The Oklahoma City Thunder used a huge fourth quarter to come back and beat the Indiana Pacers in Game 4 of the 2025 NBA Finals on Friday night. OKC evened the series at 2-2 and outscored Indy by 14 points in the fourth quarter of a 111-104 win. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander scored 11 points in the final three minutes as the Thunder came up clutch.
The Pacers led by as many as 10 points late in the third quarter, but struggled offensively for the rest of the game, scoring only 18 points in the final 14 minutes. Tyrese Haliburton had 18 points and seven assists while Pascal Siakam had a team-high 20 points.
OKC hit just three of its 17 3-point attempts (17.6%), but the Thunder made 34 free throws. Jalen Williams (27 points) and Alex Caruso (20 points) had big nights to help the OKC attack.
For the Pacers, this one is going to sting. Only one team has ever overcome a 3-1 Finals deficit, and they came so close to securing such a lead in this series. Instead, they blew a double-digit second-half lead. After starting hot from deep themselves, they went just as cold as the Thunder did.
Game 5 is set for Monday night in Oklahoma City. Here are our biggest takeaways from Game 4.
A golden opportunity squandered
It is very, very hard to win an NBA game without moving the ball and without making 3s. It’s been 10 years since any NBA team, in the regular season or playoffs, has won a game with 10 or fewer assists and three or fewer made 3-pointers. It was the Charlotte Hornets who did so all the way back in 2015. Tonight, the Oklahoma City Thunder broke that streak with their series-tying Game 4 win.
That’s what’s going to sting so much about this loss for the Pacers. Their defensive process was flawless. As they’ve done all series, they stifled any Oklahoma City ball-movement and forced them to score points in isolation. Doing that alone is usually enough to win, but they also got incredible shooting luck with the Thunder going just 3 of 17 from deep. Great process and better luck. A seven-point lead to open the fourth quarter. The game was right there for them.
If the Pacers could have made a few more shots down the stretch, they’d be leading this series 3-1. Teams that have built a 3-1 lead in the Finals are 37-1 overall in the series. Only the 2016 Cleveland Cavaliers have ever overcome such a deficit. The Pacers got exactly the sort of game they needed to effectively clinch the championship. They just couldn’t seal the deal in a fourth quarter in which they scored just 17 points.
Haliburton looked like a normal star down the stretch
Tyrese Haliburton has taken a lot of flack this postseason, and really, dating back to the regular season with the ridiculous poll calling him the most overrated player in the league, for not playing like a traditional star. He doesn’t take 25 shots every night. He has games where he barely scores. He plays to make the right decision no matter what. Sometimes, that means barely shooting. That approach has suited the Pacers just fine all postseason.
But Haliburton’s fourth quarter was the most traditional, star-style basketball he’s played all postseason. He took seven shots, the most he’s attempted in any quarter in the Finals. He attacked the basket, finishing several acrobatic layups at the rim, when he rarely ever goes at the rim looking to score so intentionally. A lot of Indiana’s offense in that final frame boiled down to Haliburton getting the ball, calling for a screen from the defender he preferred to attacking, and going from there.
He scored eight points. His teammates scored nine. The Pacers lost the fourth quarter by 14 points and thus lost the game. Is this a sign that the Pacers are better off when Haliburton plays like Haliburton instead of like a more traditional, high-usage ball-handler? There’s probably a balance to this. The Pacers consistently generated good shots in the fourth quarter. They just missed them. Haliburton’s judgment, at this point, has to be treated as impeccable. He made good decisions that just didn’t work out. The Thunder have had quite a bit of bad shooting luck in this series. For the Pacers, it hit them like a ton of bricks in the fourth quarter.
What to make of Oklahoma City’s lineup change?
Much has been made throughout the Finals of Oklahoma City’s controversial decision to change its starting lineup before Game 1. Isaiah Hartenstein sat. Cason Wallace took his place. The Thunder lost two of the first three games with that lineup on the floor, but they won the minutes that lineup played handily. So far in the Finals, the starters with Wallace in Hartenstein’s place are +7 in 38 minutes. Individually, Wallace has struggled, but as a unit, good things happened. The Thunder built first quarter leads in each of the first three games.
Well, Game 4 was the opposite. The starters actually lost their minutes together by two points, and the Pacers largely controlled the earlier portion of the game. However, in the second half, the Thunder tinkered with double-big lineups featuring at least one reserve, so as a unit, the Thunder were a net-zero with Hartenstein and Holmgren on the floor together.
The eye test suggests that the Thunder are better with only one big man on the floor. Defending the Pacers with two centers is difficult because of how much shooting they have basically at all times. Sure enough, the Pacers made four 3s in the first five minutes when the Thunder had two big men in the game. They made seven more in the entire rest of the game. Yet the Thunder won the game. If that’s the standard, that’s the lineup they’ll stick with.
Interestingly, the Thunder haven’t tried Alex Caruso in the starting lineup yet. That would figure to be an ideal middle ground: versatile enough to hang on the perimeter, but strong enough to contend with Pascal Siakam near the basket, which Cason Wallace is too small to do. The Thunder haven’t pulled that lever yet. Maybe it’s one they try later in the series. The Thunder did save Caruso-on-Nikola Jokić until Game 7 of their second-round series, after all. They’ve been known to hold adjustments until late in a series if they feel it’s necessary.
