The NBA Finals came to a close with a big win for one of the smallest of small-market teams in the league: the Oklahoma City Thunder.
Make no mistake, though, the market may be small but the team, led by Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, was mighty. And league MVP Gilgeous-Alexander was rewarded with the Finals MVP award, as well, marking the first time in 25 years that the same player has won both MVP trophies.
Their victory saw the Thunder defeat the Indiana Pacers, whose string of comeback victories ended in this Game 7, 103-91 loss.
In the first quarter, the Pacers’ Tyrese Haliburton went down with an Achilles injury. The superstar guard was already playing through a calf strain he suffered during Game 5. Haliburton did not return to the floor and, despite a game effort from his teammates, the Thunder controlled most of the rest of the matchup.
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Coming into the contest with a home-court advantage, the Thunder boasted a league-best regular season record of 68-14. The team progressed to their first championship series since 2012 after defeating the Minnesota Timberwolves 4-1 in the Western Conference Finals.
In the East, the Pacers dominated their rivals, the New York Knicks, 4-2, with Haliburton making a remarkable last-minute shot to win Game 2. This Finals berth marked Indiana’s first time in the championship series since 2000. The championship marks the Thunder’s first Finals victory since the team moved to OKC. Its other championship came in 1979 in the team’s previous incarnation as the Seattle Supersonics.
This year’s NBA Finals marks the seventh unique win in seven years, the longest stretch in league history, as well as the first Game 7 since 2016. It’s also the league’s most competitive Finals in years, marking the fulfillment of Commissioner Adam Silver’s effort to create parity among the NBA’s smaller market and bigger market franchises.
On the flip side, despite the strong series, the small-market matchup is likely to be one of the lowest-rated in recent memory.
This Finals could also be the last (it was their first together, too) for ESPN’s announcing team of Mike Breen, Richard Jefferson and Doris Burke. The latter, a Hall-of-Fame trailblazer and the first woman serve as in-game analyst for the NBA Finals, may not see her contract renewed.