The Thunder had a 97.4% chance to win with two minutes and 52 seconds left in Game One of the National Basketball Association Finals. At that time, newly minted Most Valuable Player awardee Shai Gilgeous-Alexander just made the first of two free throws that had them up by eight. And because they held the lead from opening tip, there was simply no reason for even diehard fans of the Pacers to believe an upset remained in the realm of possibility.
As things turned out, the Pacers still had more than enough fight in them to pull off yet another monumental comeback. With time winding down in the crunch, they chipped away at the deficit, first off two three-pointers sandwiching a Thunder miss, and then off two charities and a follow-up shot to counter a Gilgeous-Alexander basket. And when the latter inexplicably missed on a lightly contested turnaround jumper in the lane, the stage was set for the comeback to be completed.
Needless to say, point guard extraordinaire Tyrese Haliburton was once again responsible for the shocker. He asked for, and received, the ball in the backcourt with under seven ticks remaining, dribbled ahead from left to right, and then calmly stopped to take a midrange stab. Needless to say, leather, iron, and nylon met, giving the blue and gold their only advantage of the contest with three-tenths of a second left in the game clock. An errant lob pass by the Thunder later, he collected his fourth game winner of the 2025 Playoffs. So much for his peers supposedly voting him the most “overrated” player in the league.
How difficult was the Thunder’s veritable rise from the dead? Prior to the contest the other day, all 182 teams trailing by at least nine points heading into the final three minutes of a Finals contest dating back to 1971 wound up with a loss. Meanwhile, the Pacers made like Lazarus in front of 18,203 hostile spectators at the Paycom Center; despite the seemingly insurmountable deficit, they never doubted their capacity to prevail. And why should they have acted otherwise? They faced similarly low odds in each of the first three rounds (0.3%, 2.1%, and 4.1%, respectively), and they came out on top every single time. And the chance of them turning all of the encounters into wins? A ridiculous one in 1.5 million.
At this point, there can be no discounting Haliburton’s importance to the Pacers’ cause. In every round, he has had one result-altering shot in the last 1.1 seconds of a given match. All told, he is six of seven in shots to tie or take the lead over the last 90 seconds of a game through the current postseason to date. That said, it’s fair to argue that the clutch gene runs even in those around him; in the face of his otherwise-pedestrian numbers in Game One, only with a collective effort could they have overcome the commission of 18–yes, 18–more turnovers. Significantly, they likewise took three less free throws and 15 less attempts within four feet of the rim.
Bottom line, the Pacers know what they are capable of. They couldn’t care less if they will once again be the underdogs in sports books today. In fact, it’s exactly how they want to be deemed. As far as they’re concerned, there is no greater joy than proving conventional wisdom wrong.
Anthony L. Cuaycong has been writing Courtside since BusinessWorld introduced a Sports section in 1994. He is a consultant on strategic planning, operations and human resources management, corporate communications, and business development.