The Oklahoma City Thunder are four wins away from an NBA championship They, of course, have to get through the Indiana Pacers first, but OKC is a heavy betting favorite to win it all, and that’s in large part due to a defense that is just relentless. The Thunder had the best defense in the league during the regular season, and we saw in the Western Conference finals just how daunting this team his and how difficult it is to find weaknesses to exploit on that end of the floor.
The Pacers are going to have their hands full in this series, just like every other team that has faced the Thunder this postseason. And the scary thought? OKC won’t be going anywhere anytime soon. Hall of Famer Steve Nash praised the Thunder’s defense on the Mind the Game podcast with co-host LeBron James, saying that they’re the model of where the league is going.
NBA Finals 2025 preview: Thunder vs. Pacers odds, best bets, series and player props, more
Chinmay Vaidya
“OKC, in a way, is the future in defense,” Nash said. “Now, I think it’s easy to say that, it comes down to coaching, but it really comes down to personnel because not every defense has defenders OKC has or the IQ. Looking at the profile of their defense, they have some balance.
“They have the two bigs, or they can bring some smaller bigs off the bench that are versatile, give you a different look,” he continued. “They have a lot of speed and mobility, everywhere on their court they have fast, mobile guys. They’re one of the handsiest groups I’ve ever seen, getting their hands on guys drives, shots, deflections. They have the ability with that speed and mobility to get in the gaps tight, to make the best player have doubt. The way they can fire back out, the way they stun and recover, the way they x-out. We’ve talked about this in previous episodes, their man [defense] looks like a zone [defense] a lot.”
The Thunder’s defense is why this Finals matchup against the Pacers has the potential to be very lopsided. We just saw OKC frustrate the hell out of Anthony Edwards, a dynamic athletic guard who feasts on getting downhill in the middle and finishing in a variety of ways. The Thunder completely nullified that part of Edwards’ game, turning him into a jump shooter. And when he did try to drive and kick it out, there was either a help defender slapping at the ball or another defender waiting for the steal after anticipating an Edwards pass out to a shooter in the corner.
The Thunder play an aggressive defense that no one has been able to exploit yet, and it’s because they have guys like Alex Caruso, Cason Wallace and Luguentz Dort to bother a wide array of opponents. Caruso, in particular, has proven to be the best trade in the last 12 months, as he’s taken the Thunder’s defense to an even higher level.
“They come off the bench with one of my favorite teammates of all times which is Alex Caruso,” James said. “He’s the ultimate Swiss Army knife. We’ve literally seen him guard Giannis [Antetokounmpo], we’ve seen him guard [Nikola Jokic], we’ve seen him guard [Anthony Edwards], Julius Randle. And you look at the plus-minus after the game, you know, [Caruso] will have five points, three rebounds, two assists, and his plus-minus will be a god damn +17.”
The Thunder have yet to meet an opponent this postseason that they haven’t been able to figure out, and while the Pacers will try to put up a fight, it’s going to be incredibly difficult to break a defensive unit that has the personnel to defend in a bunch of different ways and has the guys to make this a very quick series.
