With the Finals starting in one day, let’s take a look at some series-long player bets for the Thunder and Pacers. One trend to keep your eye on is the Finals MVP battle. Last season, Jaylen Brown emerged from the Boston Celtics as the game-changer.
Jalen Williams has a chance to copy and paste this trend in 2025. As for Indiana, their one player with Finals experience should show up at home, especially after a massive ECF performance.
Jalen Williams is ranked 5th among players in this series in 3 PM with 27, shooting 32% from beyond the arc. With Indiana’s full-court pressure and certainly multiple bodies thrown at SGA, Jalen Williams will need to have a big series - maybe an MVP-type series - for the Thunder to defeat Indiana.
JDub is the Jaylen Brown of this year, with the former Finals MVP carrying the load off of Tatum to beat the Mavs last season. Williams hit 12 threes in their five-game series against Minnesota, leading OKC but trailing the leader in DiVincenzo by two. He’s got the green light and the touch to lead this series in 3s made, and at +1000 odds, this is a solid longshot play.
Siakam has the Finals experience and the scoring ability to take over in a handful of these games. Pascal dominated against smaller defenders in the New York series, scoring with ease against Hart, OG, and Bridges throughout that incredible series.
He scored 30+ points in three games and had a 39-point Game 2 on just 23 attempts. In a series that should go at least five games, he will have opportunities, especially at home, to push the pace and score in chunks against a Thunder team that will try to throw the thinner Holmgren at both Siakam and Turner at times in the series.
With this Indiana team swarming defenders from baseline to baseline, Shai might get more hockey assists earlier in this series than basketball assists. Jalen Brunson only averaged 5.7 APG in the ECF, going for 5/11/1 dimes to start that series.
Darius Garland averaged just 4 APG in the 2nd Round series, showing that the Pacers force ball movement to beat you, which the Knicks had in their mere two victories against the East Champions.
Shai has averaged 6.9 APG during this postseason run, but in the Finals, I expect Jalen Williams and the role backcourt players to add additional assists instead of Shai, who might free up his teammates with those hockey assists.