INDIANAPOLIS, IN — Up 2-1 and with a 68-win visiting Oklahoma City Thunder squad looking seemingly lost and on the brink of elimination, did the underdog Indiana Pacers blow it in their 111-104 Game 4 loss in the 2025 NBA Finals?
Indiana, riding all the momentum following a 116-107 Game 3 win, and splitting on the road in the Finals, the Pacers were set to seize control of the series in front of a raucous Hoosier basketball-obsessed crowd.
Unfortunately for them, the Thunder didn’t get the memo Friday night. Thanks to 35 points from MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, the Thunder rallied from a double-digit second half deficit, and outscored Indiana 31-17 in the fourth quarter to tie the Finals up at 2-2, and reclaim home court advantage with two of the next three—if needed—games down on the Plains.
While forward Pascal Siakam is continuing to make a strong case for Finals MVP in scoring 20 points, grabbing eight rebounds, and being an all-around menace for OKC, emerging superstar Tyrese Halliburton came up small for the Pacers in finishing with 18 points on 7-15 shooting, including going 1-7 from three-point range.
With the rest of the Pacers chipped in when necessary, Halliburton shrunk when it mattered most, and with the series now heading back to Oklahoma, the former Iowa State star will need to dig deep in his bag, if he is able to help lead the Pacers to their first ever NBA title.
This series is far from over, and with the meteoric rise of the “overrated” Halliburton and the small-market Pacers quickly becoming the NBA team of destiny facing off against the seemingly unbeatable juggernaut from OKC, neither he or the Pacers can ill afford to blow another chance versus arguably one of the NBA’s all-time best regular season teams in recent memory.
Chances like these don’t come around very often. It’s up to both Hali and the Pacers to take advantage of them when they do.