NBA Finals<\/a>, with the Oklahoma City Thunder leading the Indiana Pacers 3-2 in the title series. Game 6 is in Indianapolis and Game 7, if necessary, will be Sunday.<\/p>\nShai Gilgeous-Alexander and the Thunder are one win away from becoming NBA champions. And Gilgeous-Alexander is on the cusp of a nearly unprecedented season when it comes to individual honors.<\/p>\n
He is the favorite to win NBA Finals MVP. He already has won the NBA MVP award for this season, meaning he could be the first double MVP since LeBron James did it with Miami in 2011-12 and 2012-13.<\/p>\n
It could get even better. Gilgeous-Alexander is also the reigning scoring champion, meaning an even more exclusive club may await him. Only three players in NBA history have won MVP, Finals MVP, a scoring title and a championship in the same season: Michael Jordan did it four times, and Shaquille O\u2019Neal and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar did it once each.<\/p>\n
Gilgeous-Alexander could join them if the Thunder win this series.<\/p>\n
The Pacers got good news a couple of hours before Game 6 when guard Tyrese Haliburton \u2014 who is battling a strained calf that flared up in Game 5 \u2014 was cleared to play.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe got a job to do tonight,\u201d Pacers coach Rick Carlisle said. \u201cWe\u2019ve got to get ready to battle a team that has been the best team in the league all year long. It\u2019s a tough game. It\u2019s an elimination game. There\u2019s a lot going on.\u201d<\/p>\n
Thursday is also the 25th anniversary of the end of Indiana\u2019s last appearance in the NBA Finals. On June 19, 2000, O\u2019Neal finished off that MVP Finals\/MVP-scoring champion\/league-champion season when he and the Los Angeles Lakers beat the Pacers in Game 6.<\/p>\n
If the Pacers avoid that fate Thursday and force a Game 7, it will be Sunday in Oklahoma City.<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
AP NBA: https:\/\/apnews.com\/nba<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"INDIANAPOLIS (AP) \u2014 The NBA season could end on Thursday night. It\u2019s Game 6 of the NBA Finals,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":110819,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3774],"tags":[3376,7,588,113,126,3866,2624,615,185,23151,6,446,1220,586,310,475,179,114,1714,209,1302,66,278],"class_list":{"0":"post-110818","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-indiana-pacers","8":"tag-ap-top-news","9":"tag-basketball","10":"tag-in-state-wire","11":"tag-indiana","12":"tag-indiana-pacers","13":"tag-indianapacers","14":"tag-indianapolis","15":"tag-kareem-abdul-jabbar","16":"tag-lebron-james","17":"tag-maria-bondarenko","18":"tag-nba","19":"tag-nba-basketball","20":"tag-nba-finals","21":"tag-ok-state-wire","22":"tag-oklahoma","23":"tag-oklahoma-city","24":"tag-oklahoma-city-thunder","25":"tag-pacers","26":"tag-rick-carlisle","27":"tag-shai-gilgeous-alexander","28":"tag-shaquille-oneal","29":"tag-sports","30":"tag-tyrese-haliburton"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/114712778135215195","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110818","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=110818"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110818\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/110819"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=110818"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=110818"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=110818"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}