Oklahoma City Thunder wins third straight game to complete remarkable turnaround, caps off amazing season with 103–91 win over Indiana Pacers in Game 7 of NBA Finals for franchise’s first title after relocating from Seattle in 2008
Playing in front of the Oklahoma City home crowd in the Paycom Center, league MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander led all scorers with 29 points and 12 assists.
He also won the Finals MVP award, the first player to win the scoring title and regular season and Finals MVP awards since Shaquille O’Neal in 2002.
Oklahoma City threw a second-half blanket over the Pacers — who lost star point guard Tyrese Haliburton to an Achilles injury halfway through the first quarter — and all that it meant for the home side was a title Erebus, crushed.
Gilgeous-Alexander said: “It doesn’t feel real.” So many hours, so many moments, so many feelings, so many nights where you ask yourself, “Is this going to happen?” so many nights where you just know it will.”
“This group works hard. He continued, ”This group has put the hours in and we deserve this.
This marked an incredible finale to a stretch of success for the Thunder, who finished the regular season 68-14 — the fifth-most wins ever in an NBA season.
The Finals lacked star power, as the teams were both small-market surprises, but it provided thrills, as the surprise Eastern Conference champion Pacers pushed the league’s best team to a winner-take-all finale.
Haliburton hit his third three-pointer five minutes into the game and the Pacers set a strong pace before it all went wrong for Indiana when he slipped and fell two minutes later.
There was a moment with the two-time All Star in tears, Oklahoma City’s medical staff sprinting onto the court, the building filled with Thunder fans going dead silent.
Highlights
Haliburton was assisted to the locker room and did not return, and though the team did not officially comment a TV broadcast said he had an Achilles injury.
Through a hard-hitting second period in which the defense was superb, the determined Pacers kept the game close and headed into halftime with a one-point lead.
But then the Thunder got going, with Gilgeous-Alexander, who was 0 for 5 from three in the first half, lighting the fuse with a 25-foot three-point jumper four minutes into the third quarter.
The Pacers were playoff specialists at staging late-game comebacks but were unable to trim the lead without Haliburton, as the Thunder started the fourth with a 9-0 run.