LOS ANGELES (AFP) — The Oklahoma City Thunder and Indiana Pacers are poised for an epic championship showdown on Monday (Manila time), the Thunder seeking to crown an historic season with a victory over a tenacious Pacers team that has stunningly forced a rare National Basketball Association (NBA) Finals Game 7.

“We’ve got one game,” Pacers star Tyrese Haliburton said. “One game. Nothing that has happened before matters and nothing that’s going to happen after matters. It’s all about that one game.”

The Thunder certainly know it too.

“One game for everything you ever dreamed of,” Oklahoma City’s newly minted NBA Most Valuable Player (MVP) Shai Gilgeous-Alexander said after the Thunder slumped to a blowout loss in Game 6.

“If you win it, you get everything. If you lose it, you get nothing.”

The Thunder remain heavy favorites. A victory on their home floor on Sunday would crown a dazzling campaign in which they led the league with 68 regular-season wins and set a league record for average scoring margin.

Gilgeous-Alexander led the NBA in scoring with 32.7 points per game and could become the first player since Golden State’s Stephen Curry in 2015 to win the MVP award and the title in the same season.

In addition, home teams are 15-4 in Finals Game Sevens.

But the last time the championship series went the distance, in 2016, LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers completed a stunning triumph over the Golden State Warriors in Oakland.

And the Pacers have proven repeatedly this season, and in this series, that they can’t be counted out.

The Pacers opened their season with four straight defeats and at 10-15 were languishing in 10th place in the East with almost a third of the campaign gone.