Following the wrap of the Eastern Conference Finals last Saturday, the stage was set for the 2024/25 National Basketball Association (NBA) Finals, and now the Oklahoma City Thunder and the Indiana Pacers are pitting skills, wills and strategy in an effort to walk away with the Larry O’Brien trophy, the first-ever for each franchise. The series started last night (July 5) with the JustBet favourite, Oklahoma City, hosting the contingent from Indiana in the best of seven series and, while this final matchup would have been the last anyone expected at the start of the season, there is little doubt that it is one the NBA-world is looking forward to seeing.

With the Thunder being the youngest team in the league this season, this matchup features the youngest combined pairing for the NBA Finals since 1977, when the fourth-seeded Portland Trail Blazers challenged the No 1 seed Philadelphia 76ers for the title. Quite similar to this encounter, where the fourth-seeded Pacers are up against the No 1 seed Thunder, but Oklahoma City will be fighting to turn the tables from the 4-2 series victory Portland had against Philadelphia 48 years ago. Oklahoma City has homecourt advantage because of its league-best 68-14 regular-season record, following on a league-best 57 wins last season, and are in the NBA Finals for the first time since 2012, when the trio of Russell Westbrook, Kevin Durant and James Harden made a losing appearance.

Led by the league’s top scorer (32.7 points per game), the league’s Most Valuable Player (MVP) and the Western Conference Finals MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, who has put together one of the greatest seasons in NBA history, the Thunder continues on a historic path, in line with their MVP who scored 34 points and added eight assists and seven rebounds in their close-out game against the Minnesota Timberwolves. That registered his 60th game with 30+ points this season and his 10th such performance with 5+ assists in the play-offs, joining only LeBron James and Michael Jordan in that elite category. He also joined Jordan as the only players in NBA history to average 30 or more points per game on 50.0 per cent shooting, or better, in three seasons.

Leading up to the finals, Gilgeous-Alexander averaged 29.8 points on 47.1 per cent shooting from the field through three rounds of play-off action, including four games of 35 or more points and a 40-point performance along the way. If he is able to claw his way to a series victory, the 26-year-old guard would become the first player to win NBA MVP and the finals in the same season in 10 years, following on the exploits of Stephen Curry in the 2014/15 season.

The Thunder is highly favoured in this series, especially having defeated these opponents in the two contests in the regular season, but the Pacers are in familiar territory, having been the underdog in most of their matchups in this year’s postseason. That said, the Pacers have defied the odds and played their way into this year’s defining basketball finale and cannot be taken lightly. They are facing a substantial challenge, but they have surprised the basketball world time and time again to get to this point, and there are hardly any legitimate reasons to believe they couldn’t pull another proverbial rabbit out of the hat.

One year from losing the Eastern Conference Finals to the Boston Celtics, guard Tyrese Haliburton, who has been exceptional for Indiana since the team acquired him from the Sacramento Kings in 2022, is inarguably the main reason why this team is in the play-offs and is now placed in a position to win the first championship for the Pacers, for the first time in 45 years. However, it is also fair to say the run to the championship series would not have been possible without forward Pascal Siakam either. The 31-year-old Cameroonian was drafted by the Toronto Raptors in 2016, where he played a pivotal role in their 2019 NBA Championship, contributing meaningfully to their six-game victory over the Golden State Warriors. He was traded to the Pacers in January 2024 and has found very fertile ground in the Indiana locker room. Siakam was voted the Eastern Conference Finals MVP, averaging 24.8 points on 52.4 per cent shooting, from the field and 50 per cent from 3-point range in the six games against the New York Knicks. He narrowly beat Haliburton in the MVP voting (4-3), but there appears to be an abundance of harmony in the Pacers’ locker room, and it was on full display following the MVP announcement.

Though Indiana was ranked ninth in defensive rating going into this final series, they made one miracle comeback in each of the previous three series contested — overturning a seven-point deficit in the final few seconds of a game against both the Milwaukee Bucks and Cleveland Cavaliers then stunned the Knicks with a comeback from a 15-point deficit with less than two minutes to go in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals — and their defence played a significant role in achieving those victories.

The Thunder poses a different set of challenges as they are relentless and display almost no weak points defensively for Haliburton, Siakam, and the rest of the Pacers to exploit. They can match and mitigate the pace of Indiana, but the Pacers have laughed in the face of long odds this postseason and have obviously prevailed, so they should not be counted out in any capacity in this championship series. Indiana’s magical run to the 2025 NBA Finals was driven by youthful exuberance and quick-paced basketball, but it has also been the same for the Thunder, though with a lot more expectation. Siakam has been on this stage before with the Raptors but the Thunder has been rolling and has left nothing but destruction in its wake.

The overwhelming JustBet favourite is expected to prevail, due to the talent gap between the West and the East being so wide, and the Oklahoma City juggernaut has been on full display in the play-offs, offensively and defensively. Parity is at its peak in the NBA, with six different title winners over the past six seasons (and a seventh to be crowned in short order), but the youngsters in Oklahoma City appear to have dynasty potential and should successfully navigate most of the obstacles the Pacers are able to mount.

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NBA 2024/25 Winner

Team

Odds

Oklahoma City Thunder

1.13

Indiana Pacers

5.60

*Note: Odds are subject to change