The Indiana Pacers are one win away from the 2024-25 NBA championship. They’re enjoying in what would be the season’s final sport. They’ve felled three postseason opponents and brought a fourth to absolutely the brink. And but, amazingly, they haven’t but spent a single second because the betting favourite to win the championship.
They had been by no means favored through the common season. That makes loads of sense. They began 10-15. The Thunder exploded out of the gate and the defending champion Celtics swept them a yr in the past. They by no means took over favored standing through the Japanese Convention playoffs. Okay. That additionally makes a little bit of sense. No one fairly understood how particular this group was but, and within the one second through which the Thunder seemed considerably weak, main into Sport 7 towards the Nuggets, the Pacers had been set to start out an Japanese Convention finals collection as underdogs towards the New York Knicks.
You’d assume we might have discovered our lesson by the Finals. Alas, we didn’t. The Pacers gained Sport 1 on the highway. Nonetheless collection underdogs. They took a 2-1 lead after Sport 3. Nonetheless collection underdogs. They actually led Sport 4 by seven factors going into the fourth quarter. Amazingly, they had been nonetheless simply barely underdogs, with the Thunder having reside odds of -108 to their -106 earlier than that fourth quarter started.
Such constant darkhorse standing is extraordinarily uncommon. You’d assume that each champion could be a betting favourite at some level, proper? Huge underdogs have gained championships earlier than, however groups just like the 2019 Raptors and 2004 Pistons constructed 3-1 leads, which pressured the fingers of the books. The 2015-16 Cleveland Cavaliers may need appeared like a candidate contemplating Golden State’s wire-to-wire dominance and 3-1 Finals lead, however the Cavaliers really started that season as favorites after pushing the Warriors to 6 video games within the 2015 Finals with out Kevin Love or Kyrie Irving. To achieve the final sport of the season with out ever having been the title favourite appears virtually inconceivable.
And but, it feels completely applicable given the postseason the Pacers have had. They’re the final word underdogs in nearly each sense. Their odds to win the Japanese Convention at some books received so long as 30-to-1 earlier than the playoffs started. Good luck discovering many Finalists who topped that. The Thunder had been -700 favorites getting into the Finals. That was tied for the seventh-shortest odds a favourite has ever introduced into the Finals with the 2004 Los Angeles Lakers… who wound shedding within the largest Finals upset ever to the Pistons. Now, the Pacers are hoping to match that feat.
Here is a report they really can set: Thursday’s Sport 6 victory gave them their tenth playoff win as an underdog in 2025. That tied the 2023 Heat for the report. In fact, the Pacers have opened as a 8.5-point underdogs on the highway for Sport 7. Which means a win is not going to solely give them their first championship, but additionally the report for many underdog victories in a single postseason.
In a vacuum, they’re completely justifiable underdogs. The Thunder are 10-2 at residence this postseason with a mind-boggling +247 point-differential. They nonetheless have the MVP in Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. They nonetheless have their fancy 68-win common season and their historic internet score behind them. On paper, Oklahoma Metropolis nonetheless appears like the favourite.
But when the postseason had been performed on paper, the Pacers would have been eradicated a month in the past. In a single-game setting, it is exhausting to think about a extra harmful Sport 7 opponent.
These season-long resumes disappear when that ball is tipped. The video games are tense. Nerves take over. Who do you assume goes to be extra nervous: the extremely younger, overwhelming favourite that has already misplaced a number of devastating shut video games this postseason, or the underdog with extra historic upsets and comebacks in a single postseason than we have ever seen earlier than?
By the point a collection reaches a Sport 7, each side are likely to have figured one another out. The sport slows down. Offense grinds right down to a halt. Every thing so usually comes right down to which group could make the robust photographs, that are normally all that’s left. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander can do this. When the Thunder have struggled this postseason, their drawback has been that no one else can. However virtually ever member of Indiana’s rotation has some speciality, some shot they will at all times get to. They’re a roster filled with creators and mismatch hunters. Nothing has slowed the Pacers down this whole postseason. Why ought to Sport 7 be any totally different?
They’re going to stay underdogs when Sport 7 begins. It’d take a considerable second-half lead for them to lastly turn into favorites. The Pacers have lived with that doubt all postseason. It is all exterior. They thrive within the shadows. Sunday is their probability to seize the highlight as soon as and for all. You do not have to be the favorites when the season or the collection begins to be the one which hoists the trophy when it ends.