If it wasn’t clear after Games 1 and 2 of the NBA Finals, there’s no denying it now: the Pacers have a real chance to win this series, regardless of how skeptical oddsmakers remain of Indiana.
I had major doubts that the Eastern Conference champs could keep up with the heavy betting favorites before this series tipped off.
But against the rare opponent that is just athletic as OKC — and just as deep — the Thunder are in a very different type of battle than the ones they went through in the Western Conference playoffs.
Going forward, OKC has a lot of tough questions to answer, including:
- Can Shai Gilgeous-Alexander play at an MVP level against unrelenting pressure from a long list of athletic Pacers defenders?
- What is the answer in the frontcourt? Chet Holmgren has played well the last two games after a clunker in Game 1, but Thunder coach Mark Daigneault is still struggling to figure out how much and when to play Holmgren and Isaiah Hartenstein.
- Has OKC finally run into a team that can hold its own — if not top the Thunder — in the turnover battle?
NBA Finals Game 4 Betting Odds: Spread, ML
How to Watch NBA Finals Game 4: Thunder vs. Pacers
- Tipoff: 8:30 p.m. ET
- Channel: ABC
NBA Finals Winner Odds: OKC Favored Despite 2-1 Deficit
- DraftKings: OKC -220; IND +185
- FanDuel: OKC -230; IND +190
NBA Finals Game 4 Betting Picks, Analysis
With all due respect to the Pacers, of course, writing off Game 1 slipping away from the Thunder was defensible. This time last week, it was hard to imagine OKC not having decisive advantages on the bench and in the turnover battle.
But since forcing the Pacers into 19 first-half turnovers in the first 24 minutes Game 1, the Thunder have only been able to force Tyrese Haliburton and Indy into 35 turnovers in the last 120 minutes (including the third and fourth quarters of Game 1, plus Games 2 and 3).
Rick Carlisle is getting massive contributions from his bench, with Bennedict Mathurin, TJ McConnell and Obi Toppin all coming up huge in Game 3.
Versatile Pacers bigs Myles Turner and Pascal Siakam have also held their own against the OKC frontcourt of Chet Holmgren and Isaiah Hartenstein — so well, in fact, that Hartenstein has come off the bench in all three games of this series while logging under 20 minutes in each of Games 1 and 3.
OKC’s historically good regular season by metrics like net rating — plus the 1-2 punch of SGA and Jalen Williams — makes it easy to understand why this team remains heavily favored by sportsbooks.
But it hasn’t faced a team like Indiana — which can match, if not exceed the Thunder’s athleticism and physicality — all year, and it’s getting harder to shake the feeling that in this matchup, the Pacers’ supporting cast might have the advantage over the role players for the Thunder.
Thunder vs. Pacers Game 4 Best Bets
If we haven’t yet given this away, this feels like a situation where oddsmakers have been slow to adjust to what’s happening on the court.
If you had no idea about what the Thunder accomplished in the regular season and how heavily favored they were to win this year’s Final, you would be expecting this series to go seven games based on Games 1, 2 and 3.
Obviously, doubting Gilgeous-Alexander and one of the best regular-season teams in recent memory would be bold, but at this point, so would ruling out the Pacers winning this series.
For what it’s worth, the all-time NBA Finals record of teams that held a 2-1 series lead is 50-13 (79.3 winning pct).
In a series that has been impossible for me to figure out (outside of Game 2, when we predicted that the Thunder won big at home), let’s go outside the box tonight for both of our best Thunder vs. Pacers Game 4 best ATS bets.
The first one we like is the Thunder to win the first quarter. OKC has outscored Indiana by 9, 6 and 8 points in the first three games of this series. I expect the favorites to start tonight hot after being outscored 32-18 in the fourth quarter of Game 3.
The other trend I expect to continue tonight is the Pacers’ domination of the fourth quarter. Indy has outscored OKC 35-25, 33-30 and 32-18 in the final frames of the first three games of this series.
There’s also a real chance that the Pacers could win the fourth quarter tonight even if OKC builds a big lead after 36 minutes — case in point: Game 2, when Indiana outscored OKC down the stretch despite entering the fourth quarter down 93-74.
- Thunder 1Q -3 (-105 at DraftKings) — 1 unit
- Pacers 4Q ML (+120 at DK) — 1 unit
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