2025 NBA Finals Game 1 Observations

Game 1 of the 2025 NBA Finals is in the books, and Indiana had yet another thrilling comeback to win 111-110.  To stray from the detailed notes I did in previous NBA Finals, I will instead list 10 observations that I had (in the same format I did during the WNBA Finals last year).

 

The defense from both teams was amazing

I know that everyone is going to talk about Indiana coming back (which I think is the result of a later observation) and Haliburton’s shot (that’s coming next), but the story of the game was the impressive defense from both sides (with the exception of Haliburton, who was totally lost on that end for most of the game, especially off the ball).  OKC didn’t even shoot 40% from the field, and Indiana had 20 turnovers in the first half; while part of that was the offensive team’s own doing, both teams had great defensive schemes that appeared ready to force the offenses into their struggles.  Even while Indiana played better in the second half, OKC’s defensive style made it so that the best way to adjust was to slow the game down a bit, which is the antithesis of what they have done to make it to the Finals; even though Indiana figured it out, that is really what you want to do defensively if you are OKC.  I think the most notable aspect was seeing how well Indiana defended the Thunder in transition, even sometimes bailing on rebounding to be ready in transition.  I’ll get into more of what each team did in future notes, but I thought they were largely successful throughout the game (though OKC’s defensive strategy didn’t work quite as well in the second half).

 

That shot…

I cannot push this off any longer:  that shot by Haliburton was awesome!  I have watched it so many times and rather than harping on it, I will just tell you to watch it if you haven’t already.  While the broadcast team made it sound like it was an obvious decision to not call the timeout because the defense wouldn’t be set, it also takes a lot of trust to do it and for it to be the right call (for example, Boston rarely calls the timeout there, but then it turns into Jayson Tatum shooting a step-back fadeaway double-teamed jumper that has no chance of going in).  Haliburton has had an incredible playoff run this year at the end of games.

 

OKC’s success rate on their execution was…let’s be diplomatic and say all over the place

In the first half, OKC made it clear what they wanted to do:  force a ton of turnovers, match Indiana’s speed, take Haliburton out of the game, and exploit Indiana’s lack of size outside of Myles Turner and Pascal Siakam.  They absolutely nailed it, as Indiana looked totally lost.  The fact that it was only a 13-point game is more a testament to how bad OKC was at shooting and scoring (more on that in the next item).  The only issues I had was that I didn’t feel like they totally utilized Hartenstein off the bench correctly in that half (more on that later) and that they were atrocious at scoring off turnovers.  However, in the second half, they appeared to change their game plan by utilizing a single coverage on Haliburton.  While I thought that this might be a good idea going into the series, Haliburton started getting more comfortable and aggressive, which allowed Indiana to be more comfortable.  Beyond that, their shot selection was worse as the game went on, they were largely ineffective in transition (though some credit goes to Indiana’s defense), and Hartenstein just vanished.  That said, even while their shot selection got worse, they did still do a nice job creating looks at points, though it helps to make shots (which is coming next).  While some would point out that Indiana had so many more rebounds than OKC, a big part of that was because OKC couldn’t hit a shot and had more attempts than Indiana due to the first half turnovers.

 

OKC’s struggles shooting

As much as we can say about OKC’s execution, there’s no denying that their lack of shot making was a big part of the game.  Ultimately, they went 39-80 (39.8%) from the field, a troubling number that was highlighted by them going 28-68 (41.2%) from 2.  While Indiana made it difficult at the rim, they missed several makeable shots from everywhere on the court.  Several players struggled from the field, including Chet Holmgren (2-9), Jalen Williams (6-19), Cason Wallace (3-9), and Alex Caruso (3-8).  Realistically, if any of these guys shot better, then OKC wins.  Their shooting has been inconsistent during this entire playoff run, so that was something that I thought would be fascinating to watch.

 

Indiana looked rattled in the first half, but recovered well

I get if people thought that the reason that Indiana committed a lot of turnovers in the first half was due to OKC’s defense, and while part of that is true, many of these turnovers were Indiana’s doing.  There were several turnovers that were the result of sloppy plays, including things like blatant travels, errant passes, and plays where there was a miscommunication in where they everyone was.  While they were trying to play fast, I think they were a bit nervous and overthinking the moment, which made them look more reckless and chaotic than polished (while they do take risks normally, the risks are normally more decisive and confident than the way they were playing).  On top of that, Haliburton was totally out of the game on offense in the half (more on that a little later); he was double teamed frequently and put into situations where he was in weird spots on the court, after which he usually passed out immediately and meandered around after that.  In the second half, they started playing like they normally do (albeit a bit slower, which is coming up later).  I think a big thing was that OKC started defending Haliburton one-on-one instead of doubling him, which in turn resulted in him being able to get more comfortable with his game.

 

Myles Turner was Indiana’s MVP

Some will find this declaration weird given the fact that Turner had inconsistencies, committed some silly fouls, turned the ball over 6 times, and only led the team in blocks and defensive rebounds (when considering the positive stats).  That said, Myles Turner had several great and high IQ plays on both ends of the court that allowed the team to win.  I’m just going to list 3 here that I really liked that didn’t involve him scoring a basket.  At one point in the game (I didn’t jot down when it was and can’t remember what quarter), he went over and blocked a shot after the whistle blew for a shooting foul.  While you see stuff like this a lot of times after the whistle, he intentionally timed the block to make it so there wasn’t a shot that could go up, and it was at such a weird angle that he got to it before it was on the way down despite it being on the later end.  The other two players were in the second quarter.  On the latter of the two, he set a screen on Holmgren when Nembhard was shooting a midrange shot that made it so Holmgren was going to be unable to get it; while this may just be a smart basketball play, the catch is that the way he set it made it so that Holmgren was out of position and would have struggled to get the rebound had the shot missed.  The play that I was most impressed with that went under the radar was when he made an amazing defensive play with around 8:20 left in the quarter.  He saw that OKC was pushing pace, so he cut off the driving angle of the player with the ball (I can’t remember who it was that was driving).  Shortly into the play, there was a mismatch where he was defending a perimeter-oriented player, who tried to drive in since Turner was still switching onto him.  Turner saw this and cut into the lane while also giving the room to contest a shot on a pull-up.  Ultimately, he forced a bad shot.  These plays don’t even focus on the great rim protection he provided or the wild shot he had near the end of the game.

 

Obi Toppin at the 5 worked very well

Going into the series, I figured that both teams would try using smaller lineups; ultimately, only Indiana went to the extreme I was expecting by having Obi Toppin play the 5.  While the broadcast focused on the early turnovers, he shot incredibly well from 3 (5-8), which you can’t always count on but was important, and, most importantly, didn’t look lost defensively.  One thing that helped was that Indiana often crashed the paint when he was the lone rim protector, which made it both difficult to take a shot and to get the rebound.  I am sure that this was drawn up by Rick Carlisle, and I think it was a brilliant strategy to prepare for when OKC inevitably tried to exploit the downside of this matchup.  Even though they didn’t push the pace as much as they could have (more on that later), his 3-point shooting opened up the floor while also creating the threat of running so fast.  That said, part of this also is dependent on OKC not doing something I thought made sense to exploit the matchup (more on that next).

 

Isaiah Hartenstein wasn’t utilized well enough

While it wasn’t a total shock for the Thunder to have Hartenstein coming off the bench, I did find it a little surprising.  Intuitively, I thought the reason for this was to force more of a mismatch any time that Myles Turner was off the court, which they seemed to want to do.  The issue is that Hartenstein didn’t take advantage.  There were stretches where he was the only big man on the court and wasn’t aggressive on either end of the court.  I’m not sure in a lot of these possessions if they were trusting SGA (given how well he shot, I wouldn’t blame them if they did) or if he genuinely was lost and couldn’t get position in the paint, but that was an advantage they had and allowed it to slip away.

 

Indiana won despite a passive Tyrese Haliburton game (until the end)

When mentioning Haliburton, naturally people would think about how aggressive he was on the final play.  Beyond that, it is also logical to think of the other plays that he made throughout the fourth quarter.  The honest truth is that Haliburton was passive and wasn’t looking to do much of anything for most of the game.  Throughout the first half, OKC often targeted him with a double team or aggressive defense as soon as he crossed half court, during which Haliburton often looked lost about where he could go.  Doing this totally took him out of the game for a decent chunk of the game.  I even noted one play in the first half where he had a wide-open catch-and-shoot 3 and was looking around to see who he should pass it to before taking (and making) the shot.  To get some proof from the numbers, he only attempted 13 shots and 6 assists without attempting a free throw.

 

Indiana won a game where they were not pushing the pace as much as usual

While I don’t have the exact numbers, I could tell you that Indiana slowed the game down more than they usually do in the second half.  They passed up several opportunities to push the ball in that half, which might have been the right strategy despite their normal fast pace.  I think the slower pace helped them settle in a little bit and be able to focus.  I would bet that they’ll push the pace a little more in their next game.

 

 

What did you think about this game?  Was there anything that you noticed?  Let me know in the comments!