Tyrese Haliburton caps off another epic comeback with last-second shot as Indiana stuns OKC in Game 1 of the NBA Finals
By Kyle Feldscher, CNN
(CNN) — Tyrese Haliburton ensured yet another fanbase will see him in their nightmares after he drained a shot in the final second of Game 1 of the NBA Finals on Thursday, giving his team an incredibly unlikely 111-110 victory.
As he did to Milwaukee, Cleveland and New York in the previous rounds of these playoffs, Haliburton shattered the Oklahoma City Thunder with a pull-up jumpshot that capped off yet another incredible comeback for the Pacers in the playoffs. Down by as much as 15 with just under 10 minutes to go in the game, the Pacers made two separate 12-2 runs in the fourth quarter to give themselves a chance to steal the first game of the Finals.
When Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, who played up to his MVP billing with 38 points, missed a shot to ice the game with 11 seconds to go, Haliburton got the ball near halfcourt and did what he does best: Bring opposing fans to their knees.
Haliburton drove to his right, stopped hard to create an inch of space against the Thunder’s suffocating defense and pulled up with a jump shot. He buried it, silencing the rowdy Paycom Arena and giving the Pacers their only lead of the game.
“We got the stop and coach trusts us in those moments … I’m just trying to make a play. Man, basketball is fun, winning is fun,” Haliburton told ESPN after the final horn sounded.
It’s a frankly stunning result. The Thunder had led the whole game and at times looked ready to deliver the killer blow, poised to go on one of their devastating runs that have been a signature move this season.
But the Pacers have made a habit of hanging around during this run to the Finals and striking when they finally have an opening.
On Thursday, they just happened to wait 47 minutes and 59.7 seconds for that moment
The Thunder force Pacers into scores of turnovers
The game started off exactly how the Thunder wanted. Oklahoma City forced the Pacers into nine first quarter turnovers with their swarming defense that has been a hallmark of the team throughout the season.
Gilgeous-Alexander poured in 12 points in the opening stanza and paced the Thunder to a 10-point lead after the first 12 minutes.
As the game moved into the second quarter, the Thunder stayed in control as both teams went through a shooting lull. Most of the scoring in the opening stages of the quarter was done from the free throw line as the Thunder built their lead to double digits. The Pacers though, pesky as they have been all year, didn’t let the home crowd pick up too much steam as they kept the Thunder within striking range and shrank the lead down to four with five minutes to go in the quarter on a cutting drive by Eastern Conference finals MVP Pascal Siakam.
In what would prove to be the key sequence of the first half, Luguentz Dort answered that layup with a 3-pointer to extend the lead once again and the Thunder forced the Pacers into their 13th and 14th turnovers on successive possessions. Dort then caused the Pacers’ 15th turnover with a steal and drilled another 3-pointer on the ensuing possession to rebuild the lead to 10. Pacers head coach Rick Carlisle called a timeout to blunt the run with a little more than four minutes to play in the half.
The half ended with Dort giving the Thunder their biggest lead of the opening phases with his third 3-pointer of the quarter, putting the Thunder up 50-37 with two-and-a-half minutes to go in the second. Gilgeous-Alexander continued his MVP-worthy play with a game-leading 19 points at halftime. The Thunder led by 12, 57-45, at halftime.
The Pacers out-rebounded the Thunder in the first half and were shooting better from the field but the 19 turnovers – compared to the Thunder’s four – were the outlier on the stat sheet. Tyrese Haliburton only scored six points as the Pacers’ star player went quiet in the first half – as he had in both of the Pacers’ games against OKC during the regular season. The Eastern Conference champions were paced by TJ McConnell’s 9 points off the bench in the first half.
The Pacers keep answering OKC’s attempts to pull away
OKC couldn’t find the knockout blow and the Pacers couldn’t quite cut into the Thunder lead. Dort continued to rediscover his shooting touch, hitting more from long-range in the third quarter and shaking off his 31% 3-point percentage in the first three rounds of the playoffs. But every time Dort or one of his teammates made a big shot that set the crowd at the Paycom Center into a roar, the Pacers had an answer to keep the game from getting out of control.
The Oklahoma City defense came into the series as the strongest in the league this year, one that was expected to be a deciding factor in the Finals, but the Pacers were able to do work on the defensive end of their own.
Through the first 33 minutes of the game, the Thunder were barely shooting more than 40% from the field. Forcing the Thunder into that poor shooting kept the Pacers in the game as the contest entered the final stretch.
A 10-3 run by the Pacers – capped off by a pair of 3-pointers from the Pacers’ Siakam and Thomas Bryant – cut the Thunder lead all the way down to six in the final seconds of the third quarter. But just before the buzzer could sound, Gilgeous-Alexander launched a 3-pointer of his own that ripped through the net as the horn went off, rebuilding the OKC lead to nine at the end of three quarters. The Canadian continued to play up to his regular season MVP status with 28 points through the first three quarters.
That three from Gilgeous-Alexander proved to be a massive momentum shift. As the Thunder opened up the quarter rebuilding their lead before Jalen Williams entered the fray in earnest. A star-in-the-making, Williams had been quiet most of the game but used cutting drives to get easy layups in the opening stages and intercepted a bad pass from McConnell to throw down a dunk on the fast break, building the lead to 15 points with a little less than 10 minutes to go in the game – the largest lead to that point. That steal was the 24th Indiana turnover of the night.
Another fourth quarter comeback to steal the opening game
But much as they had against New York in the last series, the Pacers used the 3-pointer to drag themselves back into the contest. A quick 9-2 run shrank the lead down to eight after a 22-foot 3-pointer from Myles Turner quieted the OKC crowd. And Indiana wasn’t done there – two more 3-pointers from Turner and Obi Toppin helped cut the Thunder lead all the way down to four with a little more than six minutes left, setting up a tense close to the game.
As the game got under the five-minute mark, Haliburton hit a driving layup to make it 102-98 in favor of OKC and the Pacers got a stop on the defensive end. Turner had a wide open three to try and cut the lead to one but hit the back of the iron. Gilgeous-Alexander made sure that miss hurt; an incredible drive into the paint was finished off with a floating layup that gave the Thunder a six-point cushion.
After Haliburton missed a long three, it was once again the SGA show. Gilgeous-Alexander did what he does better than almost in the league when he drew a foul on the Indiana star and got to the free-throw line. He made both his free throws to give his team a slightly more comfortable eight-point cushion.
Still the Pacers wouldn’t go away. A jumper from Aaron Neismith cut the lead back down to six. He grabbed a rebound on the ensuing possession as the clock ticked under two minutes to go and Andrew Nembhard drilled a 3-pointer to make it 108-05 in favor of Oklahoma City.
The Thunder’s Dort couldn’t hit a 3-pointer on the next time down the court for the Thunder but made what looked like the play of the game for his team when he blocked Nesmith’s driving layup with 93 seconds to go. That translated into a bucket for Gilgeous-Alexander to rebuild the lead before Nembhard hit two free throws to once again make it a one-possession game.
Gilgeous-Alexander looked to try and put the game away with another signature cutting drive, but Siakam filled the space and blocked his shot. The former Toronto Raptor wasn’t done there – when Nembhard’s 3-point attempt fell well short of the basket, he was in the right place at the right time to grab the rebound and get it in for a layup. That made the game 110-109 Oklahoma City in the final minute.
The Thunder’s next possession hinged on a critical review. The ball went out of bounds off of Siakam after a missed Gilgeous-Alexander shot, but the Pacers asked for the referees to review the play for a possible foul. They determined there was no foul on the play and the Thunder got the ball with a chance to extend their lead in the final seconds.
Gilgeous-Alexander missed the shot and the Pacers got the ball with no timeouts remaining. It was then that Haliburton got the ball at midcourt, drove just inside the 3-point lien and pulled up – draining a 21-foot shot that caused the Oklahoma City crowd to fall absolutely silent. The Pacers had their first lead, 111-110.
There were .3 seconds left – enough time to get a shot off but not enough time to make it count. The Thunder’s last gasp attempt fell to the floor as time expired and the Pacers sprinted off the floor, having just pulled off an epic example of basketball larceny.
The Thunder will look to shake off the heartbreak on Sunday when the two teams meet again for Game 2.
The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2025 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.
