The OKC Thunder are NBA Champions

 What a series, what a playoffs, and it's all over now with a new NBA champion crowned. In classic NBA fashion, a major trade was announced hours before the biggest game of the season, god forbid actual basketball dominate the conversation. Out of respect for the champs, I am not going to be talking about KD today, there's plenty of off season to go over that, we'll focus solely on game 7 and the new undisputed Canadian GOAT Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. Plenty to get into so lets dive in!

Defense Wins Championships

This OKC team has been probably the most frustrating team to play against in the league this year. They don't really have a high powered offense, they rely a lot on Shai to be amazing which he consistently is. They hang their hats on their defense, and for good reason. Last night in the first half, Tyrese Haliburton went down with a devastating injury which we'll get to later. The Pacers managed to hang on though playing some incredible defense themselves. Nobody except for Shai seemed ready to take shots last night and Shai was really letting it fly early. His efficiency wasn't where it usually is, but someone needed to take on the load and luckily Shai was ready to play. Even without Hali though the Pacers were muddling along and getting key buckets here and there. TJ McConnell came in the game and was awesome once again. That little sneaky 5 foot mid-range jumper is somehow unstoppable even though he goes to it like 90% of the time. With only Shai performing for the Thunder at the half the game went into halftime with the Pacers holding on to a 1 point lead. That's when the OKC defense took over and stepped on their throats. Second half you could feel the Pacers were missing Haliburton. They kept their turnovers under control in the first half, but it got out of hand quickly in the second. Alex Caruso, Cason Wallace, Lu Dort and SGA all got their hands in passing lanes creating fast break opportunities and snowballing runs. If it wasn't for more TJ McConnell heroics in the third quarter the game would've gotten even more out of hand. By the 4th, the Thunder opened up a massive 20 point lead. JDub had been quiet all first half but he woke up and started creating for himself off the dribble. Chet Holmgren was awesome defensively at the rim the entire game and he came alive hitting a 3 in the 4th as well. The real back breaker was at the end of the clock the ball found Lu Dort 35 feet away with a hand in his face forced to jack up a shot. He fired up an absolute moon shot that swished through the rim for a 3 to I believe put the Thunder up 20. The Pacers never gave up despite the circumstances. They had one more push to get the lead to a manageable 12 with about 5 minutes to go, but they didn't have enough to get stops against the Thunder down the stretch and ultimately came up short. 

Shout out to Shai

Best Part of this game is the Thunder's best player in Shai didn't really have his shot going in this one, but he still managed to be the best player on the floor by a wide margin. All season long really Shai's been underrated as a defender. The reason the OKC defense is so good is because they can't just attack Shai and expect to get results like you can for the offensive engines of a lot of other teams. It was no different in this one. Shai came away from this game with a steal and 2 blocks, and gave up nothing easy on defense. Then came his playmaking. On a night where he didn't have it with his usual midrange jumper, Shai made it his mission to get into the paint and collapse the defense over and over again. He had a ton of nice feeds to cutting bigs created purely by putting his head down and getting to the rim. Shai finished this one with 12 assists and just 1 turnover. I heard it described earlier that Shai did exactly what he needed to do to win the championship tonight and I couldn't agree more. I actually think the Thunder are probably a 50+ win team without Shai on it, they're that deep and I think JDub is that good, but with Shai they become the undisputed best team in the league. He showed why he was an MVP tonight. 

Shai's playoff run was nothing short of incredible this season. A lot of MVPs falter when the lights get bright, Shai is not one of those guys. For the 2025 playoffs SGA averaged 29.9 points, 6.5 assists, 5.3 rebounds 1.7 steals and 0.9 blocks per game. He had 30 or more points in 15 out of 23 playoff games, and as we saw last night, even in an off night he was still able to be super effective. SGA ended up being the first Canadian to take home the finals MVP award, and upon receiving it he credited his teammates showing the character that he has. This season is the best season ever for a Canadian, and one of the best seasons ever in general. Shai became the first player since Shaq in 2000 to win the MVP, scoring title and finals MVP in the same season. With the rest of his prime still ahead of him, there's no ceiling on what this guy can accomplish. With what he's done so far, he's in my mind the greatest Canadian to ever play the game. 

Hali's Injury

I tried to hold off on this until after I got the positive Thunder stuff out of the way. I was absolutely gutted to see this happen live though. After Tyrese Haliburton came out on fire in this one, he took a step and immediately collapsed to the ground in tears. I am no doctor, but you could tell right away it was an Achilles injury, the most devastating injury an athlete can obtain. I can't believe the absolute highs and lows of the post season Hali just had. Orchestrating 4 of the most insane comebacks I've ever seen in the playoffs, hitting a game winner or game tying shot in each of the 4 series he played and helping bring his team to game 7 of the finals after being heavy underdogs in every series they played, this will go down as an all time playoff run for Tyrese. I don't know what to say other than I am heartbroken for him and Pacers fans. The Pacers were looking like even if they lost this one, they were going to be set up to make another run next year with added confidence from showing they could do it. Haliburton started the season off injured and didn't really find his way until half way through. Fans could dream big on a hotter start leading to better seeding and a potential easier path next season. All of that is now out the window with Haliburton definitely missing all of next year and potentially never being the guy we just saw again. I don't want to drag this section out, bottom line is that really sucked. We were robbed of what could've been an amazing game 7 and basketball has been robbed for at least 1 year of maybe the best point guard in the world.

Can OKC Repeat?

As of right now, I don't see any other team in the East or West that I'd project to knock off the Thunder. It's crazy though, everyone said that about the Celtics last season and we just watched them lose in the second round. Repeating is extremely difficult in basketball and it won't be an easy task in the Western Conference especially. That being said, Shai turns 27 in July, JDub is only 24 and Chet is 22. They've got a ton of draft picks left to keep building out depth, young guys that didn't even play in the playoffs this year and a perennial MVP candidate in Shai. As long as that big 3 stays together with some reasonable depth surrounding them, they're going to be in the title conversation every year. Don't look now, but there's a good chance that in 5 years we're looking at Shai and JDub as all time great players. I just can't believe the best player in basketball is Canadian. 

And that's that! I felt like that was a little bit of word vomit honestly. I am still trying to find my voice when it comes to recapping games. I feel like I want to cover things more from an emotional aspect than an Xs and Os, pretty much because that's what my intelligence allows for. If anyone's reading all the way down to here, first of all, let me know! I'd love to hear from you! Second of all, I hope this was coherent and interesting! That was my first full NBA season writing a blog, pretty fun!