Nearly every analyst coming into this year’s NBA finals had the Oklahoma City Thunder beating the Indiana Pacers comfortably. The first three quarters of Game 1 did very little to contradict those predictions until the final minutes, when all hell broke loose.
The reigning NBA MVP, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, looked like, well, the NBA MVP for much of the game as he led the scoring with 38 points. His Thunder team went out to an early 7-0 lead and were 57-45 up by half-time. The second half seemed to be going the same way with the Thunder 15 points up at one point in the fourth quarter.
And then the Pacers, as they so often have in these playoffs, started to come back. With a minute remaining they had made it at one-point game at 110-109. With a second to go it was still 110-109 and Tyrese Haliburton had a chance to steal the game for the Pacers in outrageous fashion. Just as he had against the New York Knicks in the Eastern Conference finals, he did not miss when it mattered. His basket put the Pacers up 111-110 and won the game. The Pacers had been in the lead for 0.3 seconds in the entire game.
“We’ve just had to figure out how to win is so many ways all year,” said Haliburton. “We’re just a really resilient group, I’m just really proud of this group We keep believing and we stay together. It ain’t over ‘til it’s over.”
The comeback was the Pacers’ fifth from 15 or more points down this postseason, an NBA record.
Game 2 of the best-of-seven series is on Sunday night in Oklahoma City.
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