INDIANAPOLIS — There is just one game left in the NBA season.
“One game for everything you ever dreamed of,” Shai Gilgeous-Alexander said of Game 7 on Sunday. “If you win it, you get everything. If you lose it, you get nothing. It’s that simple.” After Indiana’s blowout win on their home court in Game 6 Thursday, both Pacers and Thunder players were already feeling the weight — and getting excited — about what was to come
“It’s so, so, exciting. As a basketball fan, there’s nothing like a Game 7,” Tyrese Haliburton said. “There’s nothing like a Game 7 in the NBA Finals. Dreamed of being in this situation my whole life. So, to be here is really exciting.”
“You could ask every team in the NBA. Every team would take this opportunity to take this chance,” Chet Holmgren added. “We’re no different. It’s on us to go out there and make the most of it.”
“There’s not a lot of Game 7s that happen. So, to have this opportunity to play in a Game 7 with this team is a blessing and wouldn’t want to do it with any other team,” Obi Toppin said.
What Game 7 brings is not just the drama and finality of one game to win it all, this is also almost pure basketball focused on effort and execution. There is no special adjustment coming, nothing either coach left in their back pocket for this moment.
“We’ve played each other enough now, where it’s like, it’s pretty much — I mean, I don’t think there are any secrets out there when we play,” Pascal Siakam said. “I think it’s just about who wants it more, like just playing hard, and leaving it all out there on the floor and living with the results.”
Game 7s are less about adjustments and more about focus.
“The narratives are going to be almost poison…” Haliburton said. “To talk about what this would mean to our city and our organization and legacy talk and we played so well and now the pressure it on. Like, you know what I mean? There’s going to be narratives that we can’t really pay attention to.”
“They’re going to go into Game 7 confident, and so are we,” Jalen Williams said.
Both teams have earned that confidence. Game 7 will be about which team can execute in the biggest moment of their careers, in the brightest spotlight basketball has.
“The way I see it is, we sucked [in Game 6]. We can learn our lessons. We have one game for everything, for everything we’ve worked for, and so do they,” Gilgeous-Alexander said. “The better team Sunday will win.”
“We’ve got one game. One game,” Haliburton added. “It’s nothing that’s happened before matters, and nothing that’s going to happen after matters. It’s all about that one game.”
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