INDIANAPOLIS \u2014 Among the truest things ever said was spoken, one night, at a group dinner. Among the dinner guests was an NBA champion. His team won multiple titles, actually. And as he regaled his fellow diners with tales from his career, he said, declaratively, and from hard-earned experience:\u00a0\u201cGoing for that ring takes you to some dark places.\u201d<\/p>\n
This s\u2014 is hard.<\/p>\n
It is hard as hell to win an NBA championship<\/a>. No matter your pedigree, or your talent, or your will. Or the ability and dedication of your coaches. Or the amount of money your owner has at their disposal. Winning 16 games \u2014 four series, four games per series \u2014 against the best teams and players on Earth, is a crucible. A kiln of physical and mental fatigue. Not only are your hopes and dreams at stake; so are those of your teammates, your families, your city. You drag the ghosts of your franchise\u2019s previous failures on your back. You get the fiercest opponents, their own dreams front of mind and stirring their hearts.<\/p>\n The Oklahoma City Thunder<\/a> went 68-14 in the regular season. They were, and are, a devastating team, led by league MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, and a powerful supporting cast that bludgeoned opponents all year. They were 15-6 in the postseason coming into play Thursday, having taken out Nikola Joki\u0107 and the Denver Nuggets, followed by Anthony Edwards and the Minnesota Timberwolves during their postseason run. With one more win, they\u2019d be anointed as one of the greatest single-season teams in history.<\/p>\n That coronation got smacked in the mouth on Thursday by the Indiana Pacers<\/a>, and their wounded star, Tyrese Haliburton, who Willis Reeded his way through 23 minutes on his strained calf, his example lifting the Pacers in a 108-91 rout that forced Game 7 in Oklahoma City Sunday<\/a>.<\/p>\n The Thunder may well win on their home court Sunday. They are ferocious there. But other than Alex Caruso, who won a championship with the Los Angeles Lakers in the Orlando Bubble in 2020, no one else on OKC\u2019s roster has been at this level before. You can\u2019t possibly know what this is like until you go through it, all the way. Oklahoma City, the overwhelming favorite coming into these finals, has been shoved up against a wall by the underdog Pacers.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was hard tonight,\u201d Thunder coach Mark Daigneault said. \u201cIndiana was great and we were not. We have the same opportunity Indiana does on Sunday. Score will be 0-0 when the ball goes up in the air. It\u2019s a privilege to play in Game 7s. It\u2019s a privilege to play in the finals. As disappointing as tonight was, we\u2019re grateful for the opportunity.\u201d<\/p>\n I know that anything that happened more than 20 minutes ago is the province of the olds and the no-longer relevant. But most teams in the history of this league have been denied championships, year after year, career after career. Not because they weren\u2019t worthy. But because their opponents were.<\/p>\n \u201cI have a new respect for the guys, the Steph Currys, the LeBrons, that do this year after year after year, and then go play USA Basketball, and do whatever they do,\u201d said Pacers forward Myles Turner, a decade into his own career.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is the most mentally grueling, just like, mentally taxing, but most rewarding feeling, going through this grind,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s a 19-day process, is how we look at it. And there\u2019s nights you don\u2019t sleep. I\u2019ve been trying to grow my hair out for the longest time, and it\u2019s started falling out a little bit from the stress. It\u2019s what it is. But again, it\u2019s the most rewarding thing, being able to play as long as possible, and get here.\u201d<\/p>\n It is hard to win 16 postseason games and carry the Larry O\u2019Brien Trophy around for the next year. The Larry was in an undisclosed location somewhere in Gainbridge Fieldhouse Thursday, and would only come out after the Thunder finished off the Pacers in Game 6.<\/p>\n They did not.<\/p>\n In that futility, at least for now, they have company.<\/p>\n The team with the greatest single-season record in NBA history, the 2015-16 Golden State Warriors, didn\u2019t do it either. They went 73-9 that season, a win percentage of .890. Their victory over the \u201916 Thunder, in an epic seven-game Western Conference finals, permanently shattered that Oklahoma City team. Kevin Durant left OKC after those playoffs \u2026 to join the Dubs! And yet, that Golden State team, the best in the history of the league, doesn\u2019t have a ring. LeBron James, at one end of the floor at Oracle Arena<\/a>, followed by Kyrie Irving, at the other<\/a>, didn\u2019t allow it, in the last two minutes of Game 7.<\/p>\n The pursuit of a ring almost broke the late Jerry West, one of the greatest players of all time. He never got over losing six times in the finals to the Boston Celtics. Ever.<\/p>\n Boston\u2019s Kevin McHale played on what became a ruined ankle, for two months, during the 1987 playoffs. Scottie Pippen\u2019s back tortured him during Game 6 of the 1998 finals, when he went back to the locker room, again and again, to be able to squeeze out four or five minutes on the court. Isiah Thomas turned his ankle gruesomely early in the third quarter of Game 6 of the \u201988 finals, went to the bench for a minute, came back out, and scored a finals single-quarter record 25 points in the period, gimping up the floor in pursuit of the play. The Pistons lost.<\/p>\n After the game, Thomas was on crutches. Somebody asked him how his ankle was.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s pretty f\u2014ed up, I can tell you that,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n