Oklahoma City Thunder – Indiana Pacers is playing Thursday night, Friday – 3.30 in Romania, in the Paycom Center in Oklahoma, and is the first match of the NBA final, the North -Americin Basketball Championship, the most valuable and spectacular in the world.
Shai, with the ball, is the man to watch at Okc
The final final is disputed according to the “best of 7” system or “who reaches the first at 4”. Anyone wins the Larry O’Brien trophy will do it for the first time in history.
Oklahoma City was the number 1 series in the West in the last playoffs, and Indiana was a finalist of the conference in the east in 2024.
OKC, first finalist without a team player at least 10 years in NBA
According to analysts, two factors are an unequivocal photo of their success, in the two conferences: the average age of lots and relative wage costs compared to the great waste of NBA.
Thunder and Pacers were not planned to win in 2025. They took advantage of the mistakes of the rivals who wanted everything immediately, but woke up with empty hands.
Thunder, the team with the best track record, 68 victories in the regular season, is an average age of only 25.6 years. The second youngest team that reached the final in the “Era of the offensive attack”, after Portland in the 1976-77 season (25.03 years). And there is the first team in the final without a team player with at least 10 years of experience in NBA.
The franchise player, Canadian Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, is 26 years old. Shai, appointed MVP, arrived in exchange from Los Angeles, from Clippers, but at that time it was just a promise.
Pacers are an average age of 26.9 years. Tyrese Haliburton, the team’s star, is 25, like Andrew Nembhard and Aaron Nemith, two other holders. Traditionally, experienced teams win in NBA. Not this time.
Teams that know the value of money
For the first time in 22 years, since this cost ceiling is in force, the final will face two teams that do not pay luxury taxes, the penalty for exceeding the salary ceiling.
In short, he wins the one who saves, not the one who spends in ignorance. Thunder and Pacers had planned investments in medium -term projects.
In Oklahoma, Thunder means everything in sports. The city has no American football clubs (NFL) or baseball (MLB). Even the great state colleagues, Oklahoma University in Norman, the University of Oklahoma in Stillwater and Tulsa University, are outside the city.
Paycom Center is a special arena in NBA, university -style croti. Thunder played a final in 2012, losing 1-4 in front of the Miami team. Like Seattle, the ancestor of the franchise, who had played three times: winning in 1979, but losing in 1978 and 1996.
