Pacers vs. Thunder live updates: 2025 NBA Finals Game 7 start time, picks and predictions – The Athletic – The New York Times

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The Oklahoma City Thunder are hosting the Indiana Pacers in a winner-take-all Game 7 of the 2025 NBA Finals.
The Thunder's only previous championship came in 1979 when the team was located in Seattle and known as the SuperSonics, while the Pacers' only titles came in the ABA in the early 1970s.
Follow live for the latest updates, expert analysis and exclusive access from The Athletic's team of NBA writers on the ground in Oklahoma City.
I have thought about this for, well, nine years…
First timeout, first quarter, Game 7 2016. The in-huddle camera catches Steve Kerr telling the Warriors. "We're gonna play all night."
God he was right. Two behemoths, giving every last ounce they had, with three of the more memorable plays in the closing moments of any game, ever.
What to expect from OKC-Pacers in Game 7?
We're gonna play all night.
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After a full NBA season and an engaging two months of playoff basketball, we are now just moments away from Game 7 of the 2025 NBA Finals from Oklahoma City.
Stay tuned for play-by-play, live updates, analysis, reactions and more.
The Thunder are going back to their double-big starting lineup for Game 7. Isaiah Hartenstein will start alongside Chet Holmgren in the frontcourt. This is noteworthy because Oklahoma City began the second half of Game 6 with Alex Caruso in the starting lineup instead of Hartenstein.
Here is a look back at the last five NBA Finals Game 7s:
2016: Cavaliers beat Warriors
2013: Heat beat Spurs
2010: Lakers beat Celtics
2005: Spurs beat Pistons
1994: Rockets beat Knicks
It is rare that the star of the show can be an X-factor, but that is exactly what Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is tonight for the Oklahoma City Thunder, In Game 6, the Indiana Pacers harassed SGA into his worst game of the series, and maybe his worst game of the entire playoffs. More importantly, the Pacers turned him into a gunner, and not the balanced superstar that we have been used to seeing. He has to be the best player on the floor tonight, which isn't a terribly tough ask. But he also has to make sure his teammates get involved, while being the best player on the floor, which is the tougher ask. The mentality of a Game 7 will obviously beg him to go into takeover mode from the opening tip. He has to be dominant, but not heliocentric. He has to be great, but not at the expense of ball movement. This will be the biggest game of his basketball life. His task is to bring the correct balance to it all.
This is the game that the NBA has long wanted.
It represents the results of the changes the league has pushed for years, over successive CBAs to remake the NBA into what it wants. This is the NFL-ification of the NBA, for better or for worse.
The NBA came to prominence as a mostly bi-coastal and big-city league. This year, it has the smallest market finals ever, a testament to the effects of successive collective bargaining agreements and what the league wants to entrench, Mark Walter’s billions notwithstanding. The 2023 CBA installed a second-apron payroll threshold, which is considered a hard cap by many around the league. It imposed punitive monetary penalties for luxury-tax repeaters. It pushed to squeeze teams into the financial middle.
“It was very intentional,” Silver said when the NBA Finals started. “It didn’t begin with me. It began with (longtime commissioner) David (Stern) and successive collective bargaining agreements that we set out to create a system that allowed for more competition in the league, with the goal being having 30 teams all in position, if well managed, to compete for championships. That’s what we’re seeing here. The goal is that market size essentially becomes irrelevant.”
Whether it’s the Thunder or the Pacers, the NBA will have its seventh different champion in seven years. Eleven teams have made the finals since 2019; eight teams reached the finals in the 13 years before that.
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With NBA Finals Game 7, league gets the night and spotlight it’s been seeking
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The Thunder have had some clear lines of success through six games of this NBA Finals. When they score more than 110 points, they win. When they attempt more than 30 free throws, and make more than 25 of them, they win. When they get more than 10 offensive rebounds, they win. When they keep the pace under 100 possessions per 48 minutes, they win.
That takes us to Chet Holmgren. Defensively, Holmgren has been strong. His defensive possessions in the fourth quarter of Game 4 were critical, as were his rebounds, especially the ones that led to second-chance points. Holmgren has made 18 of 19 free throws, and has only 10 turnovers in the series.
But Holmgren has been inconsistent offensively at best in the Finals, and absolutely woeful as a scorer. He has 68 points on 68 shots despite being a very skilled, tall person. Myles Turner has blocked as many of Holmgren’s 17 3-point attempts as he has made (2). Overall, Holmgren is shooting 35.3 percent in the NBA Finals. That would be a nasty number for a 6-foot-1 player, let alone a 7-foot-1 player.
Holmgren has played eight games against Turner and the Indiana Pacers in his career. He has made at least half of his field goal attempts in only one of those eight games, and that was Game 2, when he made 6-of-11 shots from the field. In the last two games, Holmgren has missed 18 of 24 shots, and hasn’t attempted any free throws.
Holmgren never had three straight single-digit scoring games in a row at Gonzaga, and he hasn’t so far in his pro career in Oklahoma City. Now’s not the time for Holmgren to descend to a new valley. After scoring only 9 points in Game 5 and a postseason career low 4 points in Game 6, the Thunder need their third-best player to be an interior presence and to put the ball in the basket often in Game 7.
The Indiana Pacers are about to play in a Game 7. Jump shots tend to get tight in Game 7s, especially in NBA Finals Game 7s. You saw how shaky the Thunder were in Indiana for Game 6 with a chance to close that series out on the road. Will the Pacers have the same level of success with their ability to put the ball in the basket?
Perhaps. But the Pacers have some unique Game 7 experience to draw from. 308 teams have played in a Game 7 in NBA postseason history. None of them have ever made a higher field goal percentage than the 2024 Pacers, who went into Madison Square Garden and obliterated the New York Knicks for 130 points while shooting a Game 7 record 67.1 percent from the field on a Sunday afternoon.
The Pacers made everything against a Knicks defense that was starting current Oklahoma City Thunder center Isaiah Hartenstein. And it wasn’t the layups for the Pacers in that Game 7, though making 20 of 30 shots in the restricted area is healthy. Consider:
Nerves? Not at all! New York even got the customary godsend of Donte DiVincenzo's Game 7 record-breaking 3-point shooting (he made 9 of them!), and it didn’t matter because the six Pacers who attempted at least eight shots in that Game 7 at New York last year all made at least 50 percent from the field.
As usual, it was Tyrese Haliburton who led the way. He made 4 first-quarter 3s, scored 14 of his team-high 26 points in the first quarter, and the lead never changed hands after the opening period.
Playing at New York in the semifinals was supposed to be intimidating. Like most things involving Madison Square Garden, it was just a legendary step for the visiting team. Haliburton has led the Pacers to a 60-point half in each of the six games in the NBA Finals so far, but the 60-point halves in Oklahoma City have all been after halftime.
We know that the Pacers are going to show up in this Game 7. But will it be eventually? Or will it be immediately, like they did last year to end New York’s season?
It’s the final game of the season, after 25 weeks of regular season action and 10 weekends of playoffs. And the Oklahoma City Thunder will host the Indiana Pacers in what is the 20th Game 7 in NBA Finals history.
The Thunder set the NBA record for double-digit wins in a regular season with 54. But no NBA Finals Game 7 has ever been decided by 20 points or more. And this is an Indiana Pacers team looking to become only the second team to win a championship despite not being a top-three seed in the current 16-team postseason format, established in 1984.
This Game 7 will NOT feature Scott Foster, who also worked the 2010 and 2013 Game 7s. In 2016, Foster worked Game 6 of the Finals. Foster also was the crew chief five weeks ago when Oklahoma City overcame an 11-point first quarter deficit to blow out the Denver Nuggets in Game 7 of the West semifinals, and the controversial Game 4 of this NBA Finals. James Capers, Josh Tiven, and Sean Wright are all making their NBA Finals Game 7 debuts.
A free-throw-heavy game like the one Foster officiated in Game 4 would benefit the Thunder, but perhaps this game takes on a “let them play/fight” rhythm that would benefit the Pacers if they can run, and the Thunder if they can steal without impunity.
The last NBA Finals Game 7 to feature two rosters of players who never played in a NBA Finals Game 7 was the 1994 version, won by the Houston Rockets over the New York Knicks, played on this day 31 years ago. A team has never scored more than 106 points through four quarters of an NBA Finals and lost; the last time any NBA Finals team scored more than 100 points was in 1988.
We will see history in real time tonight at Paycom Center. Here are two keys to the game, featuring an unconventional Pacers team that has been in this spot before, and a Thunder player who needs to provide a timely slump buster.
The Thunder are in grave danger here, in part because they have too often seemed to lack the necessary focus, intensity and gravitas required to win big games this time of year. Game 7 is where they pay the ultimate price for that cool, calm and collected demeanor, and the Pacers become legends for pulling off an epic upset.
To sum up, six staffers picked Indiana and five picked Oklahoma City. See all the predictions here.
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NBA Finals Game 7 predictions: Will Pacers or Thunder claim 2025 title?
This series has lived up to its length. Aside from having no overtime games, it has given us a bit of everything: a wild comeback, dominant efforts on home court, signature moments and hints at both individual and collective greatness. Crucially, nothing has remained static or predictable.
Making a prediction for Game 7 is obviously foolish. It’s one game between teams that have both proved they can confound the other in the right setting. That last word is why I’ll default to picking the Thunder in a close-ish game, maybe most similar to Game 5, when Oklahoma City kept Indiana at arm’s length for most of the night, with the Pacers making a late run to take it.
In the end, there just isn’t much to choose from between the two teams. So, I’ll take the one with home court, a healthier roster and a better regular-season résumé.
However, if you are picking this game with any degree of certainty, I don’t trust you.
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The Pacers will win Game 7.
I have no fancy stats or analysis to back this belief, other than every time it makes sense to go against the Pacers, they win. So why can’t Indiana win one more game in Oklahoma City?
I also can’t pick against Tyrese Haliburton. I expect him to pull off another miracle. I have no idea what he’ll do, but I expect something special.
The Pacers might be the greatest collection of intangibles I’ve seen in the NBA Finals. There’s really not one dominant player in the sense of one being an MVP candidate, but they keep winning — and they’ll do it again.
Pacers coach Rick Carlisle: “I just saw a video that's probably going to go viral. Of some busses, open top busses, presumably for the parade that are already painted with them as champions. That's all I'm thinking about right now.”
I predicted the Thunder would win this series in five games, and I thought they would take care of business in Game 6. Whoops. The Pacers keep making me look foolish for underestimating them. Maybe they’ll do it one more time.
I just think the Thunder win tonight. They’re 10-2 with an average margin of victory of 20.6 points at home in the playoffs.
The Thunder are too good at Paycom Center for me to pick against them.
The Thunder have been the NBA’s best team all season. They have the MVP. At home, they should have the advantage. The Pacers will knock them off anyway.
At this point in the series, I trust Indiana’s bench more. T.J. McConnell and Obi Toppin have had huge moments. Taking care of the ball is never easy against the warlocks of the Thunder defense, but Indiana has committed 16 or fewer turnovers in four of the six games so far. When not coughing up the ball, the Pacers just have more scoring threats, and their defense has been great for much of the series.
They will need a big game from someone random (maybe Myles Turner, who is due to make some shots?), but I just trust the Pacers a little bit more than Oklahoma City.
I never thought I would reach this place, but I’m here now.
Oklahoma City, congrats on the title.
The Thunder have played one Game 7 in these playoffs and they ran roughshod over the Denver Nuggets. I see the same thing happening tonight. The Thunder will emerge victorious with a comfortable win.
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The easy choice, and probably the right one, is the Thunder at home, where they have been outstanding all through the playoffs. But nothing about this amazing finals series has been easy, and the Pacers have a fiber about them that I can’t overlook. History says this will be a rock fight. As our guy Mike Vorkunov pointed out, no team in a Game 7 in the finals has scored 100 points since 1988.
The Thunder can absolutely win with their defense, which has been the star of these playoffs. But I think a low-scoring affair benefits Indiana because it reduces the likelihood of an Oklahoma City home blowout, which we’ve seen so many times in these playoffs. If the Pacers can keep it close, they just seem to always find a way.
This has been an incredible series. Both teams have proved that they are worthy champions. I like the Pacers’ guts a little bit more.
I picked the Thunder in seven at the beginning of this series, and I’m sticking with them.
The Pacers have been a respectable, even dangerous, challenger. But I believe league MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander will bounce back with a big-time performance in Game 7 and cement one of the greatest guard seasons we’ve ever seen.
Indiana doubled SGA a lot in Game 6, causing him to commit a playoff career-high eight turnovers. Assuming the three-time All-Star is more poised under pressure and the role players around him shoot much better at home (Aaron Wiggins, Lu Dort, Alex Caruso and Cason Wallace were a combined 2-of-11 on 3-pointers in Game 6), then the Thunder should claim their first title since the franchise relocated from Seattle to Oklahoma City in 2008.
I’ll take the Pacers to win tonight. I think it sets up two things for storylines.
One, it’s the confusion of people trying to figure out how this Pacers team ended up as the best team in the NBA, and it brings into question if Adam Silver’s NBA is working.
Two, it sets the Thunder up for a monster 2025-26 season where they win 73 games and go, like, 16-2 in the playoffs to win the title as their own revenge for everybody calling them chokers all year.

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