Even before the ball left Tyrese Haliburton’s hands on its 21-foot journey to paydirt, dozens of Oklahoma City Thunder fans were already assuming the Surrender Cobra posture. Having entered Game 1 of the NBA Finals with two game-winning playoff buzzer-beaters in his back pocket—and an equalizer in New York that sent the Eastern Conference finals opener to overtime—Haliburton was the last guy the Paycom Center faithful wanted to see with the rock in his mitts in the waning seconds of Thursday night’s game.
Haliburton’s jumper passed through the cylinder with three-tenths of a second remaining on the clock, securing the Indiana Pacers’ 111-110 victory and marking the team’s fifth successful comeback from a deficit of 15 points or more since the playoffs began on April 19. Hence, the spasms of anticipatory body language in the stands before the 25-year-old guard sank the dagger: This is just what this team does.
Predictably, the national TV audience for Game 1 wasn’t commensurate with the sheer entertainment value on display. (There’s no accounting for taste.) Per Nielsen, ABC’s broadcast served up an average audience of 8.91 million viewers, down 19% from the analogous Mavericks-Celtics game in 2024 (10.99 million), while earning the dubious distinction of being the least-watched NBA Finals opener this side of the pandemic-blighted series in 2020 and 2021. (Prior to Thursday’s broadcast, the lowest delivery for a regularly-scheduled Game 1 was the 9.21 million viewers ABC managed with the 2007 Spurs-Cavaliers title tilt, a quick four-night set that remains the least-watched complete NBA Finals on record.)
By way of comparison to a recent game featuring a franchise repping a major market, Indiana’s Game 6 win over the Knicks in the Eastern Conference finals drew 8.12 million viewers on TNT/truTV.
Haliburton’s clincher should serve as a reminder that sitting out these NBA Finals is akin to voluntarily boycotting fun; that said, as clips of his late-game heroics continue to light up social media, some of those quick-hit digital impressions should lead to higher TV deliveries in Game 2.
Meanwhile, the Pacers’ gritty win has shifted the betting futures lines, as Vegas books now have the Thunder listed at -325 favorites to win the title, down from Monday’s -700, while the Pacers have earned a measure of begrudging respect at +260 odds. Indiana was saddled with +500 odds at the top of the week. Still, Our Friends in the Desert have made OKC 10.5-point faves ahead of Sunday night’s game, a click higher than Thursday night’s -9.5 spread.
If nothing else, the line for Game 2 serves as a tacit acknowledgment that OKC is designed to memory-hole any setbacks that come its way. After their most recent home loss on May 5, the Thunder bounced back with a 43-point shellacking of the Denver Nuggets in Game 2 of their second-round playoff battle. “This series isn’t first to one, it’s first to four,” said an unbothered Shai Gilgeous-Alexander in the wake of his 38-point performance. “So, we have four more games to get, they have three, and that’s just where we are.”
ABC is already closing in on a sellout of its inventory in Games 2-5, and the longer the series extends toward the ideal of a seventh frame, the higher the TV numbers—and ad sales revenue—will climb. A half-dozen games should generate north of $265 million in paid airtime, while precedent suggests that a full slate will yield more than $320 million in marketing commitments.
Game 2 tips off Sunday night at 8 p.m. ET on ABC.
