NBA Best Odds This Week: June 16-22

One way or another, the NBA will be crowning its new World Champion this week, the only questions that remain are will it be the Pacers or Thunder, and will it take six or seven games to figure it out.

The Thunder fought back from the brink of facing a daunting 3-1 series deficit on Friday night to capture a pivotal win in Game 4 to send this NBA Finals series back to OKC in the same manner we kicked everything off on June 5, with the series tied and OKC figuring to have the decisive edge thanks to their smothering home-court advantage. 

What’s in store for Monday night? Let’s take a look at how oddsmakers are forecasting the biggest game in the series to date.

Note: Odds were correct at the time of writing.

NBA Finals Odds This Week

The series shifting back to Oklahoma City means we see a bump in the spread after the Thunder were favored by 5-6 points for the two games in Indianapolis. Here’s a look at the betting odds, courtesy of FanDuel. 

Matchup	Betting Line	Moneyline	Total
Pacers at Thunder (Game 5)	Thunder -9.5	Pacers +320 Thunder -405	224.5

NBA Finals Schedule This Week

Monday night’s Game 5 kicks off the official last week of the 2024-25 NBA Season, with Game 6 of the Finals scheduled for Thursday night back in Indiana. 

Should the Pacers and Thunder split the next two games, the winner-take-all Game 7 will tip off on Sunday night back in Oklahoma City. 

NBA Finals Game 5 Best Bets 

As someone who has become an indirect Pacers fan throughout this postseason, mainly because I felt as though this Indiana team was not getting nearly enough respect as they deserved coming into the playoffs.

Game 4 hit me right in the feels as it sure felt like the Pacers had the heavy-favored Thunder on the ropes the moment they took a 10-point lead in the later stages of the 3rd quarter on Friday night.

However, when the Pacers failed to make that 10-point lead a 15-point lead, instead going into the quarter break with just a 7-point lead against an OKC team that was looking a bit gassed and getting increasingly frustrated, it just gave me immediate flashbacks to the Pacers Game 3 loss against the Knicks in the Eastern Conference Finals. 

If you recall, the Pacers were in control throughout that game, yet the Knicks kept chipping away at the lead thanks to frequent trips to the free-throw line and frequent bad possessions from the Pacers, whether that came via a costly turnover or forced bad shot, the empty possessions kept piling up and eventually cost Indiana a chance to take a smothering 3-0 lead. 

Of course, the Pacers would go on to win that series in six games anyway, but this Thunder team is a different animal than the one the Pacers faced to get to this point.

And now the series is reset at two games apiece, and the NBA’s wonky “made for TV” schedule that has these two teams getting two days off in between games the rest of the series all but cancels out any fatigue advantage Indiana could have built with their frenetic pace and 90-feet of smothering defense. 

I feel like the signs this series took a significant turn are everywhere, and this is a game the Pacers cannot afford to lose if they realistically want to win their first NBA Championship in team history. 

Unfortunately, I cannot pick the Pacers to come out victorious in this game. Rarely do you see an underdog fight through so much adversity as the Pacers have throughout this postseason, but eventually those hurdles become too much to overcome. 

I think tonight is the breaking point for Indiana’s magic carpet ride. I like the Thunder to win this game, but I do believe the Pacers will cover the lofty 9.5-point spread and we will see the total stay under 224.5.   

Game 5 Best Bet: Pacers +9.5 and UNDER 224.5 Points

Betting Trend of Note: The Pacers are 7-2 ATS on the road this postseason; The UNDER has cashed in 6 of the L9 Pacers games and in 4 of the last 5 Thunder games.