The NBA championship will be decided at the Paycom Center in Oklahoma City on Sunday night when the Oklahoma City Thunder host the Indiana Pacers in Game 7 of the 2025 NBA Finals.
The Pacers set up the first Finals Game 7 since 2016 with an impressive 108-91 victory in Game 6 at the Gainbridge Fieldhouse on Thursday.
With three days to rest before the winner-take-all showdown, the Pacers will welcome the chance for their star point guard Tyrese Haliburton to rest his calf strain after he played through the issue to inspire his team to their Game 6 success.
The Indiana Pacers got the job done at home to give the NBA its first Finals Game 7 for nine years and they may not be finished yet.
The last three times the Finals went to a Game 7, the team that had tied the series by winning Game 6 took the title, with the Lakers beating the Celtics from 3-2 down in 2010, the Heat overcoming the Spurs after an overtime Game 6 win in 2013 and the Cavaliers completing a sensational comeback from 3-1 behind to beat the Golden State Warriors in 2016 with a Game 7 triple double from LeBron James.
The Pacers are major underdogs to join that list according to the odds for Sunday's showdown but they look capable of at least running the Thunder close and taking the road team on the spread getting a start of 7.5 points makes plenty of appeal.
Indiana won straight up in Oklahoma City to win Game 1 of the Finals and Rick Carlisle's squad showed in Game 6 that they are not likely to roll over and hand victory to the home team.
The Pacers are in Game 7 for the first time in these playoffs, having shown their quality with comfortable series wins over the Bucs, Cavaliers and Knicks, and while the Thunder had a Game 7 win over the Nuggets in their Conference semifinal, they also lost the Game 6 of that series, so their ability to close out a series can be questioned.
The consistent performances of power forward Pascal Siakam have been a real asset for the Pacers in the playoffs and his teammates know they can rely on him to step up whenever star man Tyrese Haliburton doesn't carry the team on his own.
Siakam has played at least 30 minutes of his last 13 games for the Pacers and has reached 20 points in three of his last four appearances.
The Cameroonian went over 30 points three times in the previous round against the Knicks, including 39 points on the road in Game 2, so he is capable of handling a hostile atmosphere.
Andrew Nembhard is far from a big name in the NBA, even in a series that doesn't feature any of the sport's most famous franchises, but he is proving to be a key performer for his team.
The 25-year-old has been making a bunch of important baskets from downtown in the playoffs, in which he has a tremendous three-point percentage of 45.8.
Nembhard has posted two or more made threes in three of the six games in this season, as he did in the previous round against the Knicks, while he hit with five of his six efforts in Game 1 against the Cavaliers before that.
After being successful with three of his five long-range efforts against the Thunder in Game 6, Nembhard is worth backing to make at least two on Sunday.
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Indiana Pacers | +240 ML |
Oklahoma City Thunder | -300 ML |
Spread | OKC Thunder -7.5 |
Total Points | O/U 215.0 |
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (OKC Thunder) | O/U 33.5 |
Jalen Williams (OKC Thunder) | O/U 22.5 |
Pascal Siakam (IND Pacers) | O/U 20.5 |
Tyrese Haliburton (IND Pacers) | O/U 15.5 |
Chet Holmgren (OKC Thunder) | O/U 15.5 |
Myles Turner (IND Pacers) | O/U 12.5 |
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This article was written by a partner sports writer via Spotlight Sports Group. All odds displayed on this page were correct at the time of writing and are subject to withdrawal or change at any time.