The Pacers and Thunder are finally set for a rematch that carries a lot more weight than the last time they saw each other.
A year ago, Indiana’s trip to Oklahoma City was just another regular-season stop in a season where the Pacers were tanking and the Thunder had already taken a step back. Tyrese Haliburton wasn’t even available after tearing his Achilles in the NBA Finals in OKC a few months earlier, and he asked to sit out that game so he could save his return to Oklahoma for the moment he could actually be back on the floor.
Now that moment is on the calendar: February 5th, 2027, in the same arena where Haliburton’s leg gave out and where Pacers fans watched their team come up short in the biggest game in franchise history.
For a matchup the NBA league office seemed to underrate, this one is getting a prime slot and the kind of attention it deserves. That makes sense, because Pacers-Thunder has been one of the more interesting pairings around anyway.
Indiana has had the better of Oklahoma City recently, going 9-6 in the last fifteen meetings. It’s not a perfect apples-to-apples comparison, but the Pacers have clearly had the edge over their 2024-25 Finals opponent, and it doesn’t look like a coincidence.
Maybe it’s style. Maybe it’s the way the matchups line up.
Either way, it’s there.
The Pacers also come into this with a new wrinkle in Ivica Zubac, a player who can create major problems for the Thunder. Isaiah Hartenstein has matched up with Zubac before, but the bigger issue is what Zubac opens up for the other four starters around him.
Oklahoma City, meanwhile, has lost some useful depth after dumping Lu Dort, Aaron Wiggins, and Isaiah Joe. None of them are stars, but those are still real losses. Add in the fact that the Thunder have had some struggles while their second-best player deals with injuries, and there’s at least some vulnerability here.
It’s hard not to think about how different everything would look if Indiana had pulled off that upset.
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander would be a score-first point guard still trying to get over the top despite his success as a two-time MVP. Oklahoma City might have been more willing to explore moving one of its two younger secondary options. And the Pacers wouldn’t be waiting on Haliburton to make his return to Oklahoma.
Instead, this is the world we have. The Pacers won only 19 games last season on the way to a top-five pick they didn’t even keep.
The Thunder fell to the San Antonio Spurs. Both teams have reasons to want to put last year behind them.
Now they get the chance to do it on the court. Basketball is back, the offseason is winding down, and this is the kind of game that can help bury last year before it starts hanging over everybody again like a bad ghost.
For Indiana, that means Haliburton will have to face the place where everything went wrong. In early February, he will.
In Other News...
Pacers Face A Tough TJ McConnell Decision This Season
TJ McConnell has become one of the defining constants of the Pacers recent run, the longest-tenured player on a roster that keeps evolving around him. He is also heading into the season carrying a significant salary, which has put an uncomfortable layer of roster math around a player whose value has long gone beyond box scores. For Indiana, the question is no longer whether McConnell matters. It is how much flexibility the front office is willing to chase, even if it means considering a move involving one of the teams most trusted voices.
The appeal of dealing McConnell is straightforward enough: it could open up room to reshape the roster and potentially bring back multiple assets instead of relying on one veteran point guard to hold things together. The problem is equally clear. Replacing what he brings is not easy, especially for a team that has leaned on his leadership, steadiness and institutional memory. So the Pacers are left weighing a familiar dilemma, keeping the player who helps define their identity or using that very value to build something more balanced around the edges. [Read more 🡒]
Pacers Face Growing Pressure Over A Development Problem Fans Feel
The Pacers have long sold themselves as a team that can draft well, identify value, and turn promising pieces into useful rotation players, but the recent record has put that reputation under a sharper lens. Since 2015, the returns from the draft have been limited outside of Andrew Nembhard, and that lack of homegrown impact has become a real talking point for a fan base that wants more than just respectable scouting reports. It is not just about the picks themselves, either, because the organizations player pipeline is supposed to help bridge the gap between raw talent and NBA-ready contributors.
The pressure has only grown around the Noblesville Boom, where roster turnover and player departures have made it harder to point to clear developmental wins. Other NBA teams have shown how much a stable G-League system can help accelerate growth, and the Pacers are being measured against that standard now more than ever. There have been individual success stories inside the organization, but the broader question remains whether Indiana is doing enough to turn draft capital and developmental opportunities into a more reliable edge. [Read more 🡒]
Tyrese Haliburtons Return Just Sparked A Pacers Respect Debate
Tyrese Haliburton is finally set to return to NBA action after a 16-month absence because of an Achilles injury, and for the Pacers, that should have been the headline. Instead, the conversation around his comeback has drifted toward visibility, with Indianas star guard publicly questioning why his first game back is not getting a national TV window, even though the Pacers do have 11 nationally televised games on their schedule this season.
His return will come on the road against the New Orleans Pelicans, a setting that makes the moment feel even bigger for Indiana and its fans who have waited more than a year to see him back in game action. The odd part is that the league and broadcast partners did not put the comeback on a national stage, leaving a familiar Pacers frustration hanging over what should have been a clean celebration of Haliburtons return. [Read more 🡒]