{"id":73691,"date":"2025-06-03T10:04:17","date_gmt":"2025-06-03T10:04:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/73691\/"},"modified":"2025-06-03T10:04:17","modified_gmt":"2025-06-03T10:04:17","slug":"do-thunder-or-pacers-have-best-shot-to-win","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/73691\/","title":{"rendered":"Do Thunder or Pacers have best shot to win?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"play\"<\/p>\n

Thunder knock off Knicks, will battle Thunder for NBA Finals crown<\/p>\n

USA TODAY Sports’ Lorenzo Reyes breaks down how the Indiana Pacers fought their way into the NBA Finals.<\/p>\n

Sports Pulse<\/p>\n

The 2025 NBA Finals are set. The Oklahoma City Thunder<\/a> and Indiana Pacers<\/a> begin their best-of-seven championship series with Game 1 on Thursday.<\/p>\n

The Thunder have been the best team in the NBA all season. They backed it up with dominating series wins over the Memphis Grizzlies<\/a> in the first round of the NBA playoffs and the Minnesota Timberwolves<\/a> in the Western Conference Finals, with an encouraging Game 7 performance to beat the Denver Nuggets in the conference semifinals<\/a>. NBA MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander<\/a>, Jalen Williams<\/a>, Chet Holmgren<\/a> lead what many consider the deepest roster in the league and its best defense.<\/p>\n

The Pacers weren’t among the favorites<\/a> to make the NBA Finals entering the 2024-25 season, or even the 2025 playoffs, despite a run to the Eastern Conference Finals last year and a late-season surge up to the No. 4 slot in the Eastern Conference standings this year. But Indiana might be the only team with depth to perhaps match Oklahoma City<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Pacers’ ability to wear down the Knicks<\/a> with its entire rotation proved almost as crucial as Tyrese Haliburton<\/a> and Eastern Conference Finals MVP Pascal Siakam<\/a> delivering when it mattered most to defeat the Cleveland Cavaliers<\/a> in the conference semifinals and then the New York Knicks<\/a> to reach the NBA Finals. Indiana will nonetheless be an underdog<\/a> in the first NBA Finals since 2003 involving two teams that didn’t spend over the luxury tax in player salary.<\/p>\n

Here’s a look at the NBA championship odds entering the 2025 NBA Finals:<\/p>\n

NBA Finals odds 2025<\/p>\n

BetMGM<\/a>\u00a0odds for NBA Finals winner as of Monday, June 2:<\/p>\n

PERSPECTIVE: Small-market Pacers party down in big way with NBA Finals trip<\/a><\/p>\n

2025 NBA Finals odds: Series result1. Thunder in 5 games (+200)2. Thunder in 4 games (+325)3. Thunder in 6 games (+425)4. Thunder in 7 games (+500)T5. Pacers in 6 games (+1200)T5. Pacers in 7 games (+1200)7. Pacers in 5 games (+3000)8. Pacers in 4 games (+5000)<\/p>\n

Watch the NBA Finals with Fubo<\/a><\/p>\n

NBA Finals schedule 2025<\/p>\n

All times Eastern.<\/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

*if necessary<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Thunder knock off Knicks, will battle Thunder for NBA Finals crown USA TODAY Sports’ Lorenzo Reyes breaks down…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":73692,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[59,273,7,212,306,618,366,311,305,193,57,56,80,60,301,187,274,623,294,257,619,113,126,832,364,304,293,177,307,152,54,79,70,85,6,11,239,191,67,53,302,310,179,58,61,134,114,258,279,34,65,132,276,622,209,259,275,286,66,215,285,83,277,55,64,312,308,63,82,256,278,73,272,833,303],"class_list":{"0":"post-73691","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba-playoffs","8":"tag-affiliate","9":"tag-and","10":"tag-basketball","11":"tag-betting","12":"tag-cavaliers","13":"tag-chet","14":"tag-chet-holmgren","15":"tag-city","16":"tag-cleveland","17":"tag-cleveland-cavaliers","18":"tag-commerce","19":"tag-contains","20":"tag-contains-commerce-or-affiliate-content","21":"tag-content","22":"tag-denver","23":"tag-denver-nuggets","24":"tag-disclaimer","25":"tag-gilgeous-alexander","26":"tag-grizzlies","27":"tag-haliburton","28":"tag-holmgren","29":"tag-indiana","30":"tag-indiana-pacers","31":"tag-jalen","32":"tag-jalen-williams","33":"tag-knicks","34":"tag-memphis","35":"tag-memphis-grizzlies","36":"tag-minnesota","37":"tag-minnesota-timberwolves","38":"tag-modular","39":"tag-modular-story","40":"tag-national","41":"tag-national-sports","42":"tag-nba","43":"tag-nba-playoffs","44":"tag-new","45":"tag-new-york-knicks","46":"tag-news","47":"tag-now","48":"tag-nuggets","49":"tag-oklahoma","50":"tag-oklahoma-city-thunder","51":"tag-or","52":"tag-overall","53":"tag-overall-positive","54":"tag-pacers","55":"tag-pascal","56":"tag-pascal-siakam","57":"tag-playoffs","58":"tag-point","59":"tag-positive","60":"tag-scores","61":"tag-shai","62":"tag-shai-gilgeous-alexander","63":"tag-siakam","64":"tag-sport","65":"tag-sport-scores-u0026-statistics","66":"tag-sports","67":"tag-sports-betting","68":"tag-sports-betting-widget-and-disclaimer","69":"tag-sports-news","70":"tag-statistics","71":"tag-story","72":"tag-the","73":"tag-thunder","74":"tag-timberwolves","75":"tag-to","76":"tag-to-the-point","77":"tag-tyrese","78":"tag-tyrese-haliburton","79":"tag-u0026","80":"tag-widget","81":"tag-williams","82":"tag-york"},"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\/73691","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=73691"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73691\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/73692"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73691"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73691"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73691"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}