2025 NBA playoffs: Eastern and Western conference finals takeaways - ESPN

The 2025 NBA conference finals have tipped off, with four teams fighting for a spot in the Finals.

The No. 1 seed Oklahoma City Thunder, after a tough seven-game series against the Denver Nuggets, kicked off the Western Conference finals Tuesday night. They defeated Anthony Edwards and the visiting No. 6 seed Minnesota Timberwolves in Game 1 behind Shai Gilgeous-Alexander's 31 points.

In the East, the No. 4 seed Indiana Pacers completed an improbable comeback against the No. 3 seed New York Knicks on Wednesday at Madison Square Garden after Tyrese Haliburton made a tying field goal at the buzzer of the fourth quarter to force OT. The Knicks and Pacers will look to make their first Finals appearance since 1999 and 2000, respectively.

As these elite teams face off, our NBA insiders break down their biggest takeaways from every matchup and what to watch for in both conference showdowns.

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Pacers-Knicks | Timberwolves-Thunder

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Game 1: Pacers 138, Knicks 135 (OT)

In the aftermath of the latest wild Indiana Pacers comeback of these NBA playoffs, Tyrese Haliburton, who is quickly placing himself in the pantheon of New York City villains, glanced at a few assembled reporters and team personnel in the locker room and smiled.

«It's gotta be the shoes,» he said.

Haliburton, a student of NBA and Knicks-Pacers history, knew exactly what he was doing. In another era of NBA basketball, Michael Jordan — before he became a New York supervillain — did a Jordan shoe campaign with Knicks superfan Spike Lee built around that line.

And on a night where so many former legends from this rivalry's past — from Reggie Miller to Larry Johnson to Patrick Ewing to Lee himself — were