These NBA Finals are very Canadian
Championship series features MVP SGA and 3 other Canadians
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If the basketball pundits, podcasters and gamblers are correct, the NBA Finals could be a bit of a snoozer.
Pretty much everybody in the media is picking the Oklahoma City Thunder to beat the Indiana Pacers, and most figure it'll be over in five or six games. The betting markets see a blowout too: a quick scan of some online books shows OKC listed as high as -700 to win the series, meaning you have to wager 700 bucks to win 100. The implied odds of the Thunder hoisting the Larry O'Brien Trophy are around 85 per cent.
This all tracks with what we've seen on the court over the last eight months. Oklahoma City dominated the regular season, going a league-best 68-14 (four wins better than anyone else) before sweeping Memphis, defeating three-time MVP Nikola Jokic's Denver Nuggets in seven and dispatching Minnesota in five to reach the Finals. The Thunder are the best defensive team in the NBA, they have a top-three offence and they're powered by a genuine superstar in Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, who led the league in scoring this season with 32.7 points per game and won the MVP award. Oh, and they're also one of the youngest teams in the league, so forget about them wearing down.
The Pacers are also young and quite good — just not as good as the Thunder. Led by veteran power forward Pascal Siakam (20.2 points, 6.9 rebounds) and 25-year-old point guard Tyrese Haliburton (18.6 points, 9.2 assists), Indiana went 50-32 to place eighth overall and fourth in the East. They've elevated their game in the playoffs, beating Giannis Antetokounmpo's Milwaukee Bucks and the top-seeded Cleveland Cavaliers in five before knocking off Jalen Brunson's New York Knicks in six to reach the Finals. Indiana has actually had a more efficient offence in the playoffs than OKC, but the Pacers rank just ninth defensively, and that's probably going to get them torched by the Thunder.
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Having said all that, if you're a patriotic Canadian basketball fan, it's hard to imagine a better Finals matchup. Three of the 10 starters on the court for Game 1 tonight will hail from this country, while another Canadian could play a significant role off the bench.
Let's start with the starters. OKC's backcourt is all Canadian, featuring the aforementioned Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, who just became the first Canadian to win the NBA MVP since Steve Nash two decades ago, and Lu Dort, a dogged perimeter defender who earned his first All-Defensive First Team selection. SGA is trying to become just the fourth player in league history to win the scoring title, the MVP and a championship in the same season, joining (heard of these guys?) Michael Jordan, Shaquille O'Neal and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Dort is averaging less than eight points a game in the playoffs, but his primary assignment is guarding the other team's best perimeter player. So look for him to lead the Thunder's efforts to frustrate Haliburton.
Starting at guard for Indiana alongside Haliburton is Canada's Andrew Nembhard. He was a prototypical college point guard at Florida and Gonzaga, where he set the all-time record for assists by a Canadian in NCAA Division I men's basketball before his younger brother Ryan broke it this year at Gonzaga. With Haliburton doing most of the ballhandling for the Pacers, Nembhard ranks second on the team with 5.1 assists per game in the playoffs while chipping in 12.8 points. He's also one of those guys that basketball experts will praise for doing the subtle things that help their team win but may not show up on the scoresheet.
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One of Indy's key reserves is Canada's Bennedict Mathurin, a scoring wing who was drafted sixth overall in 2022 and started a career-high 49 games this season while the team dealt with injuries. He averaged 16.1 points — behind only Siakam and Haliburton — and added 5.3 rebounds to lead all Pacers guards. But Mathurin has seen his minutes cut in his first taste of the playoffs, where his scoring is down to 10.4 points per game.
If you're willing to stretch the Canadian connections, Siakam was a key starter on the Toronto Raptors team that won the championship in 2019, averaging 19 points in those playoffs. The Cameroonian star, traded to Indiana in January 2024, was named MVP of the Eastern Conference final after putting up his third 30-point game of the series in the decisive Game 6 against the Knicks.
If you'd like to learn about how a change in immigration policy helped Canada transform into a global basketball power, watch the new documentary Inbound on CBC Gem or the CBC Sports YouTube channel.
