{"id":5460,"date":"2025-06-22T14:57:08","date_gmt":"2025-06-22T14:57:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/5460\/"},"modified":"2025-06-22T14:57:08","modified_gmt":"2025-06-22T14:57:08","slug":"game-7-thunder-and-pacers-are-set-to-decide-the-nba-championship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/5460\/","title":{"rendered":"Game 7: Thunder and Pacers are set to decide the NBA championship"},"content":{"rendered":"

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) \u2014 Oklahoma City Thunder coach Mark Daigneault knows exactly why the NBA Finals<\/a> are coming down to a Game 7.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a contest of wills,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

And to this point, neither side has lost its will.<\/p>\n

Back and forth they have gone, the Thunder and the Indiana Pacers.<\/a> Indiana led the series, then Oklahoma City tied it, then Indiana retook the lead, then Oklahoma City tied it again, then it was the Thunder who moved one win away and then the Pacers knotted the matchup for a third time.<\/p>\n

After all that, Game 7.<\/a><\/p>\n

It happens Sunday, with tipoff at 8:07 p.m. Eastern, for the NBA title. After six games \u2014 some close, some blowouts, the teams alternating who is in control of the series \u2014 there clearly is a mutual admiration between the clubs.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s two teams where the whole is better than the sum of the parts,\u201d Daigneault said. \u201cIt\u2019s two teams that are highly competitive. Two teams that play together. Two teams that kind of rely on the same stuff for their success that are squaring off against each other.\u201d<\/p>\n

It is the 20th Game 7 in NBA Finals<\/a> history. Home teams went 15-4 in the previous 19. Indiana is seeking its first NBA title; Oklahoma City would say the same, although the franchise won the 1979 title when the team played in Seattle.<\/p>\n

And the winner will become the seventh different champion in the last seven seasons, a run of parity like none other in NBA history. Pacers forward Pascal Siakam was part of the Toronto team that won in 2019, Thunder guard Alex Caruso was part of the Los Angeles Lakers team that won in the pandemic \u201cbubble\u201d in 2020, Milwaukee won in 2021, Golden State in 2022, Pacers forward Thomas Bryant and Denver prevailed in 2023 and Boston won last year\u2019s title.<\/p>\n

Late Sunday night, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver will hand the Larry O\u2019Brien Trophy to either the Thunder or Pacers \u2014 one of whom will become the ninth franchise to win a title in Silver\u2019s 12 seasons leading the league. His predecessor, David Stern, saw eight different franchises win championships in his 30 seasons as commissioner.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou never know how it\u2019s going to go,\u201d Pacers coach Rick Carlisle said. \u201cI\u2019d be lying if I said this has gone exactly as I expected because each playoff series, each game is a different thing. Each game takes on a different personality, has different characteristics. Different guys step up. Different situations happen, etc. The truth is that nothing else previous to this matters at all now. We\u2019re just down to one game and one opportunity. We\u2019re really looking forward to it.\u201d<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

AP NBA: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/NBA<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) \u2014 Oklahoma City Thunder coach Mark Daigneault knows exactly why the NBA Finals are coming…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":5461,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[6950,6951,57,6323,2862,1267,6948,6375,1260,6326,3578,6324,5847,6949,1268,6322,6320,6952,62,6953,61,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-5460","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-alex-caruso","9":"tag-david-stern","10":"tag-general-news","11":"tag-in-state-wire","12":"tag-indiana","13":"tag-indiana-pacers","14":"tag-mark-daigneault","15":"tag-milwaukee","16":"tag-nba","17":"tag-nba-basketball","18":"tag-nba-finals","19":"tag-ok-state-wire","20":"tag-oklahoma","21":"tag-oklahoma-city","22":"tag-oklahoma-city-thunder","23":"tag-pascal-siakam","24":"tag-rick-carlisle","25":"tag-roland-mckeown","26":"tag-sports","27":"tag-thomas-bryant","28":"tag-u-s-news","29":"tag-united-states","30":"tag-unitedstates","31":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114727606261928355","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5460","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5460"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5460\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5461"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5460"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5460"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5460"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}