THE Indiana Pacers are proving to be remarkably resilient in the NBA Finals, taking a 2-1 lead over the heavily favored Oklahoma City Thunder with a 116-107 victory in Game 3 on Wednesday night (Thursday, June 12, 2025, PH time).
The win continues a remarkable trend for the Pacers: they haven’t lost consecutive games since mid-March, now boasting a perfect 10-0 record in games immediately following a loss.
Bennedict Mathurin led the charge off the bench with 27 points, while Tyrese Haliburton contributed a near triple-double with 22 points, 11 assists and nine rebounds. Pascal Siakam added 21 points, as the Pacers’ bench outscored the Thunder’s reserves by a commanding 49-18 margin.
“This is the kind of team that we are,” Pacers coach Rick Carlisle remarked, emphasizing the team’s collective effort. “We need everybody to be ready. It’s not always going to be exactly the same guys that are stepping up with scoring and stuff like that. But this is how we’ve got to do it.”
Haliburton echoed this sentiment, stating, “So many different guys chipped in.”
Despite the Thunder holding a five-point lead heading into the fourth quarter, the Pacers, playing their first home NBA Finals game in 25 years with celebrities like Caitlin Clark and Reggie Miller in attendance, dominated the final 12 minutes.
Indiana outscored Oklahoma City 32-18 in the fourth, holding the Thunder to just 35 percent shooting. This starkly contrasts with the Thunder’s regular-season record of 61-2 when leading after three quarters; they are now 1-2 in such situations in this series.
For the Thunder, Jalen Williams scored 26 points, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander had 24, and Chet Holmgren contributed 20.
“We had a lot of good stretches of the game,” Thunder coach Mark Daigneault acknowledged. “But they had more good stretches than we did — and outplayed us over the course of 48 minutes.”
Historical significance
The game was a tightly contested affair with 15 ties, a high number for an NBA Finals game.
T.J. McConnell also made history, coming off the bench for Indiana with 10 points, five assists and five steals – a unique stat line in Finals history.
Haliburton praised the team’s depth, noting, “Our bench was amazing.”
Historically, the Game 3 winner in a tied NBA Finals series (1-1) has gone on to win the championship 33 out of 41 times, an 80.5 percent success rate. With Game 4 returning to Indiana on Friday night (Saturday in PH), the Pacers now hold a significant advantage.
“There’s a lot of areas we can clean up,” Holmgren said, looking ahead for the Thunder. “Everybody who stepped out there can be better.”
Can the Thunder break the historical trend and come back to win the series? / From the wires