The Oklahoma City Thunder have capped an extraordinary season by defeating the Indiana Pacers 103-91 in Game 7 of the NBA Finals to win the franchise’s first title since relocating from Seattle in 2008.
The league’s Most Valuable Player (MVP), Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, led the scoring in front of a raucous home crowd at Oklahoma City’s Paycom Center, with 29 points and 12 assists in the deciding game on Sunday.
He was also crowned the best player of the Finals, marking the first time since Shaquille O’Neal in 2002 that the same player had won the scoring title, regular season and Finals MVP honours.
The Pacers suffered a huge blow early on when they lost their star point guard, Tyrese Haliburton, midway through the first quarter with an Achilles injury and saw their title hopes dashed by a stifling Oklahoma City defence in the second half.
“It doesn’t feel real,” Gilgeous-Alexander said. “So many hours, so many moments, so many emotions, so many nights of disbelief, so many nights of belief.
“This group works hard. This group put in the hours, and we deserve this,” he added.
The championship capped an extraordinary run for the Thunder, who ended the regular season with a 68-14 record, good for the fifth-most wins in a single NBA season.
The Finals between two small-market teams were light on star power but delivered on thrills, as the surprise Eastern Conference champions Pacers pushed the best team in the league to the winner-take-all finale.
The Pacers got off on the right track as Haliburton drained his third three-pointer five minutes into the game, but the night took a terrible turn for Indiana when he slipped and fell two minutes later.
The two-time All Star was in tears as his team’s medical staff rushed to his side, and a hush fell over the building packed with Oklahoma City fans.
Haliburton was helped to the locker room but did not return, and while there was no official update from the team, a TV broadcast reported he had suffered an Achilles injury.
The resilient Pacers kept the game tight through a physical second quarter, putting up a terrific defensive effort to end the half up by one.
However, the Thunder soon took control with Gilgeous-Alexander, who went 0-5 behind the arc in the first half, lighting the fuse with a 25-foot three-point jump shot four minutes into the third quarter.
The Pacers were masters of the late comeback in the postseason, but without Haliburton, they were unable to claw back the deficit, with the Thunder opening the fourth quarter with a 9-0 run.
Youthful champions’ struggle
The Thunder’s youth was evident in their postgame celebration.
“No one knew how to open them,” Thunder centre Isaiah Hartenstein said of the post-game celebratory champagne bottles.
They learned soon enough, thanks to 31-year-old Alex Caruso, both the oldest player on the roster and the only player on the team who had previously won an NBA title.
“AC [Caruso] did a great job of giving us a tutorial,” Hartenstein said.
The Thunder youth came through with inconsistency at times.
“The whole run, I’ve tried to help the guys just be who we are, and that’s all we needed is to be who we are,” Thunder coach Mark Daigneault said.
The Pacers remain without an NBA title.
It could’ve been worse for the Pacers if not for point guard TJ McConnell, who scored 12 points in the third, hitting six of Indiana’s eight field goals in the frame.
Bennedict Mathurin led the Pacers for the game with 24 points off the bench. Pascal Siakam and McConnell added 16 each.
The Thunder became the first team to score 100 or more points in an NBA Finals Game 7 since 1988, when the Los Angeles Lakers beat the Detroit Pistons 108-105.
Caruso, who played on the Los Angeles Lakers’ 2020 title team, said he hoped his postgame tutorial would pay off again down the road.
“We’ll get some rest, rest, try to do it again next year,” Caruso said. “We’ll be better [at it] next year.”
