By Joe Vardon The Athletic
OKLAHOMA CITY — Those “two words” are back, the two that are, allegedly, the best in all of sports.
They’ve returned on the biggest stage, a decider for the NBA championship, for just the 20th time in the league’s 79 seasons, and just the sixth in the last 36 years. Either the Indiana Pacers will complete one of the largest upsets in championship history, or the Oklahoma City Thunder will finish one of the greatest seasons, from start to finish, American pro basketball has ever known.
The Pacers have never won an NBA title. The Thunder haven’t won since 1979, when they were the Seattle SuperSonics.
Stomachs will flip, bodies will toss and turn overnight. A delirious Oklahoma City crowd will make its mark, and then, when the ball goes in the air Sunday, for at least 48 minutes, two teams will scratch and claw to join the small list of teams and stars who have made names for themselves in an NBA Finals Game 7.
One set of best-laid plans will be realized, the other doused in gasoline and tossed in a trash can, awaiting a match.
“This is going to be one of the biggest, if not the biggest game most of us ever play in our lives,” said Pacers star Tyrese Haliburton, perhaps best summarizing the moment that’s coming when Game 7 arrives at 8 p.m. Eastern on Sunday.
Yeah, man. Game 7 certainly has a ring to it.
“I try to look at it as a blessing and an opportunity, and then go out there and try to be the best version of myself,” Thunder star Shai Gilgeous-Alexander said.
The Thunder won 68 regular-season games (tied for fifth in league history). They had the league’s best defense and set a record for average margin of victory. They are on the brink of culminating the rebuild triggered by Sam Presti six years ago when he traded Paul George for Gilgeous-Alexander.
The Pacers — the fourth seed in the East — can become just the third team to win a finals after entering the tournament seeded lower than third. They have more 15-point comebacks than anyone in playoff history, were the heaviest underdog in a finals since 2004 and are on the verge of realizing the vision laid out when they traded Domantas Sabonis for Haliburton four years ago.
The Pacers won Game 1 on Haliburton’s last-second shot, Game 3 behind bench player Bennedict Mathurin’s 27 points and Game 6 in a one-sided wipeout of the Thunder.
Oklahoma City ruled Game 2, Gilgeous-Alexander went crazy in the fourth quarter to steal Game 4 and a lockdown defensive effort in the fourth quarter — four consecutive steals — stopped an Indiana rally and claimed Game 5 for the Thunder.
Oklahoma City is averaging 1.1 more points than the Pacers in this series. The Pacers are beating the Thunder on the glass by 0.5 rebounds. The teams are within tenths of a percentage point of each other in steals, blocks and shooting percentages.
“It’s a contest of wills,” Oklahoma City coach Mark Daigneault said. “I think the reason it swung between the two teams is because these are two teams that have leaned on that heavily to get to this point. It’s two teams where the whole is better than the sum of the parts. It’s two teams that are highly competitive. Two teams that play together. Two teams that kind of rely on the same stuff for their success that are squaring off against each other.”
Daigneault, who has coached the Thunder since 2021, called the experience of coaching against Indiana boss Rick Carlisle “humbling.” He said “I always feel a ton of pressure” of “doing right by the players, serving the team, putting the team in the best possible position to be successful.
“Especially this team,” Daigneault said. “It’s a group of guys that I love coaching.”
Carlisle was an assistant for the Pacers under Larry Bird for the franchise’s first finals trip in 2000. This is his second stint as the team’s head coach, and in between, he guided the Dallas Mavericks to an upset win over the Miami Heat in the 2011 finals.
Carlisle said, “I love pressure.”
“As you go on in your competitive life in sport, what you learn is that these moments are rare, and trying to duplicate this kind of situation is something that you look to do in everyday life,” he said. “It’s not easy to do that.”
No player on either team has been in a finals Game 7 (Pacers’ Pascal Siakam won a title in 2019 with the Raptors, and Alex Caruso of the Thunder won in 2020 with the Lakers). Nine of the first 19 Game 7s in the finals have been decided by five points or fewer.
This includes, of course, the last game of this kind — on June 19, 2016, when the Cavaliers beat the Warriors, 93-89, in a heartstopping game that featured Kyrie Irving’s stepback 3, LeBron James’ chasedown block and Kevin Love d-ing up Steph Curry in the game’s closing moments.
“I think that’s probably one of the greatest games I’ve ever been able to watch as a basketball fan,” said Haliburton, who as a child growing up in Oshkosh, Wisc., rooted for LeBron and the Cavs. “That’s what makes Game 7 so fun. I think that, especially for people around my age, that is the peak Game 7. I’m excited to add to the storied history of Game 7s and add to the history of our game.”
Jalen Williams’ 40 points in Game 5 were the most in a single game so far by any player in this series. With a big game on Sunday, he could be the finals MVP. Or it could be Gilgeous-Alexander, who is averaging 30.5 points in the series. Siakam is averaging 19.8 points and 8.3 boards — he would appear to be closest to MVP right now if the Pacers win Sunday. But the door is open for Haliburton to take over, for one of the Pacers’ role players (Mathurin, Obi Toppin, Andrew Nembhard, T.J. McConnell) to do something magical.
Two of James’ more memorable performances came in Game 7 triumphs. Kobe Bryant starred in a Game 7 in 2010. Bill Russell owned these moments. Bird, Tim Duncan and Hakeem Olajuwon all did it. Walt Frazier once scored 36 points with 19 assists in a Game 7 at the finals when the Knicks won their first championship.
“It sucks, I probably can’t appreciate (the place in history) until I get the outcome I want,” Williams said. “It’s cool, though. Somewhere down the line, win or lose, it will be cool to have your name etched in history regardless of what’s going on. That’s cool. But right now, it’s very difficult to look into that.
“But I’m also grateful for the opportunity,” Williams continued. “That’s one thing I can say is throughout the whole entire thing, you always have to remain grateful for where you are, because there’s a lot of NBA players that will trade their spot with me right now. That’s how I look at it.
“But as far as history, I want to be on the good side of that, for sure.”
Yes, Williams has a point. He didn’t say this part out loud, but “Game 7” actually aren’t the two best words in sports.
How about: “We won.”