have been ones to remember with shock results, historical big comebacks and the traditional heavyweights struggling.
And at the end of a thrilling postseason, it is two teams with vastly different stories in the Finals.
The Oklahoma City Thunder and the Indiana Pacers will face off in the best-of-seven series for the Larry O’Brien Trophy and the chance to lift aloft a championship banner in their home arena.
Both have had grueling journeys to reach this spot, so here’s everything you need to know.
How to watch
The NBA Finals begin with Game 1 on Thursday in Oklahoma City with the Thunder having home-court advantage because of their better regular season record.
All games will be broadcast on ABC.
Here’s the full NBA Finals schedule:
· Game 1: Pacers @ Thunder, Thursday at 8:30 p.m. ET
· Game 2: Pacers @ Thunder, Sunday at 8 p.m. ET
· Game 3: Thunder @ Pacers, June 11 at 8:30 p.m. ET
· Game 4: Thunder @ Pacers, June 13 at 8:30 p.m. ET
· Game 5 (if needed): Pacers @ Thunder, June 16 at 8:30 p.m. ET
· Game 6 (if needed): Thunder @ Pacers, June 19 at 8:30 p.m. ET
· Game 7 (if needed): Pacers @ Thunder, June 22 at 8 p.m. ET
David vs. Goliath?
The Thunder’s and Pacers’ route to the NBA Finals couldn’t have been more different.
The Thunder spent the majority of the regular season atop the Western Conference standings and were many peoples’ picks for the title.
They are led by this season’s MVP, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, and have a deep rotation filled with productive role players who have stepped up in the biggest moments.
On the other hand, the Pacers had a good but not great regular season, not challenging for the top two seeds in the Eastern Conference and even having a sub-.500 record in January.
Yes, they have two elite players in Tyrese Haliburton and Pascal Siakam, but causing a stir in the latter stages of the NBA postseason was on nobody’s playoffs predictions.
But here we are. Both teams had to endure their ups and downs throughout the playoffs.
The Thunder went to a Game 7 against the Denver Nuggets in the semifinals and experienced a 42-point blowout loss to the Minnesota Timberwolves in Game 3 of the Western Conference Finals before their star-power shone through.
The Pacers, meanwhile, have made big comebacks a part of their DNA, shocking the Eastern Conference No. 1 seed, the Cleveland Cavaliers, in the second round in five games before coming through a thrilling Eastern Conference Finals with the New York Knicks which became an all-time classic, such was the level of drama in most games.
While the Thunder are many people’s favorites to earn their first NBA ring since moving from Seattle, in particular with home-court advantage – they had a league-best 43-7 home record this season – Indiana has made the impossible possible throughout the postseason.
And led by head coach Rick Carlisle – who coached the Dallas Mavericks to a shock NBA title victory over the heavily-favored Miami Heat in 2011 – nothing is off the cards.
Offense vs. defense
Throughout the postseason, the two Finals contenders have homed in on what makes them successful.
For the Thunder, it is their elite defense while for the Pacers, it is their explosive offense.
OKC’s deep rotation is full of capable defensive players, highlighted by their two All-NBA Defensive team stars – Lu Dort on the first team and Jalen Williams on the second.
But even outside of those, they have contributors who have had big moments this playoffs. Chet Holmgren has provided key blocks at certain points and Alex Caruso turned into a key defender of three-time MVP Nikola Jokić in the Nuggets series.
On the other side, Indiana has made a high-scoring offense a key part of its game.
Most of it revolves around Haliburton, with his pin-point passing able to set up his teammates in good spots while Siakam provides a physical presence inside.
Haliburton is averaging 18.8 points, 9.8 assists and 5.7 rebounds per game this postseason as Indiana has outgunned many of its opponents; in the 2025 postseason so far, the Pacers are 12-0 when they score 114 or more points but 0-4 when they don’t hit the mark.
“When you get to this point of the season, it’s two teams and it’s one goal and so it becomes an all-or-nothing thing,” Carlisle said. “And we understand the magnitude of the opponent. Oklahoma City has been dominant all year long – with capital letters in the word ‘dominant.’
“Defensively, they’re historically great and they got all kinds of guys that can score. It’s two teams that have similar structures, slightly different styles.”
The fate of this year’s NBA title might revolve around one end of the court and whether Indiana can break down a stout OKC.
The story of two guards
The NBA Finals could be defined by the two star guards on display – Gilgeous-Alexander for the Thunder and Haliburton for the Pacers.
Both were traded away from their first teams – Gilgeous-Alexander was traded from the Los Angeles Clippers and Haliburton from the Sacramento Kings – but have blossomed with their new teams.
Gilgeous-Alexander is the league’s MVP this season, beating out Jokić for his first award, after leading the league in scoring with 32.7 points per game.
The 26-year-old is arguably one of the most unstoppable offensive forces in the NBA at the moment, but it has been a long road to get to this point.
“It’s been a roller coaster,” Gilgeous-Alexander said earlier this week. “I had nights where I thought I wasn’t good at basketball, had nights where I thought I was the best player in the world before I was. It’s been ups and downs. My mentality to try to stay level through it all really helped me. Once I figured that out, I really saw jumps in my game.”
He added: “All the moments I got, like, cut, traded, slighted, overlooked. But also all the joy, all the things that my family has comforted me in, all the life lessons. Everything that’s turned me into the man and the human being that I am today.”
It’s been a similar journey for Haliburton, who had played second-fiddle in Sacramento to De’Aaron Fox.
His trade to Indiana allowed him to express himself, and it’s seen him turn into one of the best playmakers in the NBA.
“This is a franchise that took a chance on me, saw something that other people didn’t see in me,” Haliburton said of the Pacers. “Sometimes, I think they saw more in me than I saw in myself.”
That doesn’t mean he’s universally loved around the league though, with The Athletic conducting an anonymous survey of NBA players who voted Haliburton as the league’s most overrated player. Though his play and game-winners this postseason have surely changed some of those opinions.
For the Thunder or Pacers to have any chance of winning this year’s Larry O’Brien Trophy, it will likely rest on their star guards’ shoulders to get them to the finish line.
The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2025 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.
