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The Oklahoma City Thunder got 40 points from Jalen Williams and 31 points from Shai Gilgeous-Alexander to survive another fourth-quarter Indiana Pacers comeback and take a 3-2 series lead with a 120-109 win in Game 5 of the 2025 NBA Finals.
The Thunder were up 14 points at halftime thanks to some stifling defense, forcing 10 Pacers turnovers and holding Indiana to 33 percent shooting. But the Pacers stormed back despite a quiet night from Tyrese Haliburton, who was dealing with right calf soreness, thanks to second-half performances from Pascal Siakam and unlikely hero T.J. McConnell, trailing by as little as two in the fourth quarter before the Thunder regained momentum.
Oklahoma City's defense forced 22 Indiana turnovers, Gilgeous-Alexander added four blocks, two steals and 10 assists to his scoring output, and the Thunder have their first lead of the series and are one win away from their first NBA title. Williams is the 14th player in NBA history with a Finals Game 5 performance of 40 or more points and the first since Devin Booker in 2021.
Game 6 is Thursday in Indianapolis.
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Jalen Williams’ 40-point Game 5 has Thunder one win from NBA title
The Oklahoma City Thunder became a franchise in 2008 after moving from Seattle. Flash forward 17 years, and the Thunder are one win away from an NBA title.
It will be the Thunder's first NBA championship in franchise history, not counting the 1979 title the Supersonics won. It would cap off one of the great seasons in NBA history, with OKC going 84-20 combined during the regular season and playoffs.
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Dale Wetzel: Jalen Williams is the most fun to watch on OKC. The guy plays like a hurricane.
Angie A.: I guess Pascal Siakam and T.J. McConnell were the only ones who showed up to play tonight.
Joel R.: Pacers still in it. They can win game 6 at home, and then anything can happen in a Game 7.
Rusty G.: And to think it was 95-93 with 8:30 to go. Man, I was sweating for about 60 seconds.
In a game decided by 11 points, chalk this one up to the possession battle.
The Oklahoma City Thunder beat the Indiana Pacers 19-18 on offensive rebounds and 23-11 on opponent turnovers. That made up for the Pacers shooting 45.1 percent from the field while Oklahoma City shot only 42.6 percent from the field. A 13-point advantage in the possession battle for OKC.
The Pacers were so close to pulling off a miracle yet again. With Tyrese Haliburton significantly limited by a right hamstring injury he suffered in the first half, his teammates elevated to make up for his deficit. TJ McConnell flipped the game with a scoring outburst in the third quarter. Pascal Siakam came alive early in the fourth to bring the Pacers (almost) all the way back. But when the Thunder defense tightened the clamps, Haliburton couldn’t dribble his way out of trouble.
This has been Oklahoma City’s edge all playoffs long. The Pacers are the team that springs counterattacking comebacks on the opponent out of nowhere, but the Thunder defense can do the same thing with their ball pressure. Alex Caruso, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Jalen Williams took away the Pacers’ ability to comfortably move the ball coming down the court. While there were some incredible deflections, the Thunder mostly just took away the flow from Indiana’s offense right as the Pacers lost a little bit of their edge to push hard in transition.
The Pacers have defied logic throughout this postseason run, but it’s impossible to win an NBA Finals game when your best player doesn’t hit a single shot. This is the epitome of the Thunder defense, one of the best in recent history at suffocating ballhandlers and commandeering passing lanes. The Pacers’ supporting cast found life tonight and the Thunder put that to bed as soon as crunch time began.
Tyrese Haliburton postgame:
"If I can walk, then I wanna play. … Our backs are against the wall."
Haliburton actually repeated "our backs are against the wall" at least three times.
Pacers star Tyrese Haliburton sat on the bench with a towel over his mouth and stared at the floor during the second quarter of Game 5. Indiana assistant Mike Weinar tapped Haliburton on his leg, seemingly to encourage him because Weinar knew his team’s leader was hurting — physically and mentally — as he watched his teammates try to rally without him.
Late in the first quarter, Haliburton crossed over Thunder center Chet Holmgren but immediately lost his balance. He was later seen holding his right calf and briefly went back to the locker room.
When Haliburton emerged, he was a shell of himself. Already prone to a few no-shows throughout these playoffs — with two single-digit scoring performances entering Monday night — Haliburton had another absentee performance in Game 5. However, it would be hard to argue his right leg didn’t compromise him as he limped around the court.
Haliburton was held scoreless in the first half, marking the third time in his playoff career in which he failed to score a point in a half, and he tied his playoff career-low with four points. The two-time All-Star missed all six of his shot attempts, including four 3-pointers, which was the first time Haliburton didn’t make a single shot in 36 playoff games. He was also limited to six assists and coughed up three turnovers.
As Indiana trails in a series for the first time this postseason, the health of Haliburton’s right leg will be something to monitor ahead of Thursday’s Game 6 in Indiana. If the Pacers hope to win and force a winner-take-all Game 7 in Oklahoma City, they’ll likely need Haliburton at full strength or as close to it as possible.
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In the first two games, Jalen Williams looked tight. Not quite nervous in his first NBA Finals, but just not himself. His open shots came up short. His layups lipped around and out.
But after three straight games of superb efficiency, it’s safe to say Williams has found his groove. With a playoff-career-high 40 points in the Thunder’s Game 5 victory, he helped move Oklahoma City within one win of the city’s first championship.
Of all the riddles Indiana must solve against this loaded Thunder squad — dominant defense, suffocating depth and incredible versatility — Williams has emerged among the biggest. While the Pacers are doing all they can to contain league MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Williams has started to feast. He made 14-of-25 shots Monday, applying relentless pressure on the Pacers with a series of drives to the basket. Simply keeping Williams out of the paint has become a tall order for Indiana, and now the Pacers must figure out how to do it twice.
On SportsCenter, Richard Jefferson repeated his comparison of Jalen Williams and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander tonight to another iconic duo.
"I watched Kyrie (Irving) and LeBron (James) both go for 40 in Golden State in 2016. I had a front row seat then, just like I had for this one."
Jefferson played 14 minutes for the Cavaliers in that Game 5, the first of three straight wins for Cleveland to overcome a 3-1 deficit to win the NBA Finals.
Stating the obvious, but if Tyrese Haliburton is compromised heading into Game 6, the Pacers’ season will be over Thursday.
I cannot believe that the ESPN halftime/postgame continues to lean into this "Tyrese Haliburton should have sat the second half" idea.
He's the best player on the team. Their All-NBA player. Their offensive engine. Players of that caliber play through injuries.
What are we doing here?
Even though they failed to close out Game 4, it sort of felt like the Pacers had figured out this Thunder defense. Turns out that was not true.
The Pacers committed 23 turnovers tonight and Oklahoma City scored 32 points off those turnovers, the most they've scored off Indiana turnovers in a game in this series.
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FG %:
3FG %:
Rebounds:
Assists:
Turnovers:
Jalen Williams, four-level scorer in Game 5:
– 9-of-16 from the field in paint
– 9-of-12 free throws
– 2-of-4 on midrange/non-paint 2s
– 3-of-5 3s
Also added four assists and only one turnover. Ninth player ever with 40+ points without multiple turnovers in a NBA Finals game.
"We continued to fight no matter what, and we gave ourselves a chance," Pacers forward Pascal Siakam said after the game.
Tonight was Shai Gilgeous-Alexander's 15th game of 30-plus points in this postseason.
The full list of players accomplish that feat in a single playoff run, per the NBA:
What turns Oklahoma City into an eventual dynasty has always been Jalen Williams and Chet Holmgren reaching their eventual ceilings.
Chet's time will come, but this playoff run has firmly confirmed what J-Dub can be long-term,. That is SCARY for the rest of the NBA.
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Special performance from one of the NBA's brightest young stars…
Here's what Pacers coach Rick Carlisle said postgame about Tyrese Haliburton who did not make a field goal while battling calf pain.
“He’s not 100 percent, it’s pretty clear, but I don’t think he’s gonna miss the next game. We were concerned at halftime and he insisted on playing. I thought he made a lot of good things happen in the second half.”
“We’ll evaluate everything with Tyrese and see how he wakes up tomorrow."
The Pacers have just lost back-to-back games for the first time since March.
