By Ross Kelly
The 2025 NBA Finals begin on Thursday with the Western Conference’s top seed, the Oklahoma City Thunder, facing the East’s No. 4 seed, the Indiana Pacers.
OKC has had a historic season in which it is just the fourth team with 80-plus regular season plus postseason wins entering the Finals. Also, the Thunder already set the NBA postseason record for the most 30-point wins—four—as they are overwhelming favorites to win the championship.
As a result, the Pacers are facing a monumental task as they seek the first NBA championship in franchise history. But upsets are embedded in the fabric of sports, and anything can happen once the games tip off. The Pacers may need several specific things to occur in order to pull off an NBA Finals upset, and here are some of the ways they can make it happen.
Ignore NBA Finals History
With a 50–32 regular season record, Indiana notched the 4-seed in the Eastern Conference, and the Finals haven’t been kind to No. 4 seeds. Many of the teams seeded fourth or worse in the Finals have lost, so hopefully that trend doesn’t make its way to Indianapolis. Regardless, what happened to the fifth-seeded 2020 Miami Heat or the fourth-seeded 2010 Boston Celtics—both of whom lost in the Finals—has no bearing on the 2025 Indiana Pacers.
Instead, Indiana should pay attention to more relevant history, such as its own historical comebacks. These Pacers have authored four playoff victories after being down 17-plus points, which is the most in a single postseason since the play-by-play era began in 1997. What the Pacers did two weeks ago versus the Knicks is much more relevant, to them, than the fourth-seeded 2006 Dallas Mavericks losing in the Finals.
Strike First
Indiana, despite only having home-court advantage once, has won Game 1 in each of its three series this postseason. Game 1 of the NBA Finals is seen as the least important in the series, but trends dispel that myth. Teams that win the opener of the NBA Finals then go on to win the series more than 70 percent of the time (55–23 record).
OKC has shown vulnerability in series openers as it lost, at home, to the Denver Nuggets in Game 1 of the second round. The Pacers are also 6–1 over their last seven road playoff games, so Indiana should approach Game 1 as if it was a Game 7.
Lean on Your Strengths
While the Thunder have seen their scoring average drop by 3.4 points per game in the postseason, compared to the regular season, Indiana has maintained the same scoring average in the playoffs. The team is averaging 117.4 points in the 2025 NBA playoffs, which is not only the most of any team this year but is the seventh highest in NBA history.
Four of the six teams that scored more went on to win the championship, and the Pacers are doing it with never-seen-before efficiency. The Pacers have had eight games this postseason with at least 110 points, 50 percent from the field, and 40 percent from beyond the arc, and no team has more in the history of the league.
Attack OKC’s Weakness
The Thunder may be a historically great team, but they are not perfect and have the discernible weakness of hacking opponents. Just five teams committed more fouls this season, and only three teams sent opponents to the free-throw line more often than the Thunder. Oklahoma City is 6–7 when it commits at least 25 fouls in a game, over the regular plus postseason, compared to a 74–11 record when committing fewer than 25 fouls.
Fortunately for Indiana, it has a knack for getting to the line, especially since the second season has rolled around. Indiana is averaging 23.8 free throw attempts in the playoffs, which would top the mark of 23.3 attempts that Memphis led the 2024–25 season with. Seeing how OKC allows the lowest field goal percentage, 2-point percentage, and 3-point percentage, the free throw line is, clearly, where it is most vulnerable, as drawing contact will be a focal point of the Pacers.
Protect Home Court
The Pacers have the same 6–2 record this postseason both at home and on the road, but sweeping the Finals games in Indianapolis is a must. Every contest of this seven-game series has two days of rest in between, except for one instance. There is just one rest day in between Games 3 and 4—both of which take place in Indianapolis.
The Pacers should use that scheduling quirk to their advantage and do what they do best, and that’s operating at a breakneck pace in Game 3, which will have a raucous atmosphere as the first Finals game in the city in 25 years. Plus, that fast pace could lead to OKC being fatigued with the short turnaround for Game 4, as Indiana must win both of those home contests.
Working in the Pacers’ favor at Gainbridge Fieldhouse is that the OKC/Seattle SuperSonics franchise hasn’t tasted road Finals success in over four decades. The franchise has lost six straight road games in the Finals—including the 2012 Thunder and 1996 SuperSonics—as the team hasn’t won a road Finals game since 1979.
