The Indiana Pacers were around +4000 in the NBA Championship odds when they hit the board last summer.
That slim 2.44% implied win probability paled in comparison to the Oklahoma City Thunder’s opening price of +800 (the third overall favorite), which carried a much more optimistic 11.11% chance of NBA glory.
The NBA title odds for all 30 teams have boiled down to these two contenders, with OKC being the oddsmakers’ choice to win the NBA Finals. The Thunder are listed around -800 while the Pacers come back at +550.
But if you’ve watched Indiana at all during the season or just in the NBA Playoffs, you know this team defies the odds at an historic rate.
My NBA picks highlight three reasons why the Indiana Pacers will win the NBA Championship and spit in the eye of probability once again.
Urgency
Saying the “Pacers play with pace” sounds cute, but its not exactly accurate.
The Indiana Pacers don't fall into the standard pace rating that would be considered up-tempo, much like the Oklahoma City Thunder. It’s not a slow team by any means, but the secret sauce in Indianapolis is more “urgency” that “octane.”
The Pacers waste little time getting into their offensive sets.
Unlike most schemes that dribble or hold the ball for precious seconds, allowing defenses to get set up, the Pacers are setting screens and cutting into space before the ball handler even crosses halfcourt.
This has the defense on its heels right away, scrambling to find assignments and often getting stuck in bad matchups. From there, Indiana’s frenetic ball movement finds the open man and wears down the defense, not allowing opponents to catch their breath.
This style of attack is like a boxer working the body over the first eight rounds of a bout, knowing that all that punishment will leave their rival with nothing left in the tank for the championship rounds — or in this case, the fourth quarter.
3-point shooting
If you’re going to win in today’s NBA, you must be able to make 3-pointers.
That doesn’t mean firing up 50 shots from downtown, like the Boston Celtics. It means cashing in the long-range looks that you do get. Neither side is overly aggressive from beyond the arc, but the Pacers have been the better shooting team from the perimeter in the postseason.
Oklahoma City is shooting 36.6% on the year, with that success slipping to 33.6% in the playoffs. It’s averaging 12.6 made triples in the postseason.
The Thunder did improve versus Minnesota in the Western Conference finals (37.6% for 12.8 3PMs), but that still comes up short when compared to the Pacers’ consistency from distance.
Indiana is the fifth-most accurate team in the NBA from 3-point range this season (37.3%) and leads all playoff teams with a 40.1% clip from downtown, manifesting into 13.4 triples per postseason contests.
Several of the Pacers are shooting 40% or better from outside during the tournament, thanks to quick ball movement routinely creating space for shooters on the perimeter. While OKC may be generating more “wide open” 3-point attempts (no defender within six feet or more), Indiana is making those clean looks more often (43.2%).
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Tyrese Haliburton
Love him or hate him, there’s no denying Tyrese Haliburton is on one.
He just missed out on ECF MVP — by one vote to Pascal Siakam — despite posting a stat line of 21 points, 10.5 assists, and 6.0 rebounds against New York.
However, the most impressive and more important metric, as far as the NBA Finals is concerned, is Haliburton’s 1.7 average turnovers in the six-game series. The savvy point guard has both hands on the wheel of this energetic offense, which is anchored in his decision making.
Indiana averages an insane 314.3 passes per game in the playoffs — 75.6 of them coming from Haliburton — yet is averaging less than 13 turnovers, and just 1.9 of those miscues are Haliburton’s fault. Those turnovers have come back to the bite the Pacers for only 12.5 points allowed per contest.
Oklahoma City thrives on creating mistakes and making opponents pay for it on the other end. The Thunder lead the NBA in forced turnovers on the year (17.0) and have upped that to 18.0 in the postseason. From there, OKC’s up-tempo style takes off and flips those bad plays into 23.8 points off turnovers.
The Thunder won both matchups with Indiana in the regular season, but it wasn’t turnovers that did the Pacers in. Indiana coughed the ball up only 11 times in both games, giving up a collective 27 points off turnovers in those non-conference meetings.
Haliburton is the rock of this “controlled chaos” offense and if the Pacers are going to stun the world, they need their star guard to be unflappable — along with all those other things he does — in the NBA Finals.
Odds are correct at the time of publishing and are subject to change.
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