Thunder, Pacers clash in unlikely Finals duel

The Oklahoma City Thunder and the Indiana Pacers took different paths before reaching the Finals of the National Basketball Association (NBA) that will kick off on Thursday (Friday in Manila) at the Paycom Arena in Oklahoma City.

The Thunder had spent most of the regular season on top of the standings until finishing as the No. 1 seed in the Western Conference with a 68-14 win-loss record.

The Pacers, on the other hand, blew hot and cold in the regular season and was still under .500 around January when most of the teams were already jockeying for playoff spot.

Fortunately for the Pacers, they still finished fourth in the Eastern Conference before beating powerhouse Milwaukee Bucks in the first round, Cleveland Cavaliers in the second and the New York Knicks in the conference finals to advance to the best-of-seven finals series.

But Pacers coach Rick Carlisle asserted that past performance doesn’t matter anymore.

“When you get to this point of the season, it’s two teams and it’s one goal and so it becomes an all or nothing thing,” Carlisle said.

“And we understand the magnitude of the opponent. Oklahoma City has been dominant all year long — with capital letters in the word ‘dominant.’ Defensively, they’re historically great and they got all kinds of guys that can score. It’s two teams that have similar structures, slightly different styles.”

The deep dives into the other side were beginning in earnest on Sunday, a day after the Pacers finished off their Eastern Conference title by ousting the Knicks in six games.

Indiana was taking a day off before getting set to return to work on Monday; the Thunder were practicing in Oklahoma City.

“We always talk about human nature in our locker room and the human nature way of thinking about it is ‘four wins away, four wins away.’ You kind of lose sight of the fact that you’ve got to win one to get to four,” Thunder guard Jalen Williams said Sunday.

“You’ve got to stack wins. So, that’s how we’re looking at it. Let’s get prepared for Game 1 now and just go from there. And I think that does make it a little easier now that we know who we’re playing.”

The Pacers lost their 14th game of the regular season in early December; the Thunder lost 14 regular-season games this season — total, making that seem like it was an unlikely finals matchup.

“We had expectations to be here and this isn’t a surprise to any of us because of what we wanted to do,” Pacers guard Tyrese Haliburton said.

“And I think obviously there’s a turning point there in December or January or whatever the case may be. But I just thought we did a great job of just being as present as possible, not living in the past, not worrying about what’s next, just worrying about what’s now.”