New NBA king is born! Halliburton s Achilles tendon is seriously injured, Thunder wins the first championship in team history

Alexander, who won the regular season MVP, led the Thunder to win the championship.

For the Oklahoma City Thunder, this is undoubtedly one of the most successful seasons in team history. When Alexander became the new MVP of the regular season, the young team eventually became the new king of the league.

On June 23, the 2024-2025 NBA Finals ushered in the finale. In the "Trick Seven Battle", the Thunder, who was at home, finally defeated the Pacers 103-91 and won the championship trophy.

Since the "Three Old Young Master" led the team to the finals in 2012, the Thunder has never been able to return to the finals stage in the past 12 years. Today, the "New Three Young Masters" composed of Alexander, Jaylen Williams and Chet Holmgren has completed the unfinished career of their predecessors, bringing back a professional sports league championship trophy to Oklahoma.

Alexander emphasized before the tiebreak battle that this game must be calm and the process will not be too easy.

In fact, before this year's finals started, the outside world did not imagine that the trend of the game would continue to "tie seven". In the predictions of most American basketball media experts, the Thunder are "the favorites to win the championship". However, when the curtain of the finals opened, the Pacers were the first to make the move. They once led by a big score of 2-1 and saw the opportunity to win the championship point in the fourth game. However, Alexander and his teammates did not give up and eventually won the "Battle of Heavenly Kings Mountain". Although he failed to secure the championship in Game 6, the Thunder, which has a home advantage in this round of the series, is still the more favored side.

"This is a really exciting opportunity. The dream comes true." The Thunder core Alexander emphasized before the game that you should do your best in the final game, "Don't try to do anything earth-shaking. Don't try to do anything you have never done, and don't be worse than before. Be yourself and do what you have brought you to this day."

It is worth mentioning that Halliburton, the core of the Pacers, also mentioned a similar mentality before the game, "As a visiting team, the key lies in two points: one must withstand this momentum impact, and the other must take the initiative to create rounds that interrupt the opponent's rhythm. But in the end, doing things that you can control is always the most important thing."

Haliburton once again strained his right leg during the breakthrough of Alexander, and was suspected to have a serious injury to the Achilles tendon.

At the beginning of the "Trip Seven Battle", the Pacers once turned against each other. Halliburton played the best start of the series in 7 minutes. He made 3 of 4 shots from outside the three-point line and scored 9 points. However, an accident that no one wants to see appears less than 5 minutes left in the first quarter - when Halliburton struggled to break through Alexander, he fell to the ground in pain. The playback of the

game clearly captured the moment of Halliburton's injury. According to the judgment of a well-known American sports doctor, "You can see the ripple of Halliburton's calf muscles twitching upwards, which is likely to be a ruptured Achilles tendon."

Haliburton covered his head with a towel when he left the field.

Halliburton suffered a right calf strain in the first few games of this round of series, but he finally chose to play with an injury. Perhaps it was this decision that laid the foreshadowing the accident in Game 7. After returning to the finals with the Pacers for more than half a year, saying goodbye to the season in this way, for Halliburton, his inner disappointment, frustration and unwillingness were written in his painful expression.

Just as he was helping his teammates to leave the court, all the fans of the audience gave Halliburton a round of applause, but he just wrapped his head with a towel and did not let others see his expression at that time.

Halliburton's accidental injury had a huge impact on coach Carlisle's deployment. But the Pacers, who made a comeback all the way, did not make the finals lose their suspense. After Alexander led the Thunders to take the lead in the second quarter, Siakam, Turner, Nemhard and Matherin all stood up. Matherin and Nemhard's consecutive three-pointers once again helped the Pacers get a slight lead at the end of the half.

The change of sides and the Thunder made a quick adjustment, and the offensive climax of 18-8 in the third quarter, stopping the Pacers at one point. At the Pacers' desperate moment, McConnell stood up again, scoring 10 points in a row to make the team's points almost completely widened, but at the end of the third quarter, the Thunder still led the Pacers 81-68.

In the fourth quarter, it became increasingly difficult for the Pacers who lacked Halliburton to score, and the Thunder, who played at home, gradually widened the gap to more than 20 points. The final whistle sounded, and the Thunder won the first championship trophy in team history at home.

For this "small-market team", after Durant, Westbrook and Harden left one after another, they rebuild step by step and then reached the top of the NBA league - traded for Alexander and accumulated a large number of draft picks to win Jaylen Williams and Homegren. Thunder's general manager Presti is undoubtedly the hero behind the championship.

And always firmly believe that the "new three young masters" created by Presti may have the opportunity to lead the Thunder to break the NBA curse of "seven different championships in seven years" and create a new dynasty.