NBA Finals Preview: Pacers-Thunder May Not Be a Long Series, But It Will be Entertaining

Trying to score on the Oklahoma City Thunder’s defense can be like trying to ram a feather through a brick wall. Trying to contain the Indiana Pacers’ offense is similar to catching a gust of wind with an old sock. Both can border on impossible, and you need the right personnel to achieve either dream, which is what will make the 2025 NBA Finals such an alluring watch.

Please, for the love of basketball, spare us all your thoughts about the geographic locations of each team somehow being a detriment. While it is true that a coterie of expensive suits in Midtown Manhattan wanted, for rating purposes, something a little glitzier than Oklahoma City-Indianapolis—the 20th and 16th most-populous cities in the US—you, dear reader, are not the National Basketball Association. You are a person. And if you’re a fan of pedal-to-the-metal hoops, you should be excited about this series.

Oklahoma City won both matchups in this year’s regular season.Zach Beeker/Getty Images

In boxing, they say that styles make fights. If these upcoming games were taking place in the ring, the canvas would resemble a Jackson Pollock painting. Among teams who have played at least 10 games this postseason, the Thunder and Pacers are the two who play at the fastest pace. These teams—and, blessedly, their young legs—love to run, which makes for some of the most entertaining basketball there is. The antidote to the attention span crisis is an OKC-Indy matchup, because they won’t leave any time to take your eyes off the screen.

If there is any time during the Finals to quickly check your phone or, I don’t know, engage with your loved ones, it’ll be when Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is at the free throw line. Because believe me, he will be a frequent attendee. SGA—the principal player in the series, and maybe, at least in the vacuum of this particular season, the entire league—has averaged 9.2 foul shots per game during the Thunder’s playoff run. The measured take is that in order to be the type of heavyweight he wants to be, Gilgeous-Alexander has to draw these whistles. His style of play utilizes an endless supply of yo-yoing drives to the rim, the type that gets a player scratched and clawed with so much regularity that you could argue a foul happens more often than not. It’s just on the referee to call them.

The extremist, most-irritating-guy-at-the-bar take is that Shai is an indefensible foul baiter and free throw merchant who should be ashamed of his every dribble. These are all things loudly crowed by people who are willingly missing the forest for the trees. Getting to the line is a necessary part of any MVP’s game, and just because he gets a handful of ticky tack fouls every quarter doesn’t mean that Gilgeous-Alexander is a grifter who’s in bed with the officials. It means he understands his role—which, at the moment, is to be the brightest player on the NBA’s brightest stage. On a wider level, the free throw conversation is the odds-on favorite to be the dominant topic of these Finals. It’s nice to have a monocultural sports thing! “Does Shai need to kick his flopping addiction?” is something you can discuss with a rando at the grocery store, your grandparents, or your friend’s kid in equal aptitude. That’s what these tentpole sporting events are all about, after all: grasping onto that increasingly fleeting feeling that we’re all watching the same thing and analyzing it in similar ways.