Thunder flip script against comeback-king Pacers, rally in fourth to tie NBA Finals

INDIANAPOLIS — The comeback kings had it happen to them for a change, and once again, the 2025 NBA Finals are tied because of it.

The Oklahoma City Thunder erased a 10-point second-half deficit to beat the Indiana Pacers in Game 4, 111-104, behind 35 points from NBA MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and 27 points from his fellow All-Star Jalen Williams.

The Pacers had made it a habit of pulling off stunning victories in these playoffs after falling behind by sizable margins with seemingly not enough time left on the clock to fix it. They have more 15-point comebacks, and more seven-point comebacks with a minute left, than anyone in NBA playoff history. But on Friday, with a chance to take command of the series, they went uncharacteristically cold in the fourth quarter — failing to score from the 3:19 mark until Bennedict Mathurin’s free throw with just 20 seconds left.

The Thunder, heavy favorites to win the finals at its outset, evened the series at two games apiece and will host Game 5 at 8:30 p.m. Eastern on Monday.

“We just gutted it out on a night where we didn’t really have a lot going,” Oklahoma City coach Mark Daigneault said. “I’m always impressed by our team. Great poise. … That was a great blood-and-guts win.”

The Pacers were potentially 60 game minutes away from being the lowest-seeded NBA champion in 30 years and just the third team in history to win a finals after entering the playoffs as something lower than a No. 3 seed. They were forcing the Thunder into bad isolation offense, turning them over on defense and knifing into the lane for momentum points.

And then the fourth quarter began, and Indiana simply couldn’t shoot. The Pacers were 5 of 18 from the field and missed all eight of their 3s. They couldn’t rebound either. The Thunder pounded them on the glass, 12-4, over those last 12 minutes.

Pascal Siakam, the Pacers’ leading scorer in the game with 20 points, was shut out in the fourth quarter. Aaron Nesmith and Andrew Nembhard combined to go 1 of 7. Only Tyrese Haliburton, who scored eight of his 18 points in the final frame, could generate anything.

Oklahoma City won this game despite going just 3 of 17 from 3-point range and committing more turnovers (16) than it had assists (11). The Thunder shot 38 free throws and made 34; the Pacers were 25 of 33 at the line.

“We’re going to have to dig in, circle the wagons and come back stronger on Monday,” Indiana coach Rick Carlisle said. “This is a big disappointment, but there are three games left.”

Gilgeous-Alexander, after being hounded by Nembhard again for most of the game, scored 15 in the fourth — 15 of the Thunder’s final 16 points, to be exact — and made all eight of his foul shots. His baseline jumper with 2:21 left gave the Thunder a 104-103 advantage they wouldn’t relinquish. Gilgeous-Alexander, the NBA’s scoring champ, shot 12 of 24 and 10 of 10 from the line but didn’t have any assists for the first time this season.

Williams, meanwhile, did most of his damage in the first three quarters. He was 8 of 18 from the field but 11 of 11 from the line and added seven rebounds. Chet Holmgren seemed to roll his ankle at least twice but battled through it to score 14 points and grab 15 rebounds. Alex Caruso added 20 points and five steals off the Thunder bench – pulling a T.J. McConnell (and then some) from the Pacers’ big Game 3 win.

“He’s a competitive monster,” Daigneault said of Caruso, who is the only Thunder player with a championship ring.

“We just got some big-time players that make big-time plays,” Holmgren added. “I think Shai’s shots were huge. Those are loud, obvious, everybody sees them. We had guys make plays that you could say were invisible, that led to a lot of good things happening for us.

“That’s great team effort for us right there. A great team win. We got to keep it going.”

Obi Toppin was Indiana’s top bench scorer with 17 points. Haliburton had seven assists but also five turnovers and was just 1 of 7 from 3.

“I’ll be better in Game 5,” Haliburton said. “It’s frustrating, of course. You want to win that game, especially a game at home where, like you said, you have the lead late. But that’s just not how the cookie crumbled today.”

The Thunder reinserted center Isaiah Hartenstein as a starter over guard Cason Wallace, which gave Indiana a chance to play even faster against a two-big unit with Hartenstein and Holmgren to open the game. After trailing substantially in each opening frame heading into Friday’s game, the Pacers were up 20-12 through five minutes with the Thunder’s starters on the court (OKC used Hartenstein as a starter for its first 16 playoff games, so this wasn’t really a “new” lineup). For the first time in this series, Indiana led after the first quarter, 35-34.

Indiana took a 60-57 lead into the break thanks to an old-fashioned three-point play from Haliburton, who finished a layup off a foul by Caruso and made the free throw (his first of the entire series). Between the bucket and foul shot, Haliburton slapped hands and barked back and forth with his dad, John Haliburton, who was temporarily banned from games for taunting Giannis Antetokounmpo earlier in the playoffs but was seated on the floor again (when the elder Haliburton was permitted to attend games again during the Eastern Conference finals, he was in a suite upstairs).

Oklahoma City was lucky to be down only three. The Thunder were 1 of 10 from 3-point range and had just six assists against eight turnovers in the first half. Sixteen free throws kept them in it.

The Pacers carried an 87-80 advantage into the fourth. They achieved their largest lead of the series — 10 points — on Toppin’s thunderous baseline dunk with 2:08 left in the quarter. The Thunder almost immediately erased the deficit, dominating the first few minutes of the fourth quarter to tie the score at 89 on a Caruso free throw with 8:13 left, but he missed his second foul shot.

Still, the stage was set for Oklahoma City’s suffocating finish and evening of this series, with home-court advantage swinging back in its favor.

“We’ve got to go out there — we’ve won some games on the road before,” Siakam said. “So I think we’ve just got to go out there with our confidence.” — Joe Vardon

Alex Caruso and Chet Holmgren celebrate Oklahoma City’s Game 4 win. (Kyle Terada / Imagn Images)

Thunder regain mojo in fourth

From the brink of basketball disaster to new life. That’s the path the Thunder traveled Friday.

This series between two closely matched teams is tied 2-2, but the Thunder have the advantage now, with Game 5 and a potential Game 7 set to be played in Oklahoma City.

In that sense, these NBA Finals may play out similarly to the Thunder’s Western Conference semifinals victory over the Denver Nuggets. The Thunder entered Game 4 of that series in Denver trailing 2-1, but the Thunder won Game 4. Then, the Thunder won Game 5 and Game 7 at home.

The Thunder looked to be in big trouble for most of Friday. Oklahoma City trailed late in the third quarter by 10 points but recovered. For such a young team, the comeback road win is a huge feather in their collective cap.

The Thunder won Game 4 despite a gargantuan discrepancy in 3-point production. Indiana outscored Oklahoma City by 24 points on made 3s. It’s incredibly difficult for any team to overcome that disadvantage, but OKC did it and regained its mojo in the process.

You’ve got to think the Thunder will shoot better from long range in Game 5 at home than they did in Game 4, when they went 3-for-17, right? — Josh Robbins

Pacers watch lead evaporate in game, series

Clinging to a two-point lead in the third quarter, Siakam dribbled past half court as the Pacers got into their motion offense. He zipped the ball to Ben Sheppard in the corner, forcing the Thunder’s defense to rotate, and Indiana kept the ball humming. Using four more passes to keep OKC off kilter, the ball eventually found a wide-open Obi Toppin, who buried a wing 3.

The Thunder responded on the other end with just two passes in their half-court offense before Aaron Wiggins went one-on-one for a missed layup. Indiana capitalized on the ensuing possession by using three passes in the half court to find Toppin wide open again in the corner, and he nailed another 3 to push Indiana’s lead to eight points, forcing OKC to call a timeout.

This was the Pacers at the peak of their powers, using their ball movement to break down the Thunder. But when the game got tight in the fourth quarter, Indiana’s team-oriented approach evaporated. The Pacers finished with 21 assists for the game, but they produced just one assist in the fourth quarter while being outscored 31-17 in the final frame.

Meanwhile, the Thunder survived with just 10 assists, which was their lowest mark of these playoffs, but had two assists (one more than the Pacers) in the fourth quarter. — James Boyd

Siakam’s big night goes to waste

The Pacers parlayed an energetic start to Game 4 into a lead for most of Friday, but it didn’t matter in the end.

For most of the night, Indiana gave the Thunder the blues with its high-octane offense as Oklahoma City struggled to make 3s, create offense and contain the Pacers’ veteran-laden depth, but the Thunder made a late-game push to tie the series.

Haliburton’s box score (18 points, seven assists, five turnovers) was relatively pedestrian, but his energy helped Indiana maintain an advantage until the Pacers just ran out of gas. Siakam became just the fourth player in the last 15 years with a 20-point, five-steal game in the NBA Finals, which helped the Pacers control both sides of the court for most of the night.

As a team, Indiana had four players each make multiple 3-pointers as Oklahoma City totaled just three makes all game, but the Pacers folded down the stretch because they missed crucial free throws. The Thunder capitalized when it mattered. — James Jackson

This story will be updated.

(Photo of Jalen Williams: Dylan Buell / Getty Images)