The Indiana Pacers, for their part, are on the brink of breaking some history! They’re preparing for Game 7 of the NBA Finals vs. the Oklahoma City Thunder this Sunday. One win away from achieving the biggest upset in a modern NBA Finals series, the Pacers have captured the attention and respect of influential bettors.
With those moves, the Pacers entered the season with 50-1 odds to win the NBA Championship. So far they’ve been their own underdogs. Should they beat the Thunder, they’ll be doing it in record fashion. Otherwise, they’ll make history as the biggest preseason long shot ever to win a title in the past 40 years. Last year, the Pacers reached the Eastern Conference Finals, but they started this season slowly, raising doubts about their championship potential.
As Game 7 draws nearer, the sharp consensus line has moved too, indicative of the mood swing among gamblers. Our hypothetical Thunder would have originally opened as seven-point favorites. Following a major wave of betting on Indiana, sportsbooks have moved the line all the way to OKC -7. Smart money has come in heavily on Indy in the past week. This dramatic increase in betting volume was the catalyst for the shift.
Chris Andrews, sportsbook director at the South Point in Las Vegas, recently commented on how game-to-game betting activity has affected the business. He explained that he needed to move the line down because of “acute action” on Indiana.
“With the way the series has played out, I can see people taking the [points] rather than laying,” – Jeff Sherman
Bettors at the Westgate SuperBook agreed with Indiana getting the sharp side, moving the odds down to +8 and +7.5. That change has only highlighted a belief among the betting public that the Pacers have what it takes to pull off the upset.
Should the Pacers secure a win, they would surpass the 2004 Detroit Pistons’ historic upset of the Los Angeles Lakers as +500 underdogs, marking a significant milestone in NBA history. Sixteen other teams have attracted more money to win the title than the Pacers at BetMGM. Even so, optimism about Indiana’s prospects runs high.
The excitement is palpable ahead of Sunday’s 5×5 showdown in OKC. Fans, analysts, and fans alike patiently await to see if the album called Pacers can do the unthinkable—and become the first eighth seed to win a championship despite somehow facing the odds stacked against it.
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