The Oklahoma City Thunder headed into their NBA Finals matchup with the Indiana Pacers as the favorites to win the title, and for much of Thursday’s Game 1, they looked like a team poised to take a 1-0 series lead in the championship series.
At the halftime break, the Pacers were down 12 points after throwing the ball away left and right in the first half. They committed 19 turnovers in the first two quarters. Thunder defensive star Lu Dort had four steals in the half alone.
Even well into the fourth quarter, the Thunder certainly were in command, and that remained the case up until the final minutes. However, OKC was outscored 12-2 over the final 2:38, which changed everything.
One anonymous NBA scout has since said the Pacers made the Thunder “crack” in Game 1 of the NBA Finals and that the Thunder had a “young-team moment.”
“That’s a young-team moment,” the scout said, via RG.org. “They hadn’t been tested like that on this stage yet—Indiana made them crack.”
While the Thunder deserve blame for letting go of the rope on the NBA’s grandest stage in Game 1, the Pacers also deserve credit for being the comeback kings of these playoffs. Thursday’s Game 1 was far from the only time Indiana has made an improbable comeback in the 2025 NBA Playoffs.
For example, in Game 1 of Indiana’s Eastern Conference Finals series versus the New York Knicks, the Pacers trailed by as many as 17 points in the fourth quarter, yet they won the game in overtime.
Plus, back in Game 2 of the Pacers’ second-round series against the No. 1 seed Cleveland Cavaliers, Indiana rallied from being down seven points with less than one minute to go in the fourth to win the game by a point.
Those are just some of the wild comebacks the team has had in this postseason. All in all, Indiana’s comeback on Thursday was no fluke considering it has snatched victory from the jaws of defeat so many times already. The Pacers can continue their dominance away from home in the 2025 NBA Playoffs with a win in Sunday’s Game 2.
With a victory, the Pacers can put Oklahoma City in a major series hole before the series moves to friendly territory for Indiana.
