Tyrese Haliburton and the Indiana Pacers have pulled off some crazy comebacks during the 2025 playoffs, but their latest rally to win Game 1 of the NBA Finals might have been their wildest yet.
The odds were against the Pacers winning this game from the outset, but they seemed especially long when the Oklahoma City Thunder pushed their lead to as much as 17 in the fourth quarter. But then the Pacers did what they’ve done all postseason — went on a magnet-ball shotmaking run.
Indiana outscored the Thunder the rest of the way, with Haliburton’s leaning, improbable game-winner swishing through the net with just 0.3 seconds left, thus securing Indiana’s first lead of the entire game:
According to Josh Dubow of the Associated Press, that means that Indiana attempted something that 121 teams had tried before them in the NBA Finals… and were the first team to ever complete such a rally:
Pacers trailed by 9 with 2:52 to play. In play by play era (since start of 1997 playoffs), teams were 0-121 in NBA Finals when trailing by 7+ points in final 3:00 of 4th quarter or OT before tonight
— Josh Dubow (@JoshDubowAP) June 6, 2025
Not only does that mean the Pacers are now an insane 5-3 this postseason when they go down by 15 or more points, but according to NBA stats maven Keerthika Uthayakumar, it also means that they are now just the fourth team in the last nearly three decades to win a playoff game despite having the lead for less than 30 seconds of game time:
Since 1998, only four teams have won a playoff game despite leading for 30 seconds or less:
1999 Spurs in G2 of the West Finals – 10 sec
2001 Mavs in G5 of the First Round – 30 sec
2002 Lakers in G4 of the West Finals – 13 sec
2025 Pacers in G1 of the NBA Finals – 0.3 sec— Keerthika Uthayakumar (@keerthikau) June 6, 2025
The win also continued to solidify Haliburton’s near-bulletproof crunch-time reputation, and it’s possible we’ve never seen a playoff run where a player was this clutch, with this level of regularity:
Tyrese Haliburton is 6-for-7 (85.7%) when taking a shot to tie or take the lead in the final 90 seconds of the 4th or OT this playoffs.
That’s the most such shots in a single postseason since 1997.
— Keerthika Uthayakumar (@keerthikau) June 6, 2025
For context, that means Tyrese Haliburton, in the highest stakes games possible with defenses more keyed in on him than ever, is shooting a higher percentage than any player who took more than two total shots did from the field during the entire NBA regular season.
It remains to be seen if the Pacers can pull off the most stunning upset of all — winning the NBA Finals — but it’s safe to say they can never, ever be counted out again until the final buzzer sounds.
