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Shaq gives thoughts on a possible Pacers-Thunder ‘small market’ Finals<\/p>\n
Shaq joins Sports Seriously to give his thoughts on if a Pacers-Thunder NBA Finals would be too ‘small market’ for the league.<\/p>\n
Sports Seriously<\/p>\n
A new NBA<\/a> champion will be crowned in 2025. The Oklahoma City Thunder<\/a> and Indiana Pacers<\/a> are set to meet in the NBA Finals<\/a> beginning Thursday, June 5 and both teams are officially seeking their first title.<\/p>\n The Thunder were the best team in the NBA throughout the 2024-25 season led by MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander<\/a> and enter this championship series as a heavy favorite to win<\/a>. They reached the NBA Finals for the first time since 2012 by trouncing the Minnesota Timberwolves in five games<\/a> during the Western Conference finals.<\/p>\n The Indiana Pacers<\/a> are more of a surprise despite making a lengthy playoff run a year ago. The Pacers ranked outside the top 10 in NBA title odds<\/a> entering the postseason only to upset the top-seeded Cleveland Cavaliers in the Eastern Conference semifinals before disposing of the New York Knicks in the conference finals to reach the NBA Finals for the first time in 25 years<\/a>.<\/p>\n Here’s a look at the latest picks, predictions and odds entering Thursday’s Game 1 of the 2025 NBA Finals<\/a> between the Oklahoma City Thunder<\/a> and Indiana Pacers:<\/p>\n NBA Finals picks: Thunder vs. Pacers predictionsUSA TODAY<\/a>: Every expert picks the Thunder<\/p>\n All of the NBA experts at USA Today Sports picked the Oklahoma City Thunder to beat the Indiana Pacers in the 2025 NBA Finals<\/p>\n Scooby Axson: Thunder in fiveJordan Mendoza: Thunder in sixLorenzo Reyes: Thunder in sixJames Williams: Thunder in sixJeff Zillgitt: Thunder in fiveSports Illustrated<\/a>: Thunder win NBA Finals<\/p>\n “The Thunder have a net rating of +11.2 in the playoffs (Indiana is sitting at +4.1), and they\u2019ve been dominant against non-Jokic opponents. Plus, the Pacers fall outside of a key trend … Since the 1996-97 season, every team that won the title finished the regular season in the top eight in the league in net rating. This season, OKC was No. 1 while the Pacers finished 13th.”<\/p>\n NBA.com<\/a>: Every expert picks the Thunder<\/p>\n John Schuhman writes, “The Thunder are, simply, the best team in basketball. Their No. 1 defense has been ridiculously good in the playoffs, holding the Grizzlies, Nuggets and Wolves to 19.6, 15.0 and 4.2 fewer points per 100 possessions, respectively, than they scored in the regular season. (Take away the\u00a0Game 3 blowout\u00a0and the Wolves\u2019 discrepancy would also be in the double-digits.) The Indiana offense vs. Oklahoma City defense could be the best one-end-of-the-floor matchup that we\u2019ve seen in the Finals in a long time, but the Thunder should have the edge on that end of the floor and the other.”<\/p>\n Thunder vs. Pacers NBA Finals Game 1 odds<\/p>\n The Oklahoma City Thunder are favorites to take a 1-0 lead over the Indiana Pacers in Game 1 of the 2025 NBA Finals, according to\u00a0BetMGM<\/a>\u00a0(odds as of 4 p.m. ET on Monday, June 2):<\/p>\n Spread: Thunder (-9.5)Moneyline: Thunder (-400); Pacers (+310)Over\/under: 230.5Thunder vs. Pacers NBA Finals series odds<\/p>\n The Oklahoma City Thunder enter Game 1 as the favorite to win the 2025 NBA Finals over the Indiana Pacers, according to BetMGM<\/a> (odds as of 4 p.m. ET on Monday, June 2)<\/p>\n Series winner: Thunder (-700); Pacers (+500)<\/p>\n Watch the NBA Finals with Fubo<\/a><\/p>\n NBA Finals 2025: Schedule, time, TV channel, live streaming<\/p>\n All times Eastern. *-if necessary<\/p>\n Game 1,\u00a0June 5:\u00a0Pacers at Thunder | ABC,\u00a0Fubo<\/a>\u00a0| 8:30 p.m.Game 2,\u00a0June 8:\u00a0Pacers at Thunder | ABC,\u00a0Fubo<\/a>\u00a0| 8 p.m.Game 3,\u00a0June 11:\u00a0Thunder at Pacers | ABC,\u00a0Fubo<\/a>\u00a0| 8:30 p.m.Game 4, June 13: Thunder at Pacers | ABC,\u00a0Fubo<\/a>\u00a0| 8:30 p.m.Game 5, June 16: Pacers at Thunder | ABC,\u00a0Fubo<\/a>\u00a0| 8:30 p.m.*Game 6, June 19: Thunder at Pacers | ABC,\u00a0Fubo<\/a>\u00a0| 8:30 p.m.*Game 7, June 22: Pacers at Thunder | ABC,\u00a0Fubo<\/a>\u00a0| 8 p.m.*<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Shaq gives thoughts on a possible Pacers-Thunder ‘small market’ Finals Shaq joins Sports Seriously to give his thoughts…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":72630,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,273,7,212,311,57,56,80,60,274,1501,623,113,126,54,79,70,85,6,1220,11,67,53,310,179,58,61,134,114,34,65,132,276,622,209,275,286,66,285,83,277,55,64,312,63,82,73,272],"class_list":{"0":"post-72629","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-affiliate","9":"tag-and","10":"tag-basketball","11":"tag-betting","12":"tag-city","13":"tag-commerce","14":"tag-contains","15":"tag-contains-commerce-or-affiliate-content","16":"tag-content","17":"tag-disclaimer","18":"tag-finals","19":"tag-gilgeous-alexander","20":"tag-indiana","21":"tag-indiana-pacers","22":"tag-modular","23":"tag-modular-story","24":"tag-national","25":"tag-national-sports","26":"tag-nba","27":"tag-nba-finals","28":"tag-nba-playoffs","29":"tag-news","30":"tag-now","31":"tag-oklahoma","32":"tag-oklahoma-city-thunder","33":"tag-or","34":"tag-overall","35":"tag-overall-positive","36":"tag-pacers","37":"tag-playoffs","38":"tag-point","39":"tag-positive","40":"tag-scores","41":"tag-shai","42":"tag-shai-gilgeous-alexander","43":"tag-sport","44":"tag-sport-scores-u0026-statistics","45":"tag-sports","46":"tag-sports-betting-widget-and-disclaimer","47":"tag-sports-news","48":"tag-statistics","49":"tag-story","50":"tag-the","51":"tag-thunder","52":"tag-to","53":"tag-to-the-point","54":"tag-u0026","55":"tag-widget"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72629","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=72629"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72629\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/72630"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72629"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72629"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72629"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}