The Oklahoma City Thunder and the Indiana Pacers will be played this Sunday in the seventh game of the finals, a scenario that the NBA did not live since 2016.
The last time the finals needed a seventh duel to solve a 3-3 draw was nine years ago when the Cleveland Cavaliers of LeBron James gave the bell and defeated the Golden State Warriors at home of Stephen Curry, the first team in history to waste a 3-1 in the series for the title.
Oklahoma City's Paycom Center will host this Sunday from 7:00 p.m. (00.00 GMT on Monday) the definitive confrontation between some thunder and some Pacers that, beyond being two small markets away from the giants by the name of the League, have given away some exciting and full of iconic moments.
The winning basket of Tyrese Haliburton in the absence of 0.3 seconds in the first game, the 15 points in the outcome of Shai-Gilgeous Alexander in the room, the 40 points of a sensational Jalen Williams in the fifth, the demonstration of character and collective pride of Indiana in the sixth with everything against …
Read too
All that has led to the tables after six meetings in some finals that have also lived with an extraordinary atmosphere both in the Paycom Center in Oklahoma City and in the Gainbridge Fieldhouse of Indianapolis.
Precisely the court factor is one of the great buzas of the Thunder to conquer the ring, since in the 19 precedents of the finals that were decided in the seventh meeting 15 they went to the premises.
First of the West with the best balance of the League (68-14), Oklahoma has also been the most dominant team at this course (35-6 in regular season and 10-2 so far in 'Playoff').
Those of Shai, MVP of the regular season, already know what this campaign is to win a seventh match since they were led to the Nikola Jokic nuggets in the western semifinal. Oklahoma responded then crushing Denver for 125-93.
Under the baton of Mark Daigneault, the Thunder look for the first ring in their history in Oklahoma, although this franchise won the 1979 title when it was installed in Seattle and competed under the name of Supersonics.
On the other hand, the Pacers will try to complete their amazing history of impossible miracles and epic with the most difficult yet.
Indiana, a land in which basketball is almost like a religion, has never celebrated an NBA title but has three ABA championships.
The enormous triumph in the sixth encounter when they were between the sword and the wall kept some Pacers alive who, under Rick Carlisle, are still pending from the physical state of Haliburton, with problems in the right twin but who in the last game could already play already very good level.
The Thunder or the Pacers will be the seventh different champion in the last seven years of an NBA that has not seen a franchise repeat title since the Warriors of 2017 and 2018. E and
