Of the 10 most improbable NBA Playoff comeback victories this century, the 2025 Indiana Pacers have three of them. But Indy, which faces the Oklahoma City Thunder Monday night in Game 5 of the deadlocked NBA Finals, has been defying the odds since before the season started.
They are now only two wins from hoisting the Larry O’Brien trophy, but BetMGM gave the Pacers 66-to-1 (+6600) odds to win the championship during the preseason, suggesting that their chances were just north of 1%. They had the 15th-best odds in the league, placing them one spot ahead of the New Orleans Pelicans, who ended up finishing with a 21-61 record.
No team outside of the top 10 in preseason odds has won the NBA title since 1985, which is as far back as the SportsOddsHistory database goes. The 2023 Denver Nuggets, with the ninth-best odds, are the lowest-ranked team heading into the season to ever win the championship, and the team with the longest odds to win was the 2015 Golden State Warriors at 28-to-1.
That Warriors team, though, went 67-15 in the regular season, and had +175 odds to win the title by the time the first round began. This year’s Pacers, on the other hand, were even bigger longshots heading into the playoffs in April (80-to-1) than they were in October (66-to-1). The 1995 Houston Rockets and 2011 Dallas Mavericks are tied for the most unlikely champions based on pre-playoffs odds, but the 2025 Pacers would blow their 18-to-1 number out of the water.
In fact, no team in any of the four major men’s U.S. sports since 1985 has been pegged as less likely to win the title at the start of the postseason than this year’s Pacers, with the only remotely close team being the 2007 New York Giants (50-to-1). When it comes to preseason odds, the 2025 Pacers would be edged out by only a few champions in other sports: the 1999 St. Louis Rams (150-to-1), the 1991 Minnesota Twins (80-to-1) and the 2003 Florida Marlins (75-to-1). Across the pond, Leicester City overcame 5,000-to-1 odds to win the English Premier League in 2016.
The NBA has seen a fair share of unlikely finalists in its history, especially in recent years. Teams ranked outside the top 10 in preseason title odds made the Finals in 2020, 2021, 2023 and 2024, after only three such teams did so between 1985 and 2019. One of those earlier surprises, the 2002 New Jersey Nets, entered the season with just the 23rd-best odds of the 29 NBA teams at the time. None of those Cinderellas were able to cap off their runs with a collection of rings.
Despite a 2025 Finals that is tied 2-2, sportsbooks believe Indiana will follow the way of those previous underdogs, as their +450 series odds heading into Game 5 indicate a less than 20% chance of defeating the Oklahoma City Thunder. That’s only slightly better than the +500 odds with which they came into Game 1.
Gambling companies are rooting for the Thunder to finish off the Pacers and eliminate the liability that they present given their longshot odds from earlier in the year. Thankfully for the books, though, very few bettors jumped on that golden opportunity. In March, when Indiana’s odds were 150-to-1, just 0.9% of handle in the NBA championship futures market was on the Pacers, according to BetMGM. Their total was dwarfed by teams such as the Denver Nuggets (16%), Boston Celtics (16%) and Los Angeles Lakers (14%), not to mention the Thunder (10%).
Bettors did take a liking to the Pacers as their improbable journey continued—13.5% of all bets were on them to win the title as of last Thursday. While casual users took a chance riding Indiana’s hot streak, the deeper-pocketed gamblers still backed the favorites, as there is significantly more money on the Thunder overall. For the Finals series, specifically, 89% of individual bets were on the Pacers, but only 56% of the total handle.