The Thunder and Pacers have one big thing in common on brink of 2025 NBA Finals

The Oklahoma City Thunder and Indiana Pacers are on the brink of an unlikely matchup in the 2025 NBA Finals. The Thunder and Pacers each hold a 3-1 lead in their respective conference finals series, and while 13 teams in league history have overcome such a deficit to advance in the NBA Playoffs, it doesn’t feel like the Minnesota Timberwolves or New York Knicks are playing well enough right now to pull off that kind of feat.

The Thunder are elite defensively while the Pacers win with their offense, but these teams also have more in common than just their small market backdrops. Both teams acquired their superstar guards via trade, with the Thunder stealing Shai Gilgeous-Alexander from the Clippers in the Paul George deal, and the Pacers robbing the Kings for Tyrese Haliburton in the Domantas Sabonis swap. Both teams are led by front office executives in Sam Presti and Kevin Pritchard who have been entrenched for more than a decade. Both teams are winning because of major contributions from their role players, which is frankly always the case for teams that go as far as these two will.

There’s also one common thread between the Pacers and Thunder that feels like an underrated component of their success: these are the two best teams in the league at avoiding turnovers on offense, and it’s giving them an undeniable edge they’re riding to a likely NBA Finals berth.

The Pacers’ slow start — they were 9-14 overall after losing to Brooklyn on Dec. 4 — is a well-known part of their lore at this point. Since Jan. 1, Indiana is 45-17 overall including the playoffs. With Jan. 1 as a starting point, here are NBA teams sorted by lowest offensive turnover percentage for the rest of the regular season.

Here’s the same stat for the playoffs. Once again, the Thunder and Pacers reign supreme at not turning the ball over.

How these teams go about avoiding turnovers is completely different, but they both arrive at the same end point when it comes to taking care of the ball.

The Thunder are among the heaviest isolation teams in the league. Oklahoma City ran isos for 10.2 times per game during the regular season, or nine percent of their possessions, which each ranked in the top-5 of the league. The Thunder don’t pass the much ball much: their 270.7 passes per game were the sixth-fewest during the regular season. Instead, OKC likes to drive the ball, with their 52 drives per game trailing only the Grizzlies during the year. More isolations and less ball movement means fewer opportunities for opponents to jump the passing lanes. Add in OKC’s historic ability to generate takeaways on defense, and they’re winning the possession battle on a nightly basis.

The Pacers’ turnover avoidance mostly comes back to Tyrese Haliburton’s special skill for it. Haliburton was an assist-to-turnover god at Iowa State, and that has carried over into the NBA. Indiana plays at a super fast pace, and finished No. 2 in passes made during the regular season. Somehow, Haliburton is able to avoid turning the ball over despite regularly throwing crosscourt passes that bait the defense into going for the takeaway without ever completing it.

The possession battle is the new market inefficiency in the NBA Playoffs. Previously, just attempting more three-pointers was a sound strategy for teams to gain an edge. Now that almost every team shoots a lot of threes, there’s less of an advantage in the volume and diminishing returns in banking on shooting variance for a hot night or two. The turnover margin has become a key battleground, as has rebounding and getting to the foul line.

It wasn’t satisfying when NBA Playoff games often felt like they were coming down to shooting luck. Teams have more control over the turnover and rebounding battle, and it’s a small part of why these playoffs have been so entertaining. There will be more time to talk about a Pacers/Thunder finals in the coming days, but OKC’s No. 1 defense vs. the Pacers fantastic offense is an ideal clash for a great matchup.

It sounds so simple, but taking care of the ball is an essential part of success at any level of basketball, and it’s proving true once again during the pinnacle of the sport in these playoffs.