The NBA finals of 2025 are here and game 1 is scheduled for Thursday, June 5 at the Paycom Center in Oklahoma City, where the team with the best record of this season, the Oklahoma City Thunder, welcomes Indiana Pacers To start the championship series.
The game is scheduled to start at 8:30 pm and will be transmitted ABC and espn Deportes. Fans seeking to see this NBA game can do Directv, that offers a free judgment or FUBOTVIt also offers a free test and up to $ 25 off the first month. SlingTV does not offer a free test but has promotional offers available.
At two regular season meetings, Thunder went out to the top, despite the fact that Chet Holmgren lacked both games. To reach this point, Oklahoma City had to go through the Memphis Grizzlies, the NBA champions of 2023, the Denver Nuggets and its three times MVP Nikola Jokic, and then in the Western Conference finals sent from the Timberwolves of Minnesota.
The pacers are back in the final for the second time in the history of the franchise, 25 years after they lost to the Los Angeles Lakers in 6 games in their only other shot in the championship series. For the second consecutive season, Indiana began her career by eliminating the champions of 2021 and their MVP twice, sending the Milwaukee Bucks and Giannis Antetokounmpo. After that, the pacers demolished the team with the best record of the east and the second best record in the league, defeating the Cleveland Cavaliers, to establish a date with the New York Knicks, who defeated the last season, and again in the Eastern Conference finals.
WHO: Indiana Pacers vs. Oklahoma City Thunder
When: Thursday, June 5 at 20:30 EDT
Where Paycom Center in Oklahoma City
Stream: FUBOTV (Free Test); Sling; Directv (Free Test)
Bets: Check out our MA Sports bets GuideWhere you can learn basic terminology, definitions and how to read the odds for those interested in learning to bet on Massachusetts.
What is FUBOTV?
FUBOTV It is a television service on the Internet that offers more than 200 channels between sports and entertainment Paramount+ with showtime. From the UEFA Champions League to the WNBA to the international tournaments that go through sports, there are many options available in FUBOTV, which offers a free test and up to $ 25 discount on the first month for new customers.
What is Directv?
Live It is an Internet television service that offers your favorite entertainment, news and sports channels, as well as local television stations and Regional sports networks. Sign up -you now and get three Free Premium Channels included Maximum, Paramount+ with showtime and Starz.
What is SlingTV?
SLINGTV It offers a variety of live programs ranging from news and sports from $ 20 a month during the first month. Subscribers also get a more free DVR month if they are registered now. Choose from various sports packages without long -term contracts and with easy cancellation.
Related content:
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Tyrese Haliburton took less traveled roads to the star in the NBA finals
Of Cliff Brunt AP Writer Sports
Oklahoma City (AP): Shai Gilgeous-Alexander of Oklahoma City and Tyrese Haliburton in Indiana, they were never expected to be starring the papers on the NBA finals stage.
Well at least not for many.
“It has been a Russian mountain,” said Gilgeous-Alexander. “I had nights where I thought it was not good in basketball, I had nights where I thought was the best player in the world before I was -it was up and down. My mentality trying to keep me at the level of all this helped me. Once I thought that, I really saw jumps in my game.”
These jumps have made Gilgeous-Alexander the face of the thunder of Oklahoma City. This, after being cut off from his junior varnity team as a ninth student. He left the bench for most of the first two months of his first year season in Kentucky, was not a first 10 selection of 10 places and was commercialized in Los Angeles Clippers after his initial year.
Haliburton has traveled a similar path to the NBA star.
Haliburton, a favorite son of Indiana State, Haliburton did not attract the attention of the great university programs until his first year of high school when he directed Oshkosh North High School (Wisconsin) to a state degree. The slender guard was visited at schools like Ohio and Indiana University-Indianapolis before Iowa State offered a scholarship. It was not a single and no, it was not the first place and it was commercialized in Sacramento during the third year in the league.
“This is a franchise that had the opportunity to see something that other people did not see in me,” Haliburton said about the pacers. “Sometimes I think they saw more in me than I saw myself.”
Haliburton and Gilgeous-Alexander are not the names of the home that casual basketball fans are used to seeing in the finals, such as Lebron James or Stephen Curry. But they will be the engines of their teams when their teams meet at the game 1 Thursday night in Oklahoma City, and for a good reason.
Gilgeous-Alexander is this year MVP and Haliburton’s league is a twice all-star and an Olympic gold medal.
Gilgeous-Alexander, the 6-feet-6 OKC guard, promised a better 32.7 points per game in the regular season to claim his first title. He has promised 29.8 points, 5.7 rebounds and 6.9 assists for competition for the playoffs. He is far from his training days in Canada, or even four years ago when the thunder was one of the worst teams in the league.
Gilgeous-Alexander seems to be always focused on the current task. He said that the ups and downs of the trip gave him his mind when he was named MVP.
“All the moments I managed, cut, exchange, reduce, overlook,” he said. “But also all the joy, all the things my family has comforted me, all the lessons of life. All that has made me the man and the human being I am today.”
Haliburton spent two seasons in Iowa State and appeared in exactly a post-season game, a loss of 62-59 in the first round in Ohio State at the 2019 NCAA Tournament. He joined the NBA project, although he suffered a left wrist fractured in the season in February 2020.
Sacramento made him the twelfth general election, even with De’aaron Fox already on the list. But Haliburton never made the playoffs in 2 1/2 seasons with the Kings and his busy on the court that led to Haliburton trade in Indiana for the striker for all the star Domantas soapas in February 2022.
The change in landscape did not change its misfortune of the later season, at least not immediately. The pacers lost their playoffs in 2022 and again by 2023, while Haliburton left the final 2 weeks and cost him -his first crown assisted in the NBA.
The advance finally reached last season, when Indiana reached the seed number 6 in the east and eliminated Milwaukee and New York before being devastated by Boston in the conference finals, while injured Haliburton watched the last two games on the bench.
This year, the pacers sent Milwaukee, Cleveland and New York to reach the finals. But even with its success, Haliburton has had its detractors. Athletic published an anonymous players survey in April, saying that he was the most overrated player in the league.
During the post -season, Haliburton promised 18.8 points, 9.8 assists and 5.7 rebounds per game.
“What makes it very good is that he is very confident,” said Jalen Williams, Thunder All-Star. “Therefore, to be able to play, since he has been playing as many things” overvalued “… you have to give it the hat for this. So he is only an extremely confident individual. And I think, regardless of who you are, it makes you dangerous.”
It also allows an intriguing coincidence of the rear track after a couple of winding roads until the NBA finals.
___
AP’s sports writer, Michael Marot, in Indianapolis, contributed to this report.
Associated Press contributed to this article