Check out the best of Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Tyrese Haliburton ahead of Thunder-Pacers NBA Finals clash.
OKLAHOMA CITY — Welcome to the Point Guard Party, even if the invitations say 2025 NBA Finals. There’s plenty that could occur over the next few weeks to give this series additional flavor, but until then, until the ball goes up on Indiana Pacers vs. Oklahoma City Thunder, until further notice, commanding the conversation will be your hosts:
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Tyrese Haliburton.
Before the ball bounces, this series is already historic for two reasons.
One: It’s the shortest distance between East and West championship cities in the 30-team era — not exactly an Uber ride, yet close.
But mainly for No. 2: Both teams were tug-boated to the Finals by point guards.
Not since Magic Johnson kissed Isiah Thomas on the cheek has the point guard position been this massive in the Finals. Even before Magic and Isiah squared off back-to-back in 1988 and ’89, the NBA Finals never featured the starting point guard as the most celebrated and accomplished player for both teams.
The sport itself dictated that it would be ruled initially by the tallest men: Wilt Chamberlain, Bill Russell, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Moses Malone and others. More often than not, teams blessed with elite 7-footers had an exclusive grip on the championship round.
Once the revolution arrived and the floor stretched and size didn’t matter as much, big guards and small forwards took over: Larry Bird, Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, LeBron James. Every now and then, one Finals team was carried by a point guard, but not both.
Trades transformed Pacers, Thunder
What the Pacers and Thunder are bringing is rare. The ball belongs to Gilgeous-Alexander and Haliburton, who will mainly dictate what happens next. And that ball couldn’t be in better hands.
Gilgeous-Alexander is in the home stretch of a dream season. The trail behind him is littered with applause and awards, and the road ahead contains the big one — the championship trophy, which would be the first for him and the Thunder franchise. It would be the perfect ending to a journey already including the 2025 Kia NBA MVP, scoring title and All-NBA First Team accolades. Falling short of a title would be akin to a fly falling in his piña colada.
Haliburton is finishing up a quirky season. It’s rooted in last summer when he made Team USA — a high honor that earned him an Olympic gold medal — tempered by the fact that Haliburton rarely played. Then he started the NBA season slowly before catching fire, salvaging it by making All-NBA Third Team and pushing the Pacers through to the Finals with multiple playoff game-winning or game-extending last-second shots.
The Thunder and Pacers didn’t reach elite status until those point guards arrived in trades and changed everything. This went counter to typical team-building, where the point guard is mainly an accessory, a set-up guy to the Main Guy. And in a weird coincidence, one player made both franchise-altering acquisitions possible: Paul George.
OKC was transformed after dismantling a 2019 playoff team. When the Clippers called that summer for George — who finished third in MVP voting that season — OKC couldn’t refuse the haul of five first-round picks, two swaps and a promising young prospect coming off his rookie season: Gilgeous-Alexander.
The rebuilding Thunder gave Gilgeous-Alexander the ball and all the time he needed, then gave him Chris Paul for one season of tutoring, and Gilgeous-Alexander did the rest.
Three years later, De’Aaron Fox made a splash in Sacramento with ripples felt halfway across the country. Suddenly blessed (or cursed) with a pair of young point guards, the Kings needed size and called the Pacers with a swap proposal: Haliburton, then midway through his second season with the Kings, for then-Pacers forward/center Domantas Sabonis (also obtained in exchange for George in 2017).
Teams normally don’t trade big for small, but the Pacers smartly did not resist. General manager Kevin Pritchard took a gamble and coach Rick Carlisle was all-in.
“This franchise took a chance on me, saw something that other people didn’t see in me,” Haliburton said.
Carlisle called Haliburton “an elite young point guard that affects the game positively in many, many ways … he has a chance to continue to grow. Finding a franchise-caliber point guard at age 21 is extremely difficult to do.”
Gilgeous-Alexander and Haliburton share positions, but neither has the same playing style or demeanor. It’s what sets them apart, but also put them on the same path.
A pass-first Pacer
Haliburton is a throwback, hopelessly stuck in a modern game that favors scoring point guards. There’s more John Stockton in Haliburton than Damian Lillard. And that’s the beauty: Haliburton refuses to change even if he could.
He led the league in assists last season (10.9 assists per game in 2023-24) and finished third (9.2 apg) this season. He’s averaging 10.1 assists since arriving in Indianapolis and is No. 1 in assists (9.8 apg) in the 2025 playoffs.
Even better, Haliburton isn’t a reckless player despite being at the controls. He was below two turnovers per game this season and his Game 4 in the Eastern Conference Finals was saluted after he amassed a historic triple-double in 38 minutes … with no turnovers.
Pushing the pace relentlessly, Tyrese Haliburton turns in a historic postseason performance as the Pacers seize a 3-1 lead over the Knicks.
Haliburton is the principal reason for the Pacers’ high-efficiency offense of the last two seasons. They averaged a league-high 123.3 points in 2023-24 and this season ranked No. 3 in field goal percentage while committing the fourth-fewest turnovers.
That said, the Pacers’ first scoring option in a tight game is Haliburton, who has the green light to shoot.
“What makes him very good is that he’s very confident,” said Thunder forward Jalen Williams. “Him playing through all the ‘overrated’ stuff, you have to tip your cap to him … it makes him a very dangerous individual.”
OKC’s unstoppable scorer
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander earned Kia MVP honors after a highlight-packed 2024-25 regular season.
It’s an unofficial title, but also an undeniable one: Gilgeous-Alexander is the league’s most creative scorer. He’s also old-school like Haliburton, with a twist because Gilgeous-Alexander is a lethal mid-range artist in a league crammed with 3-point shooters.
He puts in work from 15-18 feet, getting to his sweet spot with a firm dribble, using a slight nudge of his forearm to create the crack of daylight between him and the defender, or elevating with a fallback jumper to safely release the ball.
The smooth efficiency is butter and brilliant to behold. It doesn’t end there, though. Gilgeous-Alexander is masterful at drawing fouls (to his benefit and also derision at times) and, while not a volume 3-point shooter, manages to make them when it counts.
He averaged at least 30.1 points per game in each of the last three seasons (an NBA-best 34.2 ppg in 2024-25) and, at 26, is still in his prime. His passing has improved each season as well, and he registered a career-best 6.4 apg this season, too.
Shades of point guards past
So it appears the 2025 NBA Finals could almost register the same point-guard buzz as Isiah vs. Magic. Yes, almost. Because those two legends overwhelmed the billboard.
Magic and the Lakers were wrapping up Pat Riley’s promised three-peat — which he wisely trademarked — and still had a supply of that 1980s aura that put them (and the Bird-led Celtics and Julius Erving’s Sixers) on an island apart from the rest of the league.
Magic was locked in distribution mode and this series was proof of that. He averaged 13 apg and James Worthy was the main beneficiary, delivering a 36-point triple-double in Game 7 of the series to clinch Finals MVP honors.
As for Isiah, this was his first of three straight trips to the Finals after solving the Celtics riddle and paying his dues. Isiah was trying to overcome the little-man syndrome, as no player his height (6-foot-1) had been the leading factor in winning a championship.
Isiah had his career-defining moment in Game 6, when he hobbled through the third quarter on a sprained ankle and scored 25 points in the period. Yet Magic and the Lakers won that game, then claimed the title in Game 7.
In Game 6 of the 1988 Finals, Isiah Thomas, hobbling on a sprained ankle, scored an NBA-record 25 points in the third quarter.
The rematch was a made-for-ratings bonanza … up until a few days before tipoff. Magic was in full control of a Lakers’ team that showed age, especially Abdul-Jabbar, who proved gassed at age 42, making the final stop on his retirement tour. Magic won the second of his three MVPs that season after carrying the club through much of it.
Isiah was hell-bent on revenge after his injury-marred series the previous summer. In the playoffs, he swept the Bird-less Celtics, dispatched the oncoming threat of Jordan, and, in the Finals, confronted the player who topped him in ’88.
But Riley put the Lakers through a pre-Finals boot camp where Byron Scott suffered a hamstring pull, and then Magic pulled up lame with the same injury in Game 2. Both were done. Isiah probably would’ve won anyway — the Pistons were the superior and friskier team — and he did so in a sweep.
After that, multiple champions claimed trophies with solid point guards (Ron Harper with the Bulls, Derek Fisher with the Lakers, etc.), but none with star tendencies. Chauncey Billups guided a Pistons team that defined sum surpassing parts in 2004, and the Spurs did feature Tony Parker through much of their title run (he was Finals MVP in 2007) … though they also had a player named Tim Duncan.
During those Warriors vs. Cavaliers matches a decade ago, Stephen Curry and Kyrie Irving had duels — with Irving sinking the dramatic and eventual championship-winning shot for Cleveland in 2016. But the Cavs also had James.
Therefore, Gilgeous-Alexander and Haliburton, point guards and the clear leaders of their teams, make for a unique championship series. One doesn’t need to score 30 points to help his team win. The other usually wins when he does score 30.
While the 2025 NBA Finals will ultimately be decided by which team plays better in a best-of-seven, it will be heavily influenced by Gilgeous-Alexander. Or Haliburton. Or maybe both.
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Shaun Powell has covered the NBA for more than 25 years. You can e-mail him here, find his archive here and follow him on X.
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