Thunder v Pacers – which storylines will define NBA Finals?

Oklahoma City Thunder face the Indiana Pacers in the 2025 NBA Finals, starting on Thursday night.

The Thunder booked their place in their first national finals since 2012 with a 4-1 series win over the Minnesota Timberwolves in the Western Conference finals.

In the east, the Pacers beat the New York Knicks 4-2 to reach their second national finals and first since 2000.

As far as historic NBA longevity goes, a final between the Thunder and the Pacers is one that is a surprise to many.

The Pacers are only here for the second time in their history, while the Thunder are only making their fourth finals outing themselves.

Spearheaded by Olympic champion Tyrese Haliburton, the Pacers are among the 10 active franchises never to win the NBA’s national championship.

The Thunder’s only NBA finals crown came in 1979 when they were the Seattle Sonics, meaning no Oklahoma-based side has won the competition.

This season, Thunder point guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander became the first Canadian to win the NBA’s Most Valuable Player (MVP) award since Steven Nash in 2006.

A finals win with Olkahoma could also see him join an exclusive club with some of basketball’s all-time greats.

Not since 2015 has the season MVP gone on to win the finals with their franchise that season, with the last being Steph Curry.

Better known as ‘SGA’, Gilgeous-Alexander is the third Thunder player to be named MVP after Kevin Durant (2014) and Russell Westbrook (2017).

The two finalists have met twice already this season, coming in December in Indiana and March in Oklahoma.

On both occasions, the Thunder came out on top.

Between Christmas and New Year, the Thunder were 120-114 winners on the road and they beat the Pacers 132-111 in March.

A major factor in the Pacers reaching a first finals in 25 years has been their ability to overturn games that have at times, seemed close to impossible to do so.

In game five of their play-off first-round meeting with the Milwaukee Bucks, the Pacers found themselves 118-111 down with 40 seconds of overtime remaining, only for Andrew Nembhard to nail a three-pointer and Haliburton to score five unanswered points for a 119-118 victory.

Trailing by 14 points in the third quarter of game two in the Eastern Conference semi-finals against the Cleveland Cavaliers, the Thunder were 119-112 down with 57 seconds left, but recorded a 120-119 victory as Haliburton found a three-pointer with one second remaining.

A hat-trick of memorable play-off comebacks again had Haliburton at the heart of it. In the first game of the Eastern Conference finals, the Pacers trailed 121-112 to the Knicks with 52 seconds remaining of regular time. As the buzzer sounded, Haliburton’s long-range shot with one foot on the three-point line bounced up off the rim and dropped in for two points, sending the game to overtime before the Pacers won 135-134.

The Thunder have got the home-court advantage for the seven-game series, meaning they will host games one, two, five and seven, should all seven matches be required.

This is because the Western Conference champions had a significantly better record during the 82-game regular season, winning 68 matches to the Pacers’ 50.

Since the Pacers’ previous finals appearance in 2000, 16 of the 25 teams with home-court advantage have won the finals.

However, each of the 2024, 2023 and 2022 finalists with home-court advantage failed to make it count.

Ask Me Anything is a service dedicated to answering your questions.

We want to reward your time by telling you things you do not know and reminding you of things you do.

The team will find out everything you need to know and be able to call upon a network of contacts including our experts and pundits.

We will be answering your questions from the heart of the BBC Sport newsroom, and going behind the scenes at some of the world’s biggest sporting events.