NBA Finals Game 2 takeaways: Thunder show why they're still favorites

The 2025 NBA Finals continued on Sunday night with the Oklahoma City Thunder rolling to a 123-107 win to even the series at 1-1.

There would be no second-half heroics or fourth quarter comeback for the Pacers on Sunday as they were unable to rebound from a slow start.

Here are some key takeaways from the Thunder's Game 2 win.

Both teams should be happy as the series shifts back to Indiana That might seem like taking the easy way out, but the odds of a team sweeping the NBA Finals are generally low.

If you are Indiana, you probably wanted to come into these first two games and steal at least one of them to wrestle home-court advantage away from the Thunder.

It did that with its Game 1, come from behind win.

Erasing huge fourth quarter deficits may not be a sustainable long-term way to win, but when you are talking about one best-of-seven series you don't really need to work about sustainability.

You just need to worry about winning four games by any means necessary.

Splitting these first two games was probably going to be a necessity.

While the Pacers were unable to pull off another huge comeback in Game 2, and while their start in the first half may have left something to be desired, going back home with the series tied is a win.

If you are Oklahoma City, you shook off an ugly loss to open the series.

You avoided going back to Indiana down by two games and you flexed your muscles in Game 2 and showed why you're the heavy favorites in the series.

Now it's a new best-of-five series starting Wednesday in Indiana.

Oklahoma City's depth was on display The Thunder not only have the best player in the series in 2024-25 league MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, they also have an incredibly deep roster that goes well beyond just him.

It showed on Sunday.

The Thunder had four different players top 18 points, including two massive performances coming off their bench.

Alex Caruso, one of the big offseason pickups, scored 20 points in his 27 minutes of action, shooting 6-of-11 from the field including 4-of-8 from three-point range.

Aaron Wiggins also had a huge night off the bench with 18 points, while also finishing as a team-best plus-24 in his 21 minutes.

He also had a 6-of-11 night from the field, while shooting 5-of-8 from three-point range.

The MVP also shined Depth matters, but so does having superstars, and OKC has both.

Gilgeous-Alexander continued his storybook season with another 30-point game, leading the way with 34 points.

It his fourth consecutive 30-point game, and the ninth time in the past 10 games he has topped the mark.

He is also off to an historic start to his NBA Finals career.

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander of the @okcthunder has scored 72 points through the first two games of the #NBAFinals presented by @YouTubeTV .

That is the most points ever by a player in his first two career NBA Finals games.

The previous high was 71 by Allen Iverson (2001).

pic.twitter.com/3qHRM0kuck Along with his 34 points he also recorded eight assists, five rebounds, a block and four steals.

Indiana struggled in the paint Along with committing 15 turnovers (and 17 points immediately off of those turnovers), the Pacers were also out-worked and out-played in the paint.

Oklahoma City ended the game with a 43-35 rebound advantage, while also outscoring the Pacers 42-34 in the paint.

That outweighed the small fast-break advantage the Pacers had (9-4).

Adam Gretz is a freelance writer based in Pittsburgh.

He covers the NHL, NFL, MLB and NBA.

Baseball is his favorite sport -- he is nearly halfway through his goal of seeing a game in every MLB ballpark.

Catch him on Twitter @AGretz.

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