OKLAHOMA CITY — Game 6 of the NBA Finals had been over for no more than 15 minutes Thursday night, but the Indiana Pacers and the Oklahoma City Thunder were turning the page.
What happened over the previous couple of hours at Gainbridge Fieldhouse at Indianapolis had already been deemed irrelevant, outside of what it set up.
The only thing on their minds: Game 7.
“A privilege,” Thunder coach Mark Daigneault said.
“A great privilege,” Pacers coach Rick Carlisle said.
A back-and-forth title matchup — Indiana led 1-0 and 2-1 in the best-of-seven series, while Oklahoma City held a 3-2 advantage — will end Sunday night with an ultimate showdown at Oklahoma City’s Paycom Center, the first winner-take-all contest in the NBA Finals since 2016. One team will get the Larry O’Brien Trophy when it’s over, with the other left to head into the offseason wondering how the championship chance slipped away.
“We have one game for everything, for everything we’ve worked for, and so do they,” said Thunder point guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, the reigning NBA MVP and regular-season scoring champion who was a prep standout at Chattanooga’s Hamilton Heights Christian Academy. “The better team Sunday will win.”
History favors the home team in these moments: 15 of the previous 19 times a Game 7 was played in the NBA Finals, the team playing on its own court was the winner.
The Thunder played a Game 7 at home earlier in these playoffs and won by 32, blowing out the Denver Nuggets to reach the Western Conference title series. Indiana’s most recent Game 7 was at Madison Square Garden in an Eastern Conference semifinal series last year, and the Pacers blew out the New York Knicks by 21 in that game.
Where the NBA playoffs are concerned, home teams have an all-time mark of 112-38 in Game 7 (excluding the 2-2 record designated home teams had in 2020, when the pandemic-paused season was completed with every game played in Lake Buena Vista, Florida). But in recent years, home sweet home has been replaced by road sweet road as visiting teams have won nine of the 14 Game 7 matchups played since 2021.
“It’s exciting, man. It’s so, so, exciting,” Pacers guard Tyrese Haliburton said. “As a basketball fan, there’s nothing like a Game 7. There’s nothing like a Game 7 in the NBA Finals. Dreamed of being in this situation my whole life. So to be here is really exciting. Really exciting for our group.
“What happened in the past doesn’t matter. What happened today doesn’t matter. It’s all about one game and approaching that the right way.”
The fact that Haliburton is playing at all right now is a story in itself. He looked good as new in Game 6 even with a strained right calf that has required extensive treatment this week. The Pacers haven’t had to coax their two-time NBA All-Star point guard into it; Haliburton’s own family is offering up constant reminders that he needs to be working on his leg.
“My family has been on me,” he said. “If they call me, they are like, ‘Are you doing treatment right now?’ … My family has been holding me accountable.”
There’s a lot of accountability going on for the Thunder right now as well. A different kind, of course.
They were massive favorites going into Game 6, with +3000 odds to win the series, according to BetMGM Sportsbook, which means a $100 bet on the Thunder would have returned a whopping $103 or so if they had won the game and clinched the title. A 36-9 run by Indiana turned a one-point lead early in the second quarter of Game 6 into a full-fledged blowout early in the third quarter.
And with that, the same team that finished with the best record in the NBA during the regular season — the Thunder’s 68 wins were 18 more than Indiana had while finishing fourth in the Eastern Conference _ now has zero room for error.
Win on Sunday, and all ends well for Oklahoma City. Lose on Sunday, and the Thunder will go down in history as one of the best No. 1 seeds that failed to win a title.
“If they had won by one, they would have probably walked out of this game with confidence,” Thunder guard Jalen Williams said of the Pacers, who were playing at home for the final time this season. “That’s what makes them a good team. That’s what makes us a good team. … They’re going to go into Game 7 confident, and so are we.”
The Thunder flew home after the game on Thursday night. The Pacers were flying to Oklahoma City on Friday afternoon.
Both teams will spend some time reviewing video of past games, then go through their final practices — which won’t be much more than glorified walk-throughs — of the season on Saturday.
And then, Game 7. For everything.
“I think we played to exhaustion,” Pacers guard T.J. McConnell said after Game 6. “But we have to do it again on Sunday.”