Tyrese Haliburton writes yet another game-winning chapter, Obi Toppin keeps poppin’ for Indiana and OKC comes up short late.
Tyrese Haliburton hits a game-winner with 0.3 seconds remaining to cap the Pacers’ stunning rally in Game 1 of the NBA Finals.
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OKLAHOMA CITY — This is what the Indiana Pacers do: they pace themselves. They stumble a bit, crawl back, hang around, flirt with the lead, open the door, strut through it … and let Tyrese Haliburton slam it shut behind them.
This is who they are, a stubborn and unflappable group led by one of the best clutch players in recent times and in this postseason. Anyone with a short memory was sent a stunning reminder here on the biggest stage, on the road, against the league’s most dominant team, when Indy cheated death again.
If the Oklahoma City Thunder didn’t know then, they know now — along with a skeptical basketball world that sensed a one-sided NBA Finals in favor of an Oklahoma City team that flexed its way through a 68-win season.
Instead, through one game, it’s advantage Pacers after a 111-110 victory, which was secured on a shot by … who else? Haliburton left a trail of broken playoff hearts on his way to this town, and added to it Thursday with a gutsy pull-up 21-footer with 0.3 seconds remaining that left OKC shook.
Therefore, the Haliburton 2025 Late Game Big Shot Tour continues. First, the Bucks, then the Cavaliers, then the Knicks, and now the Thunder in the most important game of his professional life.
But the game-winner was made possible by a plucky team that never led until Haliburton’s ball fell through. The Pacers, down 15 points in the fourth quarter, registered yet another comeback, which has become habit-forming. It was the fifth time in these playoffs where they capped a winning rally after trailing by 15, most by a team in a single postseason in the play-by-play era.
“This group never gives up,” Haliburton said. “We never believe that the game is over until it hits zero, and that’s just the God’s honest truth. That’s just the confidence that we have as a group, and I think that’s a big reason why this is going on.”
Oklahoma City coach Mark Daigneault: “This is part of their identity.”
As for all the details and drama of the 2025 NBA Finals opener? Here are five takeaways, starting with the obvious:
1. Haliburton comes through, Episode No. 4
In listing the circumstances of his latest heroics, it’s necessary to start with this somewhat obscure decision, and it shows why Rick Carlisle is such a good coach.
After Aaron Nesmith rebounded a Shai Gilgeous-Alexander miss with 11 seconds left — more on him later — Carlisle didn’t call a timeout. Why do that just to draw up the obvious play? Why risk an inbound pass against an OKC defense that caused problems most of the night?
Why not keep it moving, place trust in Haliburton and let him do what he does?
Carlisle’s faith was rewarded yet again. Haliburton thrived under this pressure, understood the urgency, kept OKC scrambling defensively, and calmly pulled up for the go-ahead bucket — without getting double-teamed. Cason Wallace was alone, helplessly, on an island.
Tyrese Haliburton’s walkoff interview after hitting the winning shot in Game 1 of the 2025 NBA Finals with 0.3 seconds remaining.
“We have a lot of experience in these kind of games,” said Carlisle. “We just try to get the ball in his hands as much as possible in those situations.”
As for the shot itself, what else is there to say? Haliburton has such confidence in these situations; players with the clutch gene don’t worry about missing or fear the fallout from it.
“I’m obviously confident in my ability,” he said. “It’s a shot I worked on a million times and I’ll work on it a million times more.”
2. Pacers finally control the ball, then the game
This contest was in danger of slipping away from the team that never had control of it. Whether it was Game 1 nerves or simply tremendous defense applied by OKC, or a combination of both, the Pacers either dropped the ball or had it constantly stripped from them.
They had 19 first-half turnovers. OKC pounced whenever a Pacer dared to dribble the ball, sending defenders sneaking in from the blind side to poke it loose, or simply cutting off passing lanes. Lu Dort was especially pesky, with four steals in the half.
Maybe the biggest surprise wasn’t Haliburton hitting the game-winner. Maybe it was the Pacers cleaning up their mistakes and doing it quickly. If they hadn’t, this game would have drifted away from them for good. And so, a team that protected the ball all season — they averaged just 13 turnovers per game — had only three in the third quarter and the game began to flip in Indiana’s favor.
The Thunder had one last response when Jalen Williams stole an inbounds pass and dunked. The OKC lead was 15, its biggest of the game. And it shrank steadily from there.
“I thought we did a great job of just walking them down,” said Haliburton. “When it gets to 15, you can panic or you can talk about how do we get it to 10 and how do we get it to five and from there.”
3. SGA slips in the moment of truth
For 47 minutes and 50 seconds, this was a typical Gilgeous-Alexander game — which is to say he dropped buckets and there was little the Pacers could do to disturb his flow … until they did.
Time and again, Gilgeous-Alexander found his spots, created space, released his jumper and maintained a rhythm. He was good for 38 points. When OKC needed a basket in the fourth quarter to spoil a Pacers’ overthrow, he delivered … until he didn’t.
When it truly counted, with 11 seconds left and when the Thunder saw their grip on the game turn greasy, Gilgeous-Alexander shook free, elevated for a 15-footer … and found the back rim. The lead was just one point. Indiana ball. And it was Haliburton’s turn to be the hero.
Send a salute to Pacers guard Andrew Nembhard, a fellow Canadian who has known Gilgeous-Alexander for years — they dueled back in high school and are national team members. He didn’t waver in that very moment. Nembhard played Gilgeous-Alexander close on the play, stayed in front and didn’t foul.
“I think that Drew probably has seen a little bit of what Shai can do,” said Pacers center Myles Turner.
Also, with 22 seconds left, Pascal Siakam failed to retrieve a loose ball and OKC had 14 seconds left on the shot clock. Gilgeous-Alexander couldn’t simply run the clock out.
Still, this was a shot that Gilgeous-Alexander has made a million times, one that helped him earn the Kia MVP award, but one that fell short. It happens, but this wasn’t a game in February.
“Basketball ups and downs,” he said, shrugging. “Can’t do anything about it now.”
4. Toppin had it poppin’
When the Pacers were troubled early in this game and searched desperately for stability, they found it from a bench player who was dumped by his previous team for a pair of second-round picks.
The Knicks are either on the golf course or the beach and definitely on the Pacers’ Christmas card list because of that trade. As for Obi Toppin, he’s three wins away from a championship, a situation he helped make possible with timely Game 1 plays. Each time OKC threatened to pull away, Toppin, it seemed, responded with a 3-pointer.
“I’ve worked my whole life to be in the position I’m in now,” he said.
He made a pair in the fourth quarter when the comeback turned serious. In all: 17 points, 5-for-8 on 3-pointers with five rebounds in 25 minutes.
“Man, just his confidence never shook,” Turner said. “He started the game with two or three turnovers and what not and he was able to make an impact, hit a couple threes right after that.”
5. OKC can’t seal the deal
Shaquille O’Neal and Isiah Thomas have pointers for OKC after its Game 1 loss to the Pacers.
For all of their efficiency, their record point differential, and in particular their dominance against the East — they lost only once against the conference until Thursday — the Thunder occasionally dealt with a persistent issue: their inability to seal the deal.
Losing fourth-quarter leads was more of a regular-season annoyance. The internal fear was that this could creep into the postseason. There were scant signs in the Western Conference semifinals against Denver, but the Thunder closed out strongly in Game 7 and seemingly exorcised those ghosts.
Well, not quite. Their defense forced 19 turnovers in the first half. They were up double-digits halfway through the fourth quarter. They took 16 more shots in the game, had 18 fewer turnovers — that’s usually the winning formula. Still, they crumbled.
“We played good enough to win,” said Alex Caruso. “We just didn’t finish the game.”
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Shaun Powell has covered the NBA for more than 25 years. You can e-mail him here, find his archive here and follow him on X.
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