NBA Finals 2025 - Where SGA, Haliburton check in among playoff MVPs - ESPN

The NBA Finals are here, with the Oklahoma City Thunder set to face the Indiana Pacers for the 2025 NBA title.

With Oklahoma City beating the Minnesota Timberwolves and Indiana knocking off the New York Knicks, it also means that 14 playoff teams have been sent home for the summer, and we've seen a whole assortment of star performances over the past several weeks.

So, for the third time in these playoffs, here's our latest look at the superlative performers of this postseason, as we rank the top eight players through the first three rounds ahead of the start of the championship round in Oklahoma City on Thursday (8:30 p.m. ET, ABC).

Previous rankings: First round | Second round

2025 playoff stats (16 games): 29.8 PTS | 6.9 AST | 5.7 REB | 1.6 STL

The Thunder have been the NBA's best team all season, and Gilgeous-Alexander was honored a couple of weeks ago as the league's regular-season MVP. He now finds himself in the top spot in these postseason rankings too, after averaging 31.4 points, 5.2 rebounds and 8.2 assists in OKC's five-game rout of the Timberwolves.

Gilgeous-Alexander has scored at least 30 points in 11 of the 16 games he has played this postseason, and he reached that milestone in all four of the Thunder's victories in the Western Conference finals. If the heavily favored Thunder go on to win the NBA title, it's hard to see a scenario where Gilgeous-Alexander doesn't add a Finals MVP trophy to his tally this season along with the Larry O'Brien.

Previous ranking: 4

2025 playoff stats (16 games): 18.8 PTS | 9.8 AST | 5.7 REB | 1.4 STL

The impending matchup between Gilgeous-Alexander and Haliburton is the best point guard matchup in the NBA Finals since the duels between Kyrie Irving and Stephen Curry during