The 2025 NBA playoffs have been marked by comebacks, and nobody has mastered the art quite like the Eastern Conference champion Indiana Pacers.
Case in point: Game 1 of the NBA Finals, where Tyrese Haliburton capped another Pacers comeback to stun the top-seeded Oklahoma City Thunder.
And, among Indiana's feats throughout these playoffs:
The Pacers rallied from a seven-point deficit in the final 40 seconds of overtime to complete their 4-1 series win over the Milwaukee Bucks in Game 5 of the opening round. They pulled off another in the final 50 seconds of their Game 2 victory over the Cleveland Cavaliers in the Eastern Conference semifinals.
All of that had been an appetizer for Indiana's most improbable Houdini act in Game 1 of the East finals. Down 14 points inside the four-minute mark of regulation and eight in the final minute, the Pacers used a flurry of Aaron Nesmith 3-pointers, untimely New York Knicks turnovers and Haliburton's high-bouncing shot at the buzzer to force overtime and eventually steal the opening game of that series.
After Haliburton's clutch jumper stole Game 1 in OKC, and inspired by Indiana's late rallies all postseason long, let's take a closer look at how comebacks have dominated the 2025 playoffs.
The short answer, limiting it to the period where we can actually quantify comebacks, is almost certainly yes. The long answer of quantifying this title is complicated, even after the Pacers' Game 1 comeback in the Finals.
Nobody has done more work on win probability and comebacks than Mike Beuoy of Inpredictable.com, a terrific NBA resource. The website rates each game with a comeback score based on the likelihood of the winning team's low point, and Indiana's three long shot wins rank among the
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