NBA Finals Game 4 Picks: Pacers Halfway Home to the NBA’s Greatest Upset

The 2025 NBA Finals have already given us more thrills through three games than any of the last three years did, with the Indiana Pacers leading the heavily favored Oklahoma City Thunder 2-1 after a great Game 3 performance. The Pacers are now halfway home to the NBA’s all-time upset.

If we review our Game 3 picks, Tyrese Haliburton was 3-for-3 on his player props, Pascal Siakam just squeezed out 27 points and rebounds for the over, and the Pacers obviously covered the spread again. Unfortunately, Andrew Nembhard only had one 3, Jalen Williams again only had one steal, and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander was held to 24 points with a playoff career-high six turnovers.

Now we’ll see if the Pacers can repeat their bench success after a stunning 49 points from those guys in Game 3, including 27 from Bennedict Mathurin and T.J. McConnell added the first NBA Finals game off the bench ever with 10 points, 5 steals, and 5 assists.

But the sportsbooks are still bullish on Oklahoma City. The Thunder have dropped from -650 to win the series to -230 at FanDuel, but that’s still a nice 69.7% chance to come back from a 2-1 deficit.

In NBA Finals history, teams leading 2-1 are 50-13 (.794) at winning the series, and they are 12-6 (.667) when the team who started the series on the road (like Indiana) was up 2-1. That means teams with home court who were down 2-1 only came back in 6-of-18 series, a third of the time. So, the Thunder still getting almost 70% odds is quite staggering and says the value is on the Pacers (30.3%) to get this done.

But the Thunder already came back from 2-1 against Denver in the semifinals, but that was their postseason breaking point so far in avoiding a 3-1 hole. They’ll have to do the same in Indiana on Friday night, where they are a 6-point favorite, which is even a half-point higher than Game 3.

Before we get to our Game 4 analysis and betting picks, let’s appreciate just how big of an upset this would be in NBA history.

Pacers vs. Thunder: The Biggest Upset in NBA History?

Again, we’re not putting the cart before the horse with Indiana. As Kobe Bryant once said, the job’s not finished. They could still lose 4-2, like our original prediction said. But Game 3 was such a confident win that didn’t require one of Indiana’s dark magic comebacks, which give you some real belief that this might be a team of destiny.

So, just how big of an upset would this be if the Pacers win two more games in this series?

The NBA is not a league built for upsets because it’s very hard to beat a team in a best-of-7 series as the underdog. Upsets happen much more frequently in the NFL’s one-and-done playoff system, and it’s easier to do in hockey, where scoring is far less frequent and you just need a few lucky bounces to go your way. MLB is also arguably easier since you have to start different pitchers.

But basketball not only demands that you win four games, but you have to win dozens and dozens of possessions every game on both ends of the court. That adds up to hundreds of plays in a 7-game series where you have to outdo your opponent, and that’s why we just don’t see that many big upsets, especially in the NBA Finals.

We had some of these numbers before Game 1 in highlighting just how historic an upset the Pacers beating 68-win Oklahoma City would be:

• Based on the series price for the NBA Finals, the Pacers were +500 to win the NBA Finals, which would tie the 2004 Pistons (vs. Lakers) for the longest known odds by a champion.
• The Pacers were anywhere from +5000 to +6600 before the season started to win the NBA Finals, which would easily replace the 2014-15 Warriors (+2800) as the longest known odds by a champion in the preseason.
• The Pacers were +8000 to win the NBA Finals before the first round of the playoffs, which would shatter the +1800 the 1995 Rockets and 2011 Mavericks (also coached by Indy coach Rick Carlisle) had to start their championship runs.

That’s the betting angle that says this would be the biggest championship upset in NBA history, but we also don’t have a lot of historical odds data from the 1950s through 1970s.

However, we have statistics on teams going back to 1947, and we can look at things like NBA Finals matchups based on the gap in regular-season wins between the teams as well as the gap in margin of victory (MOV), a stat where the 2024-25 Thunder set a single-season record by winning their games by 12.87 points.

The betting odds may have said the 2003-04 Pistons couldn’t compare to the Lakers, but they weren’t that far apart statistically. The Pistons were 54-28, which only trailed the Lakers (56-26) by two wins. Thanks to an elite defense, the Pistons actually ranked higher in the Simple Rating System (No. 4) than the Lakers (No. 7) that year. Throw in Kobe and Shaq feuding along with some washed-up veterans (Gary Payton, Karl Malone) trying to win a ring against a cohesive Detroit group, and was it really that big of an upset?

Here’s how the 2025 NBA Finals teams stack up this year based only on the regular season:

• 2024-25 Pacers: 50-32 record, +2.23 MOV
• 2024-25 Thunder: 68-14 record, +12.87 MOV
• Difference: Thunder are +18 in wins, +10.64 in MOV

Those are some significant edges for the Thunder. This is the 79th championship-deciding series in NBA history, and there are only five NBA Finals where a team had a bigger edge in wins than the Thunder (+18):

• +24: 1967 76ers (68-13) vs. Warriors (44-37) – 76ers won 4-2
• +24: 1971 Bucks (66-16) vs. Bullets (42-40) – Bucks won 4-0
• +22: 1981 Celtics (62-20) vs. Rockets (40-42) – Celtics won 4-2
• +21: 1972 Lakers (69-13) vs. Knicks (48-34) – Lakers won 4-1
• +19: 1959 Celtics (52-20) vs. Lakers (33-39) – Celtics won 4-0

All of those favored teams won, though two of them did lose a pair of games, including the 1981 Celtics, who lost twice to a Houston team that was only 40-42 in the regular season. But most cruised and none lost the championship.

Then, if you flip it around and look at it from the biggest upsets by the teams who had the biggest disadvantage in regular-season wins, only three teams were worse than minus-8, and it is a wild and varied list:

• -16: 2016 Cavaliers (57-25) vs. Warriors (73-9) – Cavaliers won 4-3 after coming back from a 3-1 deficit against the defending champs who won a record 73 games.
• -12: 1975 Warriors (48-34) vs. Bullets (60-22) – Warriors won 4-0 after MVP Rick Barry helped erase a double-digit deficit in all four games, which they won by a combined 16 points (two wins by a single point).
• -10: 1995 Rockets (47-35) vs. Magic (57-25) – Rockets won 4-0 in what is considered one of the biggest upsets.

Pretty crazy list, but I don’t think you can really compare Thunder-Pacers to any of these. Cleveland still had Prime LeBron, the best player in the world. The Warriors in 1975 also had the best player in the series (Rick Barry), and they won by the tiniest of margins.

But you have to call a little BS on the last one being this epic upset when it’s really just a case of an elite veteran (Hakeem Olajuwon) pulling off a repeat with his Rockets who won the championship in 1994, and they added another Hall of Famer (Clyde Drexler) to help Hakeem in 1995. They were also going up against a young and inexperienced Orlando team with Shaquille O’Neal and Penny Hardaway, so chalk one up for championship experience.

But at -18, the Pacers would obviously top this list as both the Pacers and Thunder are fairly young teams with the Thunder being one of the youngest in Finals history. But neither is a fluke, given how they performed one season ago. But how they continue to perform in the future will determine just how much of an upset we view this one historically.

I mean, it is very possible that we look back one day and ask how did a team where Chet Holmgren and Alex Caruso were major players dominate the scoreboard so much? Sure, turnovers explain a lot of the Thunder’s success, and maybe that’s just not sustainable against a team like Indiana that plays with such pace and obviously is having an all-time clutch shooting postseason. The perfect foil to this Thunder team.

If you break down all 79 championship series by the difference in regular-season MOV, then that’s where you really see this shine as a potential all-time upset, as the Pacers are -10.64 in MOV compared to the Thunder. Here are the only champions even close to that disadvantage:

• -4.94: 1995 Rockets (+2.12) vs. Magic (+7.06)
• -4.76: 2016 Cavaliers (+6.00) vs. Warriors (+10.76)
• -4.18: 1958 Hawks (+1.32) vs. Celtics (+5.50)

No one’s ever won a championship with a 5-point deficit in MOV, and the Pacers are trying to do it at over 10 points per game. You see two series we already covered in the 2016 Cavaliers and 1995 Rockets, but the 1958 NBA Finals are also very noteworthy as an all-time NBA upset.

People didn’t really know it at the time, but the Celtics were about to dominate the NBA. They just won a 4-3 series against the St. Louis Hawks in 1957 to win their first championship under coach Red Auerbach and a rookie named Bill Russell. They met the Hawks in a 1958 rematch, and this time St. Louis, behind Bob Pettit, won 4-2. Some of the close games the Hawks lost in the 1957 Finals, they won in 1958.

The 1958 NBA Finals is such a notable series because it’s the only best-of-7 playoff series in NBA history where the winning team got all four of its wins by 1-3 points each.

The Hawks won 104-102 in Game 1, they won Game 3 (111-108,) they won Game 5 by a 102-100 final in Boston, and Petitt scored 50 points in the 110-109 clinching win in Game 6 at home. Sounds like an incredible series that we probably have no surviving film from.

But that series is also significant since Russell went on to win 11 titles in 13 seasons with the Celtics. This was the first of just two losses for him, which should enhance the legacy of how big of an upset it is.

If the Thunder lose this series and flame out from here, never get back to the Finals, and SGA never wins another MVP, then people may laugh this off as a fluky year where the Thunder just had good turnover luck and favorable foul calls. Also, if the Pacers don’t follow this up with more success, people will just say they had some all-time comebacks that no one could repeat (including themselves), and it was just a weird year where the Mavericks somehow traded Luka Doncic to Los Angeles.

Had to fit that in there somewhere.

But if you plotted every NBA Finals based on the champion’s performance in the regular season relative to the runner-up team, here’s what you’d get. The x-axis is the gap in margin of victory and the y-axis is the gap in wins. I included the Pacers beating the Thunder just to show how off the charts this would be in 79 years of data:

Yeah, it’d be the all-time upset from a betting odds and team statistics perspective. But only time can tell if the reputation of these teams and what they do after this would keep it on top and such a shocking result.

But first, the Pacers have four games to get two wins against a team that hasn’t lost back-to-back games all postseason.

2025 NBA Finals Game 4 Betting Picks

We have six betting picks for Game 4 where the Thunder are a 6-point road favorite with a total of 225.5 points.

1. Tyrese Haliburton: Can He Do It in Back-to-Back Games?

When Tyrese Haliburton is aggressive, good things usually happen for the Pacers. He had 22 points and 11 assists and came up a rebound shy of a triple-double in the Game 3 win. But can he keep it up game after game as the elite ones do?

If you look at Haliburton’s postseason, he’s very up and down as a rebounder. Look at the rollercoaster he’s been on since the Knicks series started: 4-8-4-12-2-6-10-3-9 rebounds. It’s always at least a 4-rebound difference from game to game, and only once did he go in the same direction twice, and I don’t see him getting 13 boards here.

His line is 5.5 rebounds, and the under is favored too. I’d play an alternate line of under 6.5 rebounds, and I’d parlay it with under 2.5 made 3s as he also tends to finish under 2.5 at home in the playoffs.

NBA 2-Leg Pick: Tyrese Haliburton Under 6.5 Rebounds and Under 2.5 Made Threes (+122) at FanDuel

2. Should We Trust Bennedict Mathurin Again?

I’m still bummed out that Mathurin cost me a No Sweat Same Game Parlay against the Knicks when I just needed him to make one 3-point shot. He’s been hot and cold like that, but he was incredible in Game 3 with 27 points on 9-of-12 shooting. He also had 14 points in Game 2, so maybe coach Carlisle can keep playing the hot hand.

But while he obviously won’t be that red hot again in this game, he should be able to give us 11 points, right? That’s his line (10.5) in points for this game, and you could even get +255 odds at FanDuel for him to score 15 points. I’ll sprinkle that pick into some SGPs for this one, but let’s just go with the over for him off the bench and he’ll hopefully play over 22 minutes.

NBA Pick: Bennedict Mathurin Over 10.5 Points (-112) at FanDuel

3. Who Steals the Show (And the Ball) in Game 4 of the NBA Finals?

You’re always going to have steals and turnovers on the mind when the Thunder are involved, and this series has been good for some crazy steals numbers. I can’t see T.J. McConnell getting 5 thefts again, but he’s already had multiple in the last two games, and his odds to get 2+ steals is +370 here. It might be worth a sneaky play.

Chances are better that Alex Caruso rebounds from a terrible Game 3 and gets a few steals himself (-122 at FanDuel).

But I’m sticking with my Game 3 pick as it’s bound to happen in this series. Jalen Williams has now gone four games without multiple steals (1 in each game), and his odds are still a solid +138 in this game to do it.

He picked up his scoring in Game 3, but the Thunder know they’ll need to defend better and win the turnover battle if they’re going to even this series. That’s why I like Williams to get 2 steals and will also use him for 3+ steals (+430) in low-risk, high-reward parlays with +8000 odds or higher.

NBA Pick: Jalen Williams to Record 2+ Steals (+138) at FanDuel

4. Player Combos: Fill Up the Stat Sheet, MVP

In Game 4 against the Timberwolves in the Western Conference Finals, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander put in 40 points, 10 assists, and 9 rebounds in a big road win for his team coming off a bad loss in Game 3.

I think after the 24 points and 6 turnovers in Game 3, he redeems himself with a huge night, and I’m going with him to record at least 50 Pts + Reb + Ast for a combo prop pick.

NBA Pick: Shai Gilgeous-Alexander to Record 50+ Pts + Reb + Ast (+148) at FanDuel

5. Three Ballin’, Now Who’s Three Ballin’?

The Thunder got another big game from 3-point territory from Luguentz Dort in Game 3 (4-of-5), so I’m not going there again. I’d like to give Andrew Nembhard another shot to make multiple 3s in a big home game, but he doesn’t look for enough volume of them this postseason.

I already have Haliburton going under 2.5 from deep, so let’s go with another Pacer to step up and that’ll be Aaron Nesmith. He was only 1-of-2 from deep in Game 3, and he hasn’t had consecutive playoff games without multiple makes this year.

His odds are -215 at FanDuel to make 2+ 3s, which you could play in a parlay with some of these other legs. But let’s go with him to hit 3 from 3.

NBA Pick: Aaron Nesmith 3+ Made Threes (+142) at FanDuel

6. Who Wins Game 4 of the NBA Finals?

It’s definitely a story now that the Thunder are 0-8 ATS on the road in the playoffs this year. Bettors might be thinking to let that ride and take Indiana with the points in front of that great home crowd, but look at what the Thunder have done in Game 4s this postseason:

• First round: Won 117-115 in Memphis
• Semifinals: Won 92-87 in Denver (trailed by 8 points in fourth quarter)
• Conference Finals: Won 128-126 in Minnesota

Yes, they wouldn’t have covered a 6-point spread in any of those games, but they still won them all, and they were tight, competitive contests. In building a game script with all of our picks here, we have Haliburton having a lesser night, Mathurin relatively cooling down (11 points isn’t 27), Williams picking up his defensive intensity, and SGA putting on a show.

As crazy as it’d be to see the Pacers take a 3-1 lead and give themselves an incredible shot at winning this championship, I think the Thunder find a way to get it to 2-2, and I’m going with the Kansas City Chiefs classic: OKC wins but doesn’t cover.

(You could also do Thunder by 1-10 points for +155 odds at FanDuel.)

NBA Pick: Pacers +6 & Thunder ML (+392) at FanDuel

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