I. The Road to The Conference Finals
Coach Thibs was fired yesterday. Or was it the day before? Or has it been weeks already?
Stunned Camus-style by Knickerbocker madman-owner James Dolan’s firing of the coach who steadfastedly guided his team to the Eastern Conference Finals, I anticipated having trouble getting interested in the Pacer-Thunder NBA Finals.
Not just that Oklahoma City — whose Thunder roared loud all season — and Indianapolis, Indiana’s Pacers are small market teams, though that’s certainly part of it: before these Finals, not just for New Yorkers, the 2025 NBA playoffs had been all about the Knicks. I was back in New York during the Indiana series (as well as the abrupt firing of veteran Coach Tom Thibodeau), hoping to imbibe the hysteria that would have flowed freely had the Knicks reached the Finals. Had they gotten that far, a loss to juggernaut Oklahoma City (OKC) might not have cost Thibs his job (1).
Three teams had dominated the NBA’s regular season, seeming to separate themselves comfortably from the pack: OKC had won 68 games, Cleveland 64, and Boston 61, but both Cleveland and Boston were eliminated before the Eastern Conference Finals, making OKC (68-14) the overwhelming favorite.
The Thunder had survived a seven-game series against Denver, which actually seemed their equal, as Denver’s brilliant Nicola Jokic is still regarded as the league’s best player, despite Shai Gilgeous Alexander (SGA)’s getting to borrow his MVP trophy for a year (2). The other three conference finalists (New York, Minnesota, and Indiana) had finished the regular season within a single game of fifty wins.
So, small market teams were predominant. Only the Knicks represented what in previous years might have been described as a “relevant market,” though, with the rise of cable and streaming, the NBA’s revenues increasingly stem from national markets, signaling a significant shift from the days when league management agonized whenever Boston, Los Angeles, and New York went unrepresented in the Finals.
Market size notwithstanding, however, Indianapolis (twenty-fifth in market size, whereas Oklahoma City ranks forty-seventh) holds a unique place in basketball history: accordingly, television viewers were treated to frequent shots of a smiling Oscar Robertson, an Indianapolis native, as well as a national treasure, still vibrant-looking at 86.
II. Following The Money
(Is My Second Apron Showing? You Betcha!)
I have long recognized that money is the guiding force behind professional sports, but here’s where it gets dicey: for those of you who — like me — simply do not register the incessant ads, the NBA is sponsored by Fan Duel, a sports gambling website that enables its “players” to design their own bets, with whatever degree of precision they desire (3). So, if you think, at any point in any game, that a particular player will have twenty points and seven rebounds by half-time, you can get down.
I only recently learned about Fan Duel and its prominence — if not ubiquity — in “Sport and Culture,” an adult education course taught by former Oakland Athletics President Roy Eisenhardt. For all these years, ruled by wistful yearnings for a more pure era — which may never have actually existed — I had never registered the ubiquitous references (4). It turns out that Fan Duel is a sports gambling website/company that has been an “official partner” of the NBA since 2021. I had been completely opaque to its very existence, no less its almost limitless intricacies.
Gambling has always threatened the integrity of both college and professional basketball, but the degree to which money governs the territory has been increasing exponentially: not only the unbelievable salaries, but the NBA’s byzantine new Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA), which imposes complicated penalties on teams who spend beyond their salary caps.
Such profligacy now triggers escalating penalties, the most severe of which occur when a team goes beyond designated spending thresh-holds into what is now known as the “second apron,” a Dante-esque circle in which a variety of taxes and penalties as severe as the forfeiture of future draft picks awaits those whose greed impels them to enter (5).
III. Conference Finals: Fans Dueling
Things had unspooled- more than progressed- through the earlier rounds, with contenders and superstars who might have gone further being prematurely eliminated: Minnesota’s ferocious Timberwolves, who last year were able to get past then-defending champion Denver, fell in four games to OKC, as Anthony Edwards proved no match for SGA.
With the field cleared for New York and Indiana to reprise their 2024 playoff match-up, these were Knickerbocker-saturated conference Finals: Julius Randall and Donte DeVincenzo, the cost of New York’s Faustian bargain to acquire Karl Anthony Towns (KAT), graced the Timberwolves starting line-up, while Indiana had former Knick O.B. Toppin. OKC center Isaiah Hartenstein had been a Knick stalwart whom management could not afford to re-sign. Imagine him together with Towns!
Game One was a series in itself: hitting its first eight shots, Indiana led 18-14 after just four minutes, as New York’s Jalen Brunson worked for shots in a way uncannily reminiscent of Oscar. Brunson is nothing if not uncanny: juking, bumping, and maneuvering like he can’t decide if he’s Oscar, Charles Barkley, or even Walt Frazier. Clyde has gotta love him to death! But Indiana’s offense was beautifully orchestrated by tall and multi-talented Tyrese Haliburton, who is far less ball dominant.
It was 20-16 before the Pacers finally missed a shot. Hey, did you think this series was gonna be another piece of cake, like the Boston Celtics? The Knicks led 36-34 at the quarter, and 67-62 at half-time, and the pace barely slowed in the second half.
With Brunson on the bench with five fouls, the Knicks built a fourteen point lead with just 2:45 left. Statisticians later found that — previously — the team ahead, given those numbers, stood 994-0!
If only I’d known! But these playoffs were as uncanny as Brunson: Indiana’s Aaron Nesmith (no relation to James Naismith) hit six three-pointers, and scored twenty points in the final five minutes of the fourth quarter!! The game went into overtime after an insane bounce on a Haliburton bomb that he backed up to launch with intent to win it outright, except he stepped on the three-point arc.
Knickerbocker co-stars Towns and Brunson combined for 78 points, but committed 15 turnovers. Throughout the series, Towns was brilliant and erratic in nearly equal proportions, but Haliburton, as per Dick Cheney, destroys: 138-135 in overtime!
Fond though I am of Thibodeau, and outraged at Dolan’s abruptly firing him, with numbers like 994-0, the coach has to bear some responsibility. Indiana’s avalanche of threes could not have happened if the Knicks had simply — and repeatedly — fouled on the ground, thereby preventing possible threes. The Indiana guards that were raining threes were crazy hot; slow them down! Make them shoot free throws: they’d have to make twelve to do equal damage to four threes (6). So much harder to storm back by ones and twos.
Thibodeau’s other coaching mistake was to concentrate the offense so exclusively on Brunson, as the Knicks very effectively do when trying to come back in fourth quarters, or in see-saw games. Why, though, when you’ve opened a big lead without him, he’s cold, and has five fouls, would you so revolve the offense around Brunson when he comes back? The lead had been achieved without him, so let him fit in, rather than playing like you need to ride him.
A crazy ending, but very early in Game Two, it became clear that neither Game One nor the Indiana- Cleveland series had been a fluke. The Knicks were a flawed team, doing it all with heart, soul, and Brunson, whereas Indiana was poised, versatile, and deep (7). Despite Brunson’s 36 points and 11 assists, Indiana prevailed 114-109, behind their co-star Pascal Siakam’s 39.
So the Knicks headed for Indiana down 2-0. Just as they had rid themselves of one pest (Boston’s Peyton Pritchard), here came 6’1” dynamo Tim McConnell to turn a 30-30 deadlock into a fifteen point Indiana lead in just three minutes. The Pacer lead reached 55-35 with 3:20 remaining in the first half, when the insanely erratic Knicks mounted another twenty-plus point comeback, as they had done twice (!) in the Boston series, lending themselves an illusory aura of charisma and invincibility that the Pacers were methodically eviscerating.
But not entirely: with Towns scoring twenty fourth quarter points, after having scored only four in the first three, Game Three turned into a 106-100 Knick win! The Pacers’ lead had languished in double digits most of the way until Towns’ insane barrage (8) finally put New York ahead 86-85 with eight minutes left.
In the critical Game Four (130-121) — which Indiana needed to preserve the home court advantage they had taken from the Knicks- Haliburton had one of his signature triple-double (32 points, 12 rebounds, 15 assists) games; without a single turnover, orchestrating a 43 point first quarter, on his way to a 20/10/9 first half. Haliburton has an extraordinary repertoire, confidently slinging no-look lasers to all corners of the court. Unlike Brunson- for whom each foray to the hoop was a knock-down, drag-out fight, he was eerily unhurried, perfectly poised and, as per Charles Barley, GUARANTEED.
Whereas Towns is overwhelmingly talented and strong, but persistently exercises bad judgment, and winds up in foul trouble. Lacking the speed to blow by anyone at all, KAT instead bullishly charges ahead, practically wearing his defenders on his way to the basket. Once again, he picked up early fouls.
“Crazy” Stan Van Gundy and I uttered simultaneously, as he launched an off-balance bomb only three seconds into the shot clock, after getting an offensive rebound. The Knick motto should be: “In Brunson we trust; Towns: he’s worth putting up with…we think.”
In Game Five, their only home court victory (111-94), the Knicks were dominant throughout (despite more silly fouls by Towns), with Brunson playing his usual forceful game, but, back in Indianapolis, they were no match for Indiana, losing Game Six going away 125-108.
As Barkley kept reminding us, Indiana likes to play fast: in the two Knicks victories, Indiana averaged 98 points, whereas in the four games Indiana won, under Haliburton’s orchestration and unique genius for managing a game’s flow, they averaged 127 (9)!
But would that be enough against OKC, which had two complementary stars in 7’1” Chet Holmgren and 6’6” third team all-NBA swingman Jaylen Williams, an extraordinary athlete, and had marched confidently through its Western semi-final against Minnesota 4-1 (10)?
IV. The Finals: Seven Games
Both finalists were led by tall guards whose size endows them with exceptional court vision to complement their inner poise.
The first three quarters of Game One made it appear that the Thunder was simply better, until a stunning 15 point fourth quarter Pacer comeback — capped by a Haliburton jump shot — delivered a 111-110 upset victory that defied credulity, as the Pacers had never led until 0.3 seconds remained.
This made four consecutive rounds in which Haliburton had hit a game-winning or game-tying shot with less than two seconds left. With just 14 points, he was still the clear choice to take the last shot, which the Pacers established themselves as OKC’s legitimate rival.
After losing Game Two (which really didn’t seem to matter, as they had already registered a road victory) without much of a struggle, the Pacers were down 32-24 at the quarter in Game Three, but, with Oscar watching lovingly (through eyes so wide that — even in times of weight gain — they were bigger than his stomach), a 26-9 run put Indiana ahead 51-46.
With Doris Burke’s pedantic and inflated expositions keeping a great game from being a simple pleasure (11), SGA showed signs of being about to take over, but Haliburton matched him, abetted by spectacular reserves T.J. McConnell — stealing everything in sight, a la Walt Frazier — and future star Bennedict Mathurin getting seven points in his first three minutes, and winding up with 27 in 22 minutes! The Pacers somehow weathered two OKC runs (8-0 to start the third quarter and 13-5 to take an 89-84 lead after three quarters) to win going away: 116-107. The enigmatic Haliburton had nearly a triple double (22-9-11), making the Pacers 20-1 in games he had graced with at least twenty points and ten assists!
In Game Four, Shai seemed not in full control — shooting not a single free throw, and having but one assist with his eleven-point first half points. Emerging (though shifting) narratives compared twin stars — now Haliburton and Siakam, and then SGA and Jaylen Williams — to Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippin, with OKC’s third star 7’1” Chet Holmgren more than filling the Dennis Roman role.
Consecutive threes from O.B. Toppin, whose limitless athletic ability and high-flying acrobatics helped give the Pacers an 82-73 lead, made a 3-1 series lead (indeed, all things!) seem possible. But the Pacers’ offense fizzled, as SGA kept steady and got progressively stronger. A 12-1 closing run sealed a 111-104 win for OKC, tying the series and restoring home-court advantage — which OKC maintained in Game Five, which Williams dominated with a 40-point outburst, following consecutive games of 26 and 27.
In Game Six, facing elimination, but seeming inspired at home, Indiana fell behind 10-2, but went on a 30-9 run for a 64-42 half-time lead, then 70-42 after five scoreless OKC minutes, reaching 90-60 after three quarters. Haliburton — obviously hampered favoring a strained calf muscle — logged twenty-three inspirational minutes, and Toppin hit four threes, tallying 20 points in 23 minutes.
Inevitably, Willis Reed’s heroic one-legged cameo in the 1970 Finals’ seventh game was invoked to celebrate Haliburton, who was valiantly struggling to contribute, even if unable to dominate. A new verb was being coined: Haliburton was said to have “Willis Reeded” around the court.
Though the shape of the story awaited the outcome of Game Seven, these Finals had been about both teams. A popular shibboleth holds that the measure of a close series is that it goes seven games; really, two theoretically equal teams who meet in Game Six with the score 3-2 make for equal probabilities of the series going six games or seven. But that leaves out motivation. Or something equally unmeasurable…and perhaps apocryphal.
This year’s Game Seven was the NBA’s first in nine years, so they did just fine with small market teams (12), all the more so from the added Game Seven revenue. In the booth, Richard Jefferson’s always upbeat commentary helped impart that special feeling: from the jump, the electric mood made it resemble an NCAA Final.
Haliburton, though, was able to play only seven minutes, during which he sparkled brilliantly, taking four long three pointers, and hitting three, until, at 16-16, with SGA gathering for an easy break-away lay-up, he fell to the floor — as if shot, and lay there, injured so badly that he is likely to miss ALL of next season with a torn Achilles tendon.
With Mathurin stepping up, Pacers led 48-47 at half-time, but, at 56-56, OKC’s juggernaut got going, scored nine straight points, and overwhelmed the valiant Pacers. Struggling to survive without their star, they were simply overmatched: it got as bad as 90-71, and ended 103-91. SGA shot only 8-27, but had 29 points and twelve assists. The Pacers, who depend on huge runs and high scores, scored between 20 and 26 in all four quarters. OKC’s great team defense had prevailed.
Yet this series — indeed these playoffs — were equally about the Pacers. As runners-up, they were as much of the story as OKC, the league’s new alpha dog.
Hoosier natives can be forgiven for feeling this was all about them, but this victory capped a full circle rebirth for OKC, which is patiently managed by Sam Presti, and may augur a budding dynasty, with three youthful stars in still-developing bodies.
Just nine years ago, with Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook as co-stars (James Harden had been traded in 2012), OKC had led defending champion Golden State 3-1 in the Western Conference Finals, but in the critical Game Six, at home, Durant took nineteen first half shots (hitting just five), in the process sabotaging season-long efforts to teach Westbrook to play team ball.
Feeling more deprived than repentant, the supremely self-righteous Durant then proceeded to desert his team-mates — and the franchise to which he had many times pledged his loyalty — to join a Golden State Warrior team he had just facilitated repeating as champions of the West! In the 2016 Finals, Lebron James’ Cleveland Cavaliers went through the door opened by Draymond Green’s richly deserved suspension, and came back from a 3-1 deficit to win in seven.
Green and Durant (13) then became unlikely team-mates for two subsequent championships.
Finally, there’s the questions of risk assessment and who is responsible for decisions that put an athlete’s bodily integrity at risk. Just the athlete? Is it simply a matter of assumption of risk? If Haliburton were regarded as a 50% likelihood of incurring an injury as serious as his torn Achilles, might the team share responsibility with him for the decision? How about 25%?
NOTES
1 Some believe that, despite measurable progress in each of his five seasons, unless Thibodeau brought a championship this season, Dolan was determined to can him. Despite the appeal of his radical candor and obvious love of the game, Thibs was widely criticized for playing his starters too many minutes. On TNT’s wonderful but now-discontinued post-game show, Kenny Smith quipped that, “even in a baseball game, Thibs wouldn’t play nine guys.”
2 We no longer talk of the once-mythologized “law of averages,” but it’s back in modern guise as the dictum that “it’s a game of runs.”
In Game Seven of the Denver-OKC series, the Nuggets sped to a 26-16 lead after about six minutes, at which point, during the obligatory time-out, I took to screaming “Rest Jokic now” at my television: here was a time to disrupt OKC’s thinking — to fuck with their sense that they had enough familiarity with the game’s rhythms to retain command the game’s flow.
To rest Jokic early might have confused to OKC, which knew it was “due for a run.” Changing the substitution pattern might not only have provided Jokic with a few more needed minutes of rest, but (as a rhythm-disrupter) possibly sparked a counter-run. If not, it was going to happen anyway, and you have Jokic rested and ready to return as soon as you want to counter.
3 Since cleaning up in penny-a-point games with two less obsessional seventh grade friends, I have scrupulously avoided sports gambling, to the point of so ignoring commercials that I never even registered the presence of Fan Duel ads.
4 I poignantly recall the January, 1954 New York Post headline announcing that Jack Molinas had been barred from the NBA for life because of betting on his own team to cover the point spread. This was just two weeks before I was going to attend- with my father- the NBA’s fourth annual All Star Game, for which Molinas was the only rookie selected.
Molinas later resurfaced as fixer-impresario of the 1960 basketball scandals, which touched me personally, as the scandals “broke” at the Palestra, in a Columbia-Penn game for which my Columbia freshman team opened. That game proved to be a watershed, coming to the attention of New York D.A. Frank Hogan, who had prosecuted the 1951 scandals involving CCNY, the only team ever to win the NCAA and NIT titles in the same year, and prosecuted aggressively in the scandals of 1961.
So aggressively that innocent young future all-stars Connie Hawkins and Roger Brown — members (along with me) of the high school class of 1960 — were banned from the NBA, without ever having transgressed beyond associating with Molinas. Brown and Hawkins were not even playing college basketball yet, as freshmen still had their own teams and only became eligible for “varsity ball” as sophomores.
Facing Penn in the 1060-61 season, Columbia was a big underdog, and its sophomore star Freddie Portnoy was charged by the fixers with making sure that Penn covered the spread: after all — the gamblers assured him — the Game’s outcome would not be affected, as there was no way Columbia could possibly beat Penn. However, in the first half, Portnoy made several of the low percentage shots he was taking, relying on the odds to ensure that he would miss most of them, as it would be crude and obvious to miss intentionally.
With Columbia actually leading at half-time, Joe Greene, Molinas’ second in command, was in the stands and believed that Portnoy was double-crossing him. Infuriated and out of control, Greene (who had been a counselor and storied figure at my summer camp in Maine) stormed down to the court at half time, and began berating Portnoy. His erratic behavior came to the attention of “the authorities,” eventually leading to Hogan’s investigation.
I recall Portnoy as a rather naïve and innocent Columbia sophomore. When caught, he simply said that he didn’t throw any winnable games, and had simply hoped to put away about $20,000, perhaps enough to start his own small business.
5 Immediately after the playoffs, the Celtics traded (“off-loaded,” we now say) Kristaps Porzingis and Jrue Holiday in order to get their salary total below second apron level (currently set at just under $208 million for the 2025-26 season). Though only a year away from being champions, the Celts now face the 2025-26 season without these two important cogs, as well as injured Jason Tatum.
6 By contrast, in Game Two, Indiana started to bear hug New York’s brick-laying Mitchell Robinson as soon as he came in, negating any possibility of New York’s coming back with a storm of threes.
7 Speed kills: having to play at a faster pace than the Knicks were accustomed to maintaining, O.G. Anunoby’s found his usual explosiveness compromised; he struggled to maintain his balance.
8 Even when he was throwing in everything, I kept shouting “You’re crazy Towns” at my television.
9 Suddenly, it dawned on me that we’d been here before: https://www.firstofthemonth.org/lights-out-in-indiana/
10 Remarkably, the unsung West Coast Conference boasted as alumni not only these two Thunder stars, but also Pacers starting guard Andrew Nembhard, making three of ten starters in the Finals.
11 In early career, Doris had been a great addition to the booth, bringing refreshing acumen and personality, but she has devolved — while ascending the ladder — into a grating, pompous, intrusive presence who lectures compulsively. She has been as spoiled by success as Draymond Green.
12 Not everyone was similarly sanguine: one friend complained that “the NBA finals this year was just a pushing and shoving contest not the elegance that I like to watch. How does this all come about? Does the league office issue a mandate to allow pushing, blocking and grabbing? Or is it all just organic?”
13 Right around the time of Game Seven, it was made known that KD, as he is now known, got himself traded to Houston, a title contender that he could make a lot better.