The Indiana Pacers will not die. The New York Knicks warned us. The Cleveland Cavaliers warned us. The Milwaukee Bucks warned us.
And now, the Oklahoma City Thunder have learned their own lesson about how big a lead you can have against the NBA’s preeminent comeback artists before you can start feeling comfortable. After leading by as many as 15 points in Game 1, and by nine with three minutes left, the owners of the NBA’s best record became the Pacers’ latest victims.
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Tyrese Haliburton made the game-winning shot with 0.3 seconds left in a 111-110 Pacers win, silencing a Paycom Center crowd that had been loud all night. While the arena was quiet, social media was another story.
Indiana Fever star Caitlin Clark, currently rehabbing a quad injury, was enjoying herself quite a bit.
Clark has some practice in this kind of thing. Consider that this was the Pacers’ fifth win this postseason, in which they have only lost four games, where they won after being down by at least 15 points. Clark has posted something two different times in the past month that would have fit right in with the flood of posts on Thursday.
And there’s just no big NBA moment that doesn’t get a delightfully straightforward response from Magic Johnson.
There were also a bunch of NBA players who were simply speechless from another shot by a player infamously voted the most overrated among his peers not two months ago.
Former Pacers and Thunder player Victor Oladipo just had a ton of questions for some reason.
Former NCAA tournament Most Outstanding Player Kyle Guy, who knows a thing or two about clutch shots, also had a good point. For all the fretting over the market sizes of Oklahoma City and Indiana, it can’t be ignored that the NBA Finals just began with a game that will get attention from around the sports world for the next 24 hours.
Game 2 is scheduled for Sunday at 8 p.m. ET at Paycom Center.
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