All that’s at stake is legacy.
The victor of Game 7 of the NBA Finals between the Oklahoma City Thunder and Indiana Pacers will shape the narrative, the frame through which the winning team is remembered.
If it’s the Thunder…
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander will go down as having an all-time great season. He will have notched a regular season Most Valuable Player award — and probable Finals MVP — and will have led Oklahoma City, which tied for the fifth-most victories in a regular season (68), to its first NBA championship since moving to the city and the franchise’s first since 1979, when it was the Seattle SuperSonics.
Jalen Williams will emerge as a legitimate star whose Game 5 heroics in a 40-point masterpiece lifted the Thunder.
And Mark Daigneault, 40, will reinforce his position as one of the premier coaches in the NBA, leading the second-youngest team to win a Finals in NBA history — which implies OKC could be in position to repeat.
If it’s the Pacers…
Point guard Tyrese Haliburton will obliterate the “overrated” narrative that has unfairly followed him since The Athletic published a player poll that labeled him the most overrated player in the league. He will wrap an unprecedented run of clutch postseason play with a title.
Pascal Siakam will become a two-time champion and see his profile raised further.
Rick Carlisle will become just the fourth coach — joining Phil Jackson, Pat Riley and Alex Hannum — to win championships with two different teams. His status as an innovative and adaptable coach who entrusts his players will be unquestioned after leading the decided underdog Pacers to an NBA title, their first in franchise history.
Game 7s in the Finals are special, with this marking just the 20th in history. Just the very nature of the games — the magnified stakes, the drama — can define legacies.
“Respect isn’t something that we can just talk about and receive — it’s an earned thing,” Haliburton said in a Saturday, June 21 news conference. “No matter what happens, it’s still probably not going to be where necessarily it ‘should’ be or what we think it should be.
“It doesn’t really matter, though. I think from our standpoint — teams we compete against, they respect us. I think that’s the most important thing. … We are in a great, great point right now in our organization’s history and for our team specifically. You’ve got to be really excited about the chance to compete in one game to win a championship.”
It becomes a very different story with a loss — for both squads.
The Thunder suddenly will be framed as front-runners and Gilgeous-Alexander’s greatness and efficiency will likely be overshadowed. Detractors will get louder with their “foul merchant” critiques and almost certainly will say the Thunder got a favorable whistle and still couldn’t do anything with it.
Similarly, a defeat would likely only strengthen the barbs hurled at Haliburton. Indiana’s up-tempo, free-flowing offense may be discounted as a gimmick and an operation — despite Indy’s success this postseason — not suitable to win when it counts. Critics will likely say the Pacers still need a true star.
The reality, however, is that it serves teams no use to consider narrative and legacy before a Game 7.
While players and coaches certainly do reap future profits from championship runs, Game 7s are — in their most distilled terms — just another game. Forty-eight minutes for a team to top another. The glory cannot come without the actual victory.
The secret to success, therefore, likely requires some willful ignorance, some intentional blocking out of the context of the game.
“You try to make it as binary as possible,” Thunder guard Alex Caruso, a champion with the 2020 Lakers, said Saturday. “You’re either going to win or lose. That is literally what’s going to happen. The season is going to be over and you’re going to be champion, or you’re going to lose and start from square one. You might as well go out and put your best forward and compete your (butt) off and play hard for your teammates and try and win.”