INDIANAPOLIS — Game 7 awaits.
The Indiana Pacers sent the NBA Finals to the ultimate game, beating the Oklahoma City Thunder 108-91 on Thursday night to tie the title series at 3-3.
The all-or-nothing deciding game of the series is Sunday night in Oklahoma City.
It will be the 20th Game 7 in NBA Finals history. Home teams have gone 15-4 to this point — but a road team won the most recent one of these showdowns, when Cleveland topped Golden State in 2016.
June 22 history
This year will mark the second NBA Finals to end on June 22. The other was in 1994, when Houston beat New York in Game 7.
Other than the COVID-19-affected finals of 2020 and 2021 (the 2020 finals ended on Oct. 11 and the 2021 finals ended on July 20), only two NBA seasons have gone deeper into the calendar.
The 1999 finals ended on June 25 and the 2005 finals ended on June 23. Both were won by San Antonio.
Moving on up, Part 1
The win in Game 5 of the NBA Finals was Oklahoma City’s 83rd of the season (68 regular season, 15 playoffs).
The Thunder won’t catch Golden State and its record 88 wins in 2015-16, nor will it catch Chicago and its 87 wins in 1995-96.
But the Thunder could move into a tie with the 1996-97 Bulls for No. 3 all-time for most wins in a season.
A look at where the Thunder are on the all-time wins list:
88 wins — Golden State, 2015-16
87 wins — Chicago, 1995-96
84 wins — Chicago, 1996-97
83 wins — Golden State, 2016-17; Oklahoma City, 2024-25.
Moving on up, Part 2
Oklahoma City’s Shai Gilgeous-Alexander has scored 3,143 points this season when combining the regular season and the playoffs. That’s tied with Elgin Baylor (1962-63) for the 14th most in NBA history.
The MVP easily could make the top 10 on Sunday as well. He needs:
2 points to pass Wilt Chamberlain (3,144 in 1960-61) for the 13th most in a season.
6 points to pass Michael Jordan (3,148 in 1986-87) for 12th.
14 points to pass Kevin Durant (3,156 for the Thunder in 2013-14) for 11th.
21 points to pass Jordan (3,163 in 1991-92) for 10th.
24 points to pass James Harden (3,166 in 2018-19) for ninth.
That’s where the potential climb realistically ends: Gilgeous-Alexander would need 65 points to pass Jordan for the eighth-highest scoring season in NBA history.
(And if the NBA Cup championship game counted, he already would have 3,164 points and be alone in 10th place on the single-season list.)
Betting odds
Oklahoma City (-325) is still the favorite — but no longer a huge one — to win the NBA title, according to BetMGM Sportsbook. Indiana’s odds are now +260 after the Game 6 win.
The Thunder are 7.5-point favorites over Indiana for Game 7. That’s down a point from Friday.
The Pacers have covered in 14 of their first 22 games of these playoffs. The Thunder — favored in every game so far — have covered 10 out of 22 times to this point.
NBA Finals schedule
All games of the NBA Finals will be aired on ABC.
June 11 — Game 3, Indiana 116, Oklahoma City 107
June 13 — Game 4, Oklahoma City 111, Indiana 104
Thursday — Game 6, Indiana 108, Oklahoma City 91
Sunday — Game 7, Indiana at Oklahoma City, 8 p.m. EDT
At least six games, twice
This is the first time since 2022 that both the NBA Finals and the Stanley Cup Final went at least six games.
The Florida Panthers won their second consecutive Stanley Cup on Tuesday night, finishing off a six-game series with the Edmonton Oilers.
A close finals, geographically
The 688 miles by air between Oklahoma City and Indiana — by road, it is a bit longer — represents the shortest distance between finals cities in 69 years. That doesn’t count the pandemic “bubble” season, when the Los Angeles Lakers and Miami Heat were in Lake Buena Vista, Florida, for the entirety of the 2020 finals.
The last time a between-cities finals trip was this short was 1956, with only 530 miles separating Fort Wayne and Philadelphia.
Other short finals trips, in air miles: Syracuse to Fort Wayne (489 miles, 1955), Rochester to New York (253 miles, 1951) and Baltimore to Philadelphia (90 miles, 1948).
The longest distance between finals cities was Boston to San Francisco for the 2022 finals; those cities are 2,704 miles apart by air. That’s just about 10 miles longer than Boston to Oakland, and about 100 miles longer than Boston to Los Angeles.
Under the current league format, the shortest possible distance between finals cities would be the 297 miles that separates Minnesota and Milwaukee. That’s just a bit shorter than Memphis-Atlanta (331) and Minnesota-Chicago (334).
Key upcoming events
June 25 — NBA draft, first round.
June 26 — NBA draft, second round.
SGA is the MVP
A recap of Oklahoma City’s Shai Gilgeous-Alexander’s winning of the NBA MVP award.
The story: Gilgeous-Alexander tops Jokic for MVP award
The reaction: SGA tears up when talking about his wife
Steve Nash speaks: Canada’s 1st MVP thrilled to see SGA follow him
Stats of the day
— Assuming both play, Indiana’s Obi Toppin and TJ McConnell will appear in their 102nd games of the season Sunday. They’ll be the first players to appear in that many games and make fewer than five starts since Patty Mills (104 games, two starts) for San Antonio in 2013-14. Boston’s Payton Pritchard had 101 appearances and five starts last year.
— The Thunder will be favored Sunday for the 101st time this season. That’s more than any team has been in a season in the last decade.
Quote of the day
“We have one game for everything, for everything we’ve worked for, and so do they. The better team Sunday will win.” — Thunder guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander.
Copyright 2025 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.