The Indiana Pacers are starting to make this a habit.
The team, once again, pulled off an improbable fourth quarter comeback in the postseason to steal a game from its opponent. This time it came on the road against the Oklahoma City Thunder in Game 1 of the 2025 NBA Finals on Thursday, June 5.
Indiana is on a remarkable run, proving that it is never fully out of games. But games like these are sometimes best quantified in numbers, and this was no exception.
Here are 17 crazy stats from Indiana’s wild Game 1 comeback over the Oklahoma City Thunder:
For the first time in almost 15 months — Tuesday, March 12, 2024 — the Thunder lost at home to an Eastern Conference team. Their opponent that night? The Indiana Pacers.
The Pacers committed 25 turnovers and still won. Their turnover differential of -19 is the worst for a team in an NBA Finals victory, and it clears the second-worst team — the 1974 Bucks — by seven.
The Pacers also set the record for worst turnover differential in a playoff victory, surpassing the -15 set by the Grizzlies in 2012 in a first-round game against the Clippers.
The 15-point, fourth quarter comeback tied for the fourth-largest in an NBA Finals since 1971.
The last two fourth quarter comebacks of at least 15 points in NBA Finals games have been by teams coached by Rick Carlisle: Thursday night’s Pacers victory and Thursday, June 2, 2011, when Carlisle’s Mavericks toppled the Heat.
This postseason, when the Pacers have faced deficits of at least 15 points, their record is 5-3 (.625).
Indiana’s record this postseason in clutch games is 8-1 (.889).
The Pacers took their first lead — on Tyrese Haliburton’s 21-foot jumper — with 0.3 seconds left. It marks the latest into any Finals game since 1971 that a team had taken its first lead of the game.
The comeback marked Indiana’s fifth comeback from a deficit of at least 15 points in the 2025 playoffs, most by a team in a single postseason since 1998.
Since 1971, teams that had trailed by at least nine points inside the final 3 minutes of NBA Finals games had been 0-182. After Game 1, that mark is now 1-182 (.005).
Thunder guard and NBA Most Valuable Player Shai Gilgeous-Alexander’s 38 points are third-most for a player making his NBA Finals debut behind Allen Iverson’s 48 (2001) and George Mikan’s 42 (1949).
During the regular season and playoffs, Tyrese Haliburton is 13-of-15 on shots inside the final two minutes (including overtime) to tie or take a lead. That gives him a shooting percentage of 86.7% on such tries.
Because six of those 13 made field goals were 3-pointers, he has scored 32 points across those 15 shot tries to give him a ridiculous 2.13 points per attempt.
He has been on such a tear that his points per shot attempt on such tries actually went down from what it was entering Game 1 (2.14) because his Game 1 winners wasn’t a 3-pointer.
When breaking those numbers down to account for the added value of 3-pointers, Haliburton is shooting a preposterous 106.7% effective field goal percentage. That figure also went down from what it was (107.1%) entering the night.
Haliburton is now tied for second with former Pacers legend Reggie Miller with five field goals to tie or take a lead inside the final 5.0 seconds in an NBA playoff game since 1997. Haliburton has hit four of those this postseason, alone. LeBron James leads all players with eight.
Haliburton now has hit a game-winning or game-tying shot in the final seconds of each of Indiana’s four postseason series this year.
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