The best team in the league with 68 wins in 82 games against the fourth team in the Eastern Conference that entered the playoffs after 50 triumphs in the regular season - few expected a grand finale between Oklahoma and Indiana, and even fewer believed that the ring winner would be decided by the seventh game, the game of all games in American sports.
Thunder or the Payers - whoever wins the championship will win the title for the first time in history, and the curtain on the spectacular NBA season will fall at two in the morning on Sunday night at Oklahoma City's "Pay Center"...
Indiana opened the finals, which began on June 6th, with a break, and Shay Gilges-Alexander and his teammates responded in the 4th match in Indianapolis - then they tied it at 2:2, then on their home court they gained the advantage and the match point that they had squandered too easily in Indianapolis a few nights ago.
Indiana, in fact, won 108:91 in a duel in which they had a 30-point lead after three quarters. They thus got another chance for a ring...
- We only wanted two things in Game 6 - not to let Oklahoma open the champagne on our court and to make a big overture for Game 7. I think we accomplished the latter, too - he said Tyrese Halliburton, the Pacers' rookie leader, who adds:
- I'm not just a basketball player, but also a basketball lover - that's why I know there's nothing bigger than game seven.
Indiana forced its rival to turn over 21 possessions in Game 21. Gilges-Alexander, the regular season MVP, made eight of them. The Canadian finished the game with 15 points, shooting 7-XNUMX from the field, and didn't even enter the final quarter...
- This is a team sport and it's never just about an individual or individuals. In the previous match, we weren't where we needed to be, everything was wrong on both ends of the floor. And everything has to be different in the master class - said the Thunder coach Mark Dagnolt.
Gilges-Alexander was self-critical:
- We failed, especially me. That game happened that can serve as a lesson for us at the last moment - we still have 48 minutes to do what we wanted all season. So, one match for everything we dreamed of and it's always so simple: If you win you get everything, if you lose you get nothing - emphasized SGA.
The Thunder are looking for their first ring since the franchise moved from Seattle in 2008, and haven't been to the NBA Finals since 2012, when they were defeated by Miami in the Lebron JamesOklahoma defeated Memphis (4:0), Denver (4:3) and Minnesota (4:1) on their way to the finals this season.
Indiana also wants to make history and win its first ring, and it hasn't been to the finals since 2000, when it lost to the Los Angeles Lakers in six games.
The chosen ones Rika Karlajla In the playoffs this season, they were better than Milwaukee (4:1), Cleveland (4:1) and New York (4:2). Indiana only had home-court advantage in the series with Milwaukee...
If Oklahoma wins, they will become the first team after Boston in 2008 and Miami in 2013 to have to go through two seven-game playoff series on their way to a championship.
Indiana, on the other hand, could be the lowest-ranked champion (4th in the East) since Houston, which won the title in 1995 as the sixth-ranked team in the West.
Bonus video:
