This series has the teams that finished fourth (Oklahoma City) and seventh (Indiana) respectively in points per game<\/a> this season, posting 120.5 and 117.4 PPG respectively. The Thunder were also very strong on defense<\/a>, allowing 107.6 points per game (third in the league) this regular season<\/a>.<\/p>\n The Pacers were weaker there, conceding 115.1 points per game (17th). But they\u2019ve been stingier in the playoffs, allowing 113.3 PPG (although that\u2019s still only 13th, and well behind the Thunder at 106.3, fourth). And both teams have obvious stars to watch, including Oklahoma City\u2019s Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (second in these playoffs<\/a> with 476 points) and Indiana\u2019s Tyrese Haliburton (10th with 301).<\/p>\n On the broadcasting front, this is the 20th NBA Finals assignment for Breen. It\u2019s the 17th NBA Finals assignment for Burke across all roles, including work as a TV and radio analyst, as well as a TV reporter. And it comes with this ABC\/ESPN booth of Breen, Burke, and Jefferson under some scrutiny as to its future, including suggestions that Tim Legler might earn a promotion<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n This also stands out as the last NBA Finals where ESPN\/ABC\u2019s surrounding coverage will largely be from their own personalities. Under the new NBA deals next year, they\u2019ll continue to broadcast the Finals, but they\u2019ll have the TNT Sports-produced\u00a0Inside The NBA on their airwaves. There are many questions still to be resolved about what that will mean for ESPN studio coverage, but it seems likely that Ernie Johnson, Charles Barkley, Shaquille O\u2019Neal, and Kenny Smith will be heavily featured in place of some of the current ESPN studio talent. So this is a last opportunity to see how the current setup works.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Here\u2019s a look at the announcing assignments for the 2025 NBA Finals between the Oklahoma City Thunder and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":80196,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[11875,1431,12536,7,6,11],"class_list":{"0":"post-80195","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba-playoffs","8":"tag-2025-nba-finals","9":"tag-2025-nba-playoffs","10":"tag-announcing-schedules","11":"tag-basketball","12":"tag-nba","13":"tag-nba-playoffs"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/114634642162790436","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80195","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=80195"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80195\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/80196"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80195"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80195"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80195"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Tyrese](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/tyrese-haliburton.jpg\")
<\/a>Tyrese Haliburton at NBA Finals Media Day on June 4, 2025. (Alonzo Adams\/Imagn Images.)<\/p>\n