The 2025 NBA Finals get underway on Thursday when the Indiana Pacers travel to take on the Oklahoma City Thunder. Game 1 is set to tip off at 8:30 p.m. ET from the Paycom Center in Oklahoma City. The Thunder won an NBA-best 68 games during the regular season, which resulted in the No. 1 overall seed in the Western Conference. Meanwhile, the Pacers made the NBA Finals 2025 despite being a No. 4 seed in the East.
According to the latest Pacers vs. Thunder odds for Game 1, Oklahoma City is favored by 9.5 points, while the over/under for total points scored is 230. The total has gone Over in seven of OKC’s last 10 meetings against the Pacers. However, the Thunder are just 2-4 against the spread in their past six home games against Indiana.
Both of these teams are loaded with young superstars. The Thunder are led by Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, who won his first NBA MVP award after averaging 32.7 points, 6.4 assists and 5.0 rebounds during the regular season. The Pacers are led by Tyrese Haliburton, who racked up three double-doubles and one triple-double in Indiana’s series win over the New York Knicks.
Thanks to the surge of sports betting in recent years, basketball fans across the nation can get in on the action, even if they’re not fans of the Pacers or Thunder. Sportsbooks will offer several different types of wagers, including player props involving Gilgeous-Alexander and Haliburton, as well as traditional bets like against the spread and the over/under.
While backers of the Pacers and Thunder obviously have much invested in the 2025 NBA Finals, the average basketball fan may not have as much interest, considering the smaller market sizes for both franchises. But thanks to the surge of sports betting in recent years, they too can get more involved in the series.
If you’re not a professional or frequent bettor, fear not. Novices and casuals often get intimidated when it comes to wagering on sports, but the following betting guide will help you learn some of the basics of basketball betting and have even more fun while consuming the 2025 NBA Finals. You can also view this comprehensive NBA betting guide as another resource for the top sportsbooks and betting apps for your NBA wagering. See more in the NBA betting guide here.
Basketball betting basics
One of the first things new bettors always should do when looking to wager on the NBA — or any other sport — is peruse the top sportsbooks. They’ll often have different sign-up offers that can include things like deposit matches, “bet and get” and “no sweat bets.”
The other benefit to using multiple sportsbooks is the ability to shop around when it comes to lines and odds. For instance, one sportsbook might have the total for the next Thunder vs. Pacers game at 230, and another may have it at 232. It’s always a good idea to shop around for the most favorable number when placing NBA bets.
For new users, taking advantage of sports betting promos provides the opportunity to add bonus bets to your account to get started in basketball betting.
Once you’ve selected a sportsbook, you need to explore different wagers. Most NBA pages automatically will feature the next upcoming game of the NBA Finals with +/- pricings for wagers. Plus-money prices show how much you would profit on a $100 bet. For example, the underdog being priced at +250 means you would profit $250 on a $100 wager. Meanwhile, minus-money prices show how much you need to wager to profit $100. For example, the favorite being listed at -300 means you need to bet $300 to profit $100.
Those prices are attached to three main types of bets:
- Spread: This is the amount the favorite must win by in order to cover. Thus, if the favorite is listed at Favorite (-5.5), then it must win by 6 or more points in order to cover. That also means the underdog, who would be listed at Underdog (+5.5) can cover by either outright winning or by losing by 5 points or fewer.
- Total (over/under): This refers to the total number of points scored in the game. For example, if the Over/Under, or O/U, is 227.5, then the Under would win if there are 227 or fewer points, while the Over would prevail with 228 or more points.
- Money line: This is simply a straight-up bet on which team will win, without regard to any point spreads or margin of victories.
NBA betting expert advice
Looking for Thunder vs. Pacers betting advice? Look no further than Larry Hartstein, SportsLine’s Senior Editor who combines a vast network of Vegas sources with an analytical approach. You can find Larry as a regular on The Early Edge Podcast. Here are some of Larry’s top NBA betting tips:
1. There are myriad bets you can make on any NBA game, let alone an NBA Finals matchup. Don’t go crazy betting the side, totals, quarters, halves, props and more in every contest. By this point, oddsmakers’ lines are very sharp. Focus on (at most) a few angles you really love.
2. If you’re itching to make every game interesting, consider a series bet. OKC -2.5 games — the Thunder to win in five or fewer games — comes back at -122 (risking $122 to win $100). If you like the other side, Pacers +2.5 games, you’ll get even money (risk $100 to win $100). That’s a great way to stay locked in on the action throughout.
3. Speaking of series-long bets, sportsbooks now offer props on who will lead the Finals in scoring, 3-pointers, assists and rebounds. Variance comes into play when you’re talking about the 3-point line; that’s a fun market in which to back an underdog like Indiana’s Aaron Nesmith (+370) or Oklahoma City’s Lugentz Dort (+500).
Thunder vs. Pacers prop betting
Other bets that tend to make NBA wagering exciting are prop bets. Users can find NBA prop bets on teams, individual players and the game itself.
First up, player props, in which there are countless options related to statistics. One of the more popular is the points prop where a player is given a scoring bar, say 26.5, and they simply must either go Over or Under that bar. You can also do combo player props, such as totaling a player’s points plus rebounds plus assists and predicting if that combination hits above or below their props bar.
There also are prop bets on individual teams. Those can include what type of basket a team will score first (2-pointer, 3-pointer, free throw), how many total points a team will score, or who will lead that team in rebounds.
Meanwhile, some of the most interesting NBA prop bets are game props. Users can wager on whether or not the game goes to overtime, how many dunks are in the first 5 minutes, or which team reaches 20 points first.
Thunder vs. Pacers parlay picks
As is the case with many other sports, parlays are a popular type of bet on NBA games. Parlays are when a user strings together multiple wagers and must win all of them in order to win the bet. Here’s an example from any given night during the NBA regular season:
The above example carries odds of +1074. The user must win all three of those bets to win the parlay, which makes parlays much more difficult to win than individual wagers.
With the NBA Finals now here, same-game parlays (SGP) will now be the only type of parlays. The same rules apply as above, but all of the wagers will now take place from the same game.
Note that each sportsbook has its own formula for SGP odds, another reason to look around at various sports betting apps.
NBA futures betting
Another popular type of wager is a futures bet, and sportsbooks offer a wide array of them for NBA teams and players. Futures bets often are season- or postseason-long wagers that cash if a player or team hits a certain benchmark or wins a certain award. Since the 2025-26 NBA season has just a handful of games left, current NBA futures involve next season’s results. In fact, bettors can already wager on who will win the 2026 NBA championship while in the midst of the 2025 NBA Finals.
Team futures include NBA championship winner, conference winner, over/under for wins, and the team to make the playoffs. On the individual player side, there are options such as winning MVP, or any other award, or averaging a certain amount of points.
An NBA futures still available for this season is betting on who wins the Finals MVP award. The season MVP is also the favorite for the Finals MVP in Gilgeous-Alexander. Jerry West won the inaugural Finals MVP award in 1969 while playing for the runner-up Los Angeles Lakers, but since then, every NBA Finals MVP has come from the winning team.
How to bet on the NBA Finals
Sportsbooks have already posted NBA Finals odds for 2025-26, as the odds for 2025 NBA Finals winner were posted during last season’s championship series. Those odds will change throughout the campaign, so users can shop for different odds at different times.
When it comes to how to bet on the NBA Finals or the playoffs in general, it isn’t much different from betting on regular-season games. Perhaps the biggest differences include the ability to bet on each individual series, which can be done outright (Pacers to defeat the Knicks), or you can wager on the exact outcome (Pacers to defeat the Knicks in six games).
Thunder vs. Pacers live betting
As is the case with so many other sports, users can live bet on NBA games, which just means betting on a game while it’s in progress. The odds will change depending on the score of the game, the time remaining, foul situation and other factors.
It sometimes can be good to live bet if users want to get a feel for how the game is playing out before placing a wager. For instance, if a team has a couple of key injuries, users may want to see how it reacts to those before placing a bet.
Tips and advice for betting on the NBA Finals
The NBA can be very unpredictable, as evident by the conference finals consisting of just one team with a top-2 playoff seed. So, simply betting the favored team with the spread is generally is not a good strategy. Here are a few more betting tips from SportsLine’s No. 1 NBA expert Mike Barner, who is 229-166-2 (+3614) over his last 397 NBA picks.
Trends for Game 1 NBA bets: “It’s tough to read too much into regular season matchups because, often times, teams weren’t at full strength every time they played each other. I’d rather look at recent playoff trends and playoff rotations for both teams. If you want regular season insight, look at total team stats like pace of play, defensive rating, etc.”
Tips for newcomers to NBA betting: “Remember that bench/role players tend to perform better at home than on the road. The home crowd is a big help to these players.”
Favorite types of bets for big events like the Finals: “I like props for star players. We know they are going to play a ton and have the ball in their hands a ton during these important games. I don’t want to take chances on betting a prop for the eighth man on the bench to go over or under a low point total. Focus on the starters that have the biggest impact.”
NBA picks for Thunder vs. Pacers in Game 1 of the 2025 NBA Finals
You’ve learned the basics of NBA betting for the Pacers vs. Thunder matchup. Now see picks from Barner for Game 1, including an NBA player prop pick for Gilgeous-Alexander. Visit SportsLine to see Barner’s best bets.
Also, SportsLine expert Matt Severance has locked in his Game 1 predictions, with both an against-the-spread pick and an Over/Under prediction. Visit SportsLine to see his best plays, all from an NBA expert who is up nearly 20 units.
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