The Oklahoma City Thunder are NBA champions. Oklahoma City capped a thrilling NBA Finals Sunday night with a dominant second half in Game 7 to secure a 103-91 win over the Indiana Pacers and the franchise's first NBA title since it moved from Seattle to Oklahoma City in 2008. A Pacers team that rallied for multiple unlikely wins throughout the playoffs kept the pressure on in the fourth quarter after digging a 22-point hole. But without injured star Tyrese Haliburton (6'5''-G-2000, college: Iowa St.), they couldn't complete the comeback. The win caps a brilliant season in which the Thunder posted a league-best 68 wins and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (6'6''-PG-1998, college: Kentucky) was named league MVP for the first time. Fittingly, Gilgeous-Alexander powered the Thunder effort Sunday night to put away a Pacers team that pushed them to the brink. He finished with 29 points and 12 assists to pace the champions. Jalen Williams (6'6''-G/F-2001, college: Santa Clara) accounted for 20 points for the Thunder. Mathurin replied with 24 points, while Pascal Siakam (6'9''-F-1994, college: NM State) and T.J. McConnell (6'1''-G-1992, college: Arizona) tossed in 16 points apiece for the Pacers. The game was marred by a serious Haliburton injury in the first quarter. Haliburton hit three quick 3s in the first quarter before falling to the floor with what the team described as a lower-leg injury. His father later confirmed to ESPN that the injury was to Haliburton's Achilles tendon. The Pacers didn't wilt in the aftermath of the injury and continued to push the Thunder through the first half en route to a 48-47 halftime lead. But a Pacers team playing without its star didn't have enough in the tank to compete after the break. The swarming defense that has become Oklahoma City's trademark took over after halftime as the Thunder repeatedly turned Pacers turnovers into transition points. And after a 4-for-18 first half from 3, Oklahoma City found its stroke from long distance. The result was a 34-20 OKC edge in the third quarter that turned Indiana's one-point halftime lead into an 81-68 Pacers deficist. The largest lead of the game at the time set up the fourth quarter as a coronation for the Thunder in front of a raucous home crowd. The Thunder delivered with an 9-0 run to start the fourth that added up to a knockout blow to an otherwise sensational Pacers season that ends in the heartbreak of a Game 7 loss and a potentially devastating injury to their star player that will cast a pall of the 2025-26 season. The Pacers got this far as the No. 4 seed in the East thanks to a remarkable playoff run that featured repeated remarkable comebacks from double-digit deficits. Those rallies were capped by Haliburton shots to win or force overtime in a win in each round of the playoffs, including Game 1 against Oklahoma City. Haliburton got off to a hot start Sunday with nine first quarter points while continuing to play on a strained calf that he suffered in Game 5. But devastation struck late in the first quarter. Haliburton fell to the floor after re-injuring the same leg that previously sustained the calf strain. He was in immediate and obvious pain, prompting his teammates to surround him on the court. He needed help of the floor with the aid of a trainer and teammate. He couldn't put weight on his injured right leg as he was helped to the tunnel with a towel over his face. Before halftime, his father, John Haliburton confirmed the fear to ESPN's Lisa Salters that Haliburton had sustained an Achilles tendon injury. The precise nature of the injury wasn't made clear, but a ruptured Achilles tendon could sideline Haliburton for a significant part if not all of the 2025-26 season. His night in the biggest game of the NBA season and the biggest game of his career was clearly done. And without his services in the second half, the Pacers were overwhelmed after halftime. The Pacers continued to fight after trailing by as many as 22 points at 90-68 in the fourth quarter and cut the OKC lead to 10 points. But without Haliburton, they didn't have the firepower to complete the rally that they have so many times before this postseason. The Thunder held on to celebrate the first major professional championship in Oklahoma City history in front of their home crowd.
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Everyone has a lucky number in Las Vegas. For the Milwaukee Bucks, it was 3. And the NBA Cup was their prize. Tournament MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo (6'11''-F-1994, agency: Octagon Europe) scored 26 points to go along with 19 rebounds and 10 assists, Damian Lillard (6'3''-PG-1990, college: Weber St.) added 23 points and the Bucks connected on 17 3-pointers on the way to beating the Oklahoma City Thunder 97-81 in the NBA Cup title game on Tuesday night. “Everybody did their job,” Lillard said. “We defended. We played well from the start of the game all the way through the finish. I think it just showed what we’ve been building. I think it all came out in our biggest game to this point.” Brook Lopez (7'0''-C-1988, college: Stanford) and Gary Trent Jr. (6'6''-SG-1999, college: Duke) each scored 13 for the Bucks, who joined the Los Angeles Lakers as the only champions of the 2-year-old event. A 19-5 Milwaukee run in the second half turned what was a five-point game into a 19-point game early in the fourth, and the Bucks kept control the rest of the way. “It’s great, it’s great for our team,” Antetokounmpo said. “We’re getting better.... We know we’re leaving Vegas as a better team. I’m so proud of this group. Man, I’m so proud of this group.” Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (6'6''-PG-1998, college: Kentucky) scored 21 and Jalen Williams (6'6''-G/F-2001, college: Santa Clara) added 18 for the Thunder, who had scored at least 99 points in every game this season. But they sputtered in plenty of ways Tuesday, getting outscored 51-15 from beyond the arc and shooting only 34%. “We didn’t shoot it well,” Gilgeous-Alexander said. “But that’s never an excuse.... We’ve shot bad and won games before, so that’s not an excuse.” Isaiah Hartenstein had 16 points and 12 rebounds for Oklahoma City, which was held to 31 points after halftime. “We did some good things. We outscored them in the paint so obviously we did the job defensively on that end,” Thunder coach Mark Daigneault said. “But obviously a tough night offensively all the way around for us. We didn’t score nearly enough points, especially in the second half, to give ourselves a chance to win. But we can learn from it, move forward here.” It’s a game that only counted for tournament purposes. There was about $300,000 in additional bonus money for Bucks players — they got $514,971 apiece, while the Thunder players got $205,988 each — but the win, the loss and the statistics from the game won’t count toward the regular season. Mired toward the bottom of the NBA after a 2-8 start, the Bucks have been on a tear since. This was their 13th win in their last 16 games, even though it won’t be part of the official record. No matter: When the Bucks emptied their bench with 1:37 left, Antetokounmpo pumped his fists like it was a true championship moment. He’s won bigger games — he and the Bucks captured the 2021 NBA title, after all. But they said from the outset of this tournament that the NBA Cup was a priority. And they left no doubt in the end. “We struggled coming out of the gates,” Bucks coach Doc Rivers said. “No one here doubted what we can be and who we can be and we just hung in there. We stuck together and this is the byproduct of a team sticking together. But we still have work to do.” Antetokounmpo was even more succinct: “Job’s not done,” he said. His point was clear: There’s another title to chase in June. But this was still a trophy moment to celebrate.
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The NBA's refreshed All-Star Game format finished with a familiar result for Golden State Warriors star Stephen Curry (6'2''-G-1988, college: Davidson): being presented with the Kobe Bryant Trophy as the All-Star MVP. Curry scored 12 points in Team OGs' 41-25 victory Sunday in the first-to-40 finale against the Global Stars, to win the league's new round-robin tournament to cap of the festivities. With Team OGs, coached by Shaquille O'Neal, up 23-15 in the championship game, Curry showed off his otherworldly shooting range by hitting a 3 from half court. It put his group up by double digits and ignited the Chase Center crowd, which cheered on their hometown star. With no clear-cut MVP for the night until Curry's half-court heave, the guard's teammates kept feeding him the ball encouraging the league's all-time 3-point leader to keep shooting and he delivered two more 3s to give his team an overwhelming 39-21 lead. Jayson Tatum (6'8''-F/G-1998, college: Duke) finished it off with a dunk to hit the target score and bring his scoring total to 15 points. "It was one of those little flurries, just having fun," Curry said of his 3-point barrage. "The half-court shot, I was going to take one at some point. [Nikola] Jokic was picking me up at half court, which was hilarious." And the All-Star Game, which recently had been become a bit of a joke, with both teams combining to score 397 points in Indianapolis last year in a contest devoid of much competitive spirit, inched closer back toward respectability. "I think it was a good step in the right direction to reinvigorate the game in some way," Curry said of the format, which split the 12 Eastern Conference and 12 Western Conference All-Stars into teams of eight, going against a fourth team comprising eight first- and second-year players who won the Rising Stars game Friday night. Curry received 12 of the 14 votes for MVP, with Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (6'6''-PG-1998, college: Kentucky) and Tatum receiving one apiece. It was the second All-Star MVP of Curry's career. He won it in Cleveland in 2022, scoring 50 points (while shooting 16-for-27 from the 3-point line) to earn Team LeBron a 163-160 victory over Team Durant. Curry acknowledged the new structure of the game is not conducive for an obvious MVP candidate to stand out. "The format doesn't allow for, like, a strong storyline to build," Curry said. Through the semifinal games, Gilgeous-Alexander who scored 12 points on 5-for-5 shooting, including a clinching dunk to beat the Young Stars team 41-32 was the lead MVP contender for the Global Stars. And Damian Lillard (6'3''-PG-1990, college: Weber St.) who scored nine points on 3-for-5 shooting and ended it on a 27-foot pull-up 3 to win 42-35 over the Rising Stars was in pole position for the OGs. Lillard, who won MVP last year by scoring 39 points for the East and going 11-for-23 from 3, said the award is more ephemeral now. "Anytime you're going to look at the MVP, you want to look at what jumped out," Lillard said. "In this type of format, nobody is going to have 50 points, or 30 points is even going to be hard to do unless you shoot it every time and make every shot. But you look at what jumps out. When was the crowd the loudest? What jumped off the floor? And that's probably who your MVP is going to be. So, watching the game, it was like, 'I'm pretty sure Steph is going to win it.'... I don't know how many points he had, it couldn't have been that much, but I think it was the eye test." Kyrie Irving, a fellow member of the OGs team, echoed Lillard's endorsement of Curry. "It's easy to feed the hot guy, man and once he hit his first 3, basically every time we were looking for him," Irving said. "When he's in his hometown and playing in front of his home crowd, we all know what that means as an NBA player, as his peer. So, we're not going to get in the way of that, man." Curry became the 15th player in league history to win All-Star MVP more than once and the 17th player in league history to win the award when his NBA team was hosting the event. "The hosting experience was unbelievable," Curry said when asked about the Warriors welcoming the All-Star events in both Oakland and San Francisco. "I'm not going to complain about being tired or exhausted. This is an honor and a blessing to be able to celebrate and share this beautiful Bay Area that's been a part of my life for the last 16 years and the basketball history and culture that's here and the amazing fans that are here and the impact that the game being here has had on both cities."
Courtesy of: espn.com