Good morning, I’m Tyler Lauletta. I love Game 7s and am O.K. with admitting when I was wrong. See below.

In today’s SI:AM: 

🏀Haliburton heroics
🏉Playoffs for Patriots?  
🏀WNBA officiating

The best two words in sports…

The Indiana Pacers did the dang thing. Facing a do-or-die Game 6 in the NBA Finals and with their superstar Tyrese Haliburton playing on an injured leg, the Pacers dug deep and dominated the Oklahoma City Thunder to force a Game 7 on Sunday night.

It’s set to be just the 20th Game 7 in the history of the NBA Finals, and it’s going to be a doozy.

The Pacers’ win didn’t come as easy as the score made it look. Indiana started off the night by missing their first eight shots and ceding a 10–2 lead to the Thunder. For a moment, it looked like it might be a walk for OKC. But Indiana locked in, made eight of their next 10 shots, and would close the first half on an electric 30–9 run capped off by two ridiculous highlights courtesy of Pascal Siakam.

In many ways, Thursday night felt like the Pacers’ most complete win of their already incredible playoff run, taking the best aspects of their two Finals’ wins from earlier in the series and pushing them into overdrive. Like in Game 3, the Pacers flipped the turnover battle on the Thunder, forcing 21 turnovers from OKC while committing just 11 of their own. And as was the case with both of their first two wins in the Finals, the Pacers were able to limit the damage they were hit with from beyond the arc, with the Thunder shooting a dismal 26.7% on 30 attempts from three-point range.

The Pacers also found heroic efforts from their bench on Thursday. Obi Toppin led the team in scoring with 20 points in 23 minutes, and T.J. McConnell was once again a spark of energy, putting up 12 points, nine rebounds, six assists and four steals in his 24 minutes on the floor.

While neither of these teams hold a title, Game 6 made it extremely obvious which team had faced backs-against-the-wall basketball before, and which team was the second-youngest in league history to reach the Finals. The pressure has now flipped fully back to the Thunder. Can they keep a short memory, toss this loss aside, and play 48 more minutes of championship basketball to lift the title? Or do lingering doubts claw their way further into their heads after a few early misses? We’ll find out on Sunday, and the drama will be fantastic.

Now, a quick confession. When the first round of the playoffs had ended and we were down to eight teams competing for the NBA championship, I was charged with blogging a silly little blog imagining which potential matchups we’d most like to see in the NBA Finals based on the ephemeral idea of “watchability.” Of 16 possible matchups at the time, I ranked OKC vs. Indy... dead last.

Whoops! My bad! But three quick notes in my defense:

  • At this point, the Pacers had only pulled off one of the four or five epic playoff endings they would produce during this run.
  • I had a caveat in there saying that I would love to be proven wrong and
  • Come on, man, absolutely NO ONE saw this coming.

Want to know how unexpected the Pacers’ run to the Finals was? When Tyrese Haliburton’s dad was banned from attending games after his kerfuffle with Giannis Antetokounmpo, it was initially reported that he would not be attending games “for the foreseeable future.” Translation: The NBA was feeling pretty sure that the Pacers would not be going too much further in the playoffs and this was a problem that would solve itself.

I bring this up simply to illustrate how far we’ve come. Even when the Finals were officially set and the Pacers had been certified chosen by the basketball gods several times over, the Thunder entered the series as massive favorites. But here we are, on the verge of a Game 7 that is truly up for grabs.

After a postseason that has been absolutely full of surprises, I’m struggling to think of an outcome on Sunday that could shock us one last time. Everything feels on the table. A Thunder win by a million? Sure, they’re at home and have the best player on the floor and the NBA MVP. Pacers in a squeaker? It’s what they’ve done all through the playoffs! Indiana dominates whistle to whistle? Well, of course the Thunder were going to psych themselves out—look what happened in Game 1!

“It’s one game for everything you’ve ever dreamed of,” Shai Gilgeous-Alexander said after the game. “If you win it you get everything, if you lose it you get nothing. It’s that simple.”

He’s right.

Around the W

New York Liberty forward Isabelle Harrison joins host Maria Clifton for a fashion-forward, fun, candid conversation covering everything from Liberty tunnel fits to Coco Gauff’s courtside appearance and the drama heating up around the league. The episode also dives into Caitlin Clark’s matchup with Sabrina Ionescu, Dallas Wings tension, and the rise of the expansion Valkyries.

The best of Sports Illustrated

The top five…

…things I saw last night that didn’t happen inside Gainbridge Fieldhouse.

5. The party outside Gainbridge Fieldhouse, and the local reporters who covered it.
4. Who doesn’t love a disc golf ace?
3. Yep, Lionel Messi’s foot is still magic.
2. Carson Staffeldt lost his glove, but still made a game-saving play in the Wisconsin Division 2 state championship bare-handed.
1. This Cubs fan took to the skies to retrieve a lost bat. 

More on Sports Illustrated


This article was originally published on www.si.com as SI:AM | Game 7 Baby.

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