nice spoiler

OKC deserve the title.

Indiana massive overachievers this season. But to be fair, Haliburton has been on fire since he got voted Most Overrated.

Honestly could see OKC sweep or get it done in 5.

Yeah OKC sweep wouldn't be surprising. I think the Pacers will get one though. They can get hot from 3 and like to take them from the corners which is the OKC weak point. They play a similar pressing d and will make OKC a bit more uncomfortable than they've been at that end

Siakam is going to have a much tougher time against the OKC D than he did against New York though. Expect them to swarm him any time he puts the ball on the floor like they did with Randle. Will force someone else to step up to help Hali and I'm not sure anyone else can consistently as a creator.

OKC 4-2 is my guess

Indy have been very clutch this playoffs. Hoping they stay that way. If they steal one of the first 2 in OKC, that could set the stage for a 6 or even 7 game series

Haliburton with ice in his veins buries the game winner and the Pacers go up 1-0

Pacers again. Hali in the clutch AGAIN!

Somehow despite 24 turnovers they just hung around and made their open looks and come back...again!

OKC shot poorly and particularly their 2nd and 3rd stars in JDUB and Chet who went a combined 8-28. SGA was huge but missed some he would normally make too.

I still think OKC will make the right adjustments and are the clear favourites for the series, but this has certainly ensured its not a beat down that many of us were predicting.

Loved seeing Siakam play such a big role for the Pacers too. 19 and 10 and some crucial baskets on broken plays.

Bring on game 2!

Thunder led that game for 47:59.7 minutes
Pacers led for 0:00.3 minutes

Insane

Thunder take game 2 with relative ease, tie the series 1-1

Stoked to be wrong on this series.

Pacers go up 2-1 and for the first time look like they're legit in it to win it.

Its not even as if they shot the lights out (9-27 on 3s). They played great D, forced a lot of turnovers and kinda played at their own game.

Great to see. Game 4 will now be massive.

Whoever wins game 4 will likely win the series

Huge.

Trying to think of a more unlikely champion ever, without a true superstar leading the way, although Halliburton has had truly remarkable shots to keep them going.
And could have a huge knock on effect if OKC loses, do they go after Giannis even though it sounds like he's currently content in Milwaukee? And it is reported Kd to the Spurs is a done deal, so that reunion seems unlikely.

Durant to the Spurs was aggregated over the last few days from the Simmons podcast segment "I wouldn't be surprised if...."

That somehow turned into Spurs deal is done.

I’m careful about the world of misleading aggregation these days

I dont think we need to start looking at what OKC does next yet.

I know it seems weird but to me I think they're still the favourite.

I think LV is right though, whoever gets game 4 probably goes onto win the series.

Rumours are crazy this time of year. I dont think Giannis is going anywhere. I think KD could go *anywhere*

Would be great to see the Pacers get it, but I'm also thinking OKC pull through from here. That their win so far was comfortable reminded me of the Nuggets series where it went the distance, but Denver's wins felt like more of an effort while OKC had both the blow-outs.

I think the advantage Indiana has is a bit more veteran presence and the experience of Siakam in finals. I think Pacers 4-2 because of this and OKC maybe still having to fall over at a final hurdle in order to get over it next time.

Either way it's great to see two teams who have endured and built from smaller markets. Both play attractive styles. Both play good defence without making it a bore. Two very similar teams.

Pacers fall apart late in game 4 and OKC come through to tie it 2-2

Kinda felt like the Pacers finally felt the pressure. They had it there with a chance to go up 3-1 but SGA showed his true class. Think that might be the series, but again, we've all counted out the Pacers before

Game 5 went a lot like game 2 and a lot more like we expected from this series. OKC leads 3-2 and have won two games comfortably, and are 1-2 in the 3 games that were super close.

Pacers do an incredible job of making up for a lot of mistakes. I dont know how they got it back to 2 in the 4th, but then it all went to crap once Siakam was subbed and they lost contact.

I would like the Pacers to force game 7 as we so rarely get those in the finals, but the Thunder are clearly the better team here. SGA has been great all series, Williams has been a great number 2 for the last few games after stuttering a little early. And they just have enough other role players step up game to game. This one was Wallace and Wiggins. Other times its been Caruso and Dort.

Haliburton definitely seems hampered but he's also just been really passive. Siakam is a good number 2, but in trying to be the lead guy with Hali taking a step back, he's forcing too much and causing too many loose turnovers.

Once again I'm stoked to be wrong. Pacers are damn good. They cleaned up their turnovers in this one and were able to capitalise. No easy baskets for OKC and good looks at the rim regularly for themselves. Even though they didnt shoot great themselves, they hit the offensive glass when they needed to and forced the Thunder to keep working in the half court.

For OKC it felt a lot like their game 3 loss to the Timberwolves, and we all know what they did after that so I think its clear they're still favourites. But they're also super young and that pressure now of a do or die game at home could get the better of them.

Siakam has been great when it mattered for the Pacers. His championship experience has really helped keep them in games and steady them when they've needed it. While JDub and SGA have been the two best players in the series, they've gone missing at times when their team needs them to take over.

The Pacers keep getting good performances from guys like Toppin and TJ to make up for Hailiburton being below par.

It feels like now if the Pacers can win this, Siakam will be finals MVP, save for a Haliburton monster game whch doesn't look like coming.

Just incredible.

Having said all that, I STILL think OKC will close this out but so happy we get to see one more game!

Game 7, absolutely brilliant

Congrats Thunder, well deserved champions. Have been the best team all year with superstar talent, depth and good coaching.

Fair to say they did stutter a little bit in the finals though, and maybe that was their youth showing. I feel like there were chances for the Pacers to get back into that today even with all that had gone wrong, but they just didnt have the horses or the legs.

Really sad to see Haliburton go out early. They did absolutely amazing to hang in there with him out for so long, but once things got tight, they just had no answer without his creative play.

Again Siakam is a good second option (though at this stage, should likely be a #3) but jsut doesn't have the gravity that Haliburton does. Mathurin, TJ all did all they could but its tough without your #1 guy.

OKC can run it back again next year and I kinda expect that they might. I would expect teams will chase guys like Wiggins and Joe next season as they're likely to slip further down the pecking order with Cason Wallace and Caruso as their clear two best wings off the bench. Incredibly, the Thunder could move them for picks and simply re stock for the future and not really suffer much with guys like Topic, Mitchell and jones waiting it the wings.

The Pacers should be pretty stable too, assuming they can bring back Turner. He had a rough finals offensively, but they can't really replace him so they're going to have to give him whatever he wants. They'll need some internal growth from guys like Walker and a leap from Mathurin to get any better.

Yay for Ducas

Admirable showing from the Pacers on the road and without Haliburton after the injury. Seemed like they had a slim chance still in the fourth, which is better than I had expected it would play out. OKC defenders just too good.

Really struggled to enjoy OKC after Wallace's blatant holding of McConnell's wrist in front of the refs. How that got ignored, I don't know. Rockets defenders were playing similarly against Curry in their series. Takes me back to Goorjian's teams playing "they can't call every foul" years ago in the NBL, though that seems saintly in comparison now.

Simmons:

"I think this might be the first NBA playoffs that comes and goes where the team I'm going to remember isn't the team that won the title."

Yeah OKC definitely get the rub of most of the 50/50 calls today. Dort's massive flop on Mathurin for example. They have 3 really elite wing defenders (Caruso, Wallace and Dort) and then all of their other rotation guys are at least plus defenders. SGA even is a good defender in his own right but doesn't have to do the dirty work. It means they can gamble with fouls, knowing there's another guy coming in if they get in foul trouble - and if not even better.

Is Dieng the first next star to win a ring?

I think he might be.

He might be someone they might look to offload this off season given their depth. Feels like he needs to go to a rebuilding team where he might get a chance to play like Mann did previously. Not really any closer to knowing whether he might be worth hanging onto, so imagine they either need to get something back for him now (cheap vet and/or a second rounder) or clear a path for him to play a little more next season.

Epic quote from Bill Simmons Isaac, I feel the same.

Start of a new dynasty?

Poor Seattle.

Scary thing is that they'll keep reloading with the draft and trading prospects whilst keeping their core of SGA, Williams and Chet, keeping Dort, Hartenstein, Caruso as key contributors. Most championship teams lose those second tier guys in free agency because they can't afford to keep them like Denver and potentially Boston this offseason. But OKC can either trade them for more picks or talent and just reload in the draft.
Or if they want to get frisky, trade the picks for a star. Imagine if Giannis demands trade, OKC could outbid anyone.

The other scary thing is a young man from Serbia has been sitting on the sidelines all season, ready to pull of a Blake Griffin 2.0

Would they have got there if they'd kept Giddey?
LOL

I laughed but then realised it's too bad for us the Boomers can't trade him away.

I think the answer is yes, they would have won without Giddey. They would have just forced him to the bench where he likely would have played a role similar to Wiggins and Joe who ate up a lot of regular season minutes and became situational role players in the playoffs. Obviously if they had Giddey there's no Caruso, but again I think that wouldn't have stopped them from winning. What really changed for them was moving away from the idea of another high volume ball handler next to SGA and they could have done that with Giddey effectively becoming his back up.

Would he want that? No, as he'd likely only be up for half the money he's going to get this off season, but he'd be a champion.

And yeah if you were ever going to predict a team to become a dynasty its this one. 3 young stars who's skills match up super nicely with each other, some elite role players, some young guys who are only gonna get better and heaps of picks still to come (they still control 3 first rounders from the George deal).

That deal has to be now, officially, the biggest heist of all time. PG3 for SGA and Jalen Williams as well as other parts and still some to come.

Blake Griffin 2.0 or Ben Simmons 2.0

Perhaps arguable that they don't get past the Nuggets without Caruso? Anyway, vindication for the trade and maybe a little souring for Giddey, but putting up some stats, getting a bigger deal and having a more suitable team put around you isn't the worst consolation prize.

If OKC's roster is fairly full/set, they'll surely consolidate picks to move up, even if they don't feel inclined to trade for a major player this time around?

Still, there's only 10 players on the court at any one time, and Spurs fans will understandably be optimistic they'll have the best player in the NBA within the next season or two

Every chance OKC vs Spurs over the next decade becomes Lakers vs Spurs of the late 90's and 00's (9 titles in 12 seasons between them).

The NBA's rules conspire against dynasties these days, which might partly explain why we've had 7 consecutive years of a new champion without any team winning 2 within that period. The first time thats happened in 75+ years of NBA

But a team like OKC and a generational talent like Wemby could change that new dynamic.

And watching the KD trade this week, it's amazing NBA teams aren't following the example of the Thunder. Instead of following in the footsteps of the Clippers.

Gotta respect the Thunder for playing the long game, smart trading and smart drafting

And they've done it with only 2 top 10 draft picks - Holmgren (pick 2 in 2022) and Giddey (6 in 2021)

The 76ers were patient and botched it. Despite far stronger pick numbers too.

2014: Embiid
2015: Jahlil Okafor
2016: Simmons
2017: Fultz
2018: Mikal Bridges
2019: Ty Jerome
2020: Maxey

Two firsts and two thirds in seven years!