The Pacers won Game 1 in OKC on Tyrese Haliburton's last-second basket and the Thunder controlled Game 2. League MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (SGA) has powered the Thunder (36.0 points, 5.5 assists, 3.

However, what won the 68 games and got them to the Finals was their defense, and the Pacers torched that for a long stretch of Game 3. Indiana took better shots and capitalized on them, finishing with a 116 offensive rating (9.5 points higher than the Thunder allowed on average during the playoffs coming into the game).

The Indiana Pacers had a chance to do to the Oklahoma City Thunder what they did to the Knicks. But Shai Gilgeous-Alexander had other ideas.

NBA Finals finally started, Mark Daigneault threw a last-second curveball to the Indiana Pacers. He opted to start Cason Wallace over Isaiah Hartenstein. Don't let revisionist history fool you. While everybody questioned the move after their Game 1 loss,

Cason Wallace got the call to start Game 1 of the NBA Finals for the Oklahoma City Thunder on Thursday night, taking the place of Isaiah Hartenstein. The Thunder had used the same starting five — Shai Gilgeous-Alexander,

How The Thunder Got Here: OKC took sole possession of first place in the West on Nov. 25, and held it for the remaining 140 days of the regular season, finishing with a league-best and franchise-record 68-14 record.