Pacers Stun Thunder in Game 1 Thriller Behind Haliburton’s Buzzer-Beater
For 47 minutes and 59.7 seconds, the Oklahoma City Thunder controlled Game 1 of the NBA Finals. But in the final 0.3 seconds, Tyrese Haliburton and the Indiana Pacers flipped the script.
Down 15 in the fourth and trailing by nine with under three minutes to play, the Pacers rallied behind a 12-2 run, capped off by Haliburton’s cold-blooded pull-up jumper to win 111-110. The shot marked his fourth game-winning or game-tying bucket in the final five seconds this postseason, the most in a single playoff run since play-by-play tracking began in 1998.
Indiana overcame a season-high 24 turnovers, including 19 in the first half, but limited OKC to just 11 points off those miscues. Despite Shai Gilgeous-Alexander’s electric 38-point Finals debut, Indiana’s resilience prevailed. Jalen Williams’ emphatic dunk had OKC up 15 midway through the fourth, but Indiana’s second unit—led by Obi Toppin, Myles Turner, and Aaron Nesmith—ignited the comeback.
Haliburton’s final shot gave Indiana its first lead of the game and marked the latest first lead in a Finals win in over 50 years. It also snapped a 182-game streak of Finals teams losing when trailing by 9+ in the last three minutes.
Indiana made it 1-182. ‘Cers up 1-0.