The Oklahoma City Thunder were defeated 111-110 in Game 1 of the NBA Finals against the Indiana Pacers. It was a game that the Thunder had full control of until the final seconds, when Tyrese Haliburton knocked down a go-ahead jumper that eventually gave the Pacers the win. Though it was a battle between both teams, it was also a battle of the Canadian players in the game, and they made history doing so, according to Keerthika Uthayakumar. “SGA, Dort, Nembhard & Mathurin combined to score 72 points in Game 1, the most Canadian players have combined to score in any playoff game in NBA history,” Uthayakumar wrote on X, formerly Twitter. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander led the way with 38 points, and Lu Dort followed with 15 points, making five 3-pointers. For the Pacers, Andrew Nembhard finished with 14 points and a big shot over Gilegous-Alexander late in the game, and Bennedict Mathurin finished with five points. Most of them have played together for some time on the Canadian basketball team, and Gilgeous-Alexander, Dort, and Nembhard were just on the Paris Olympics team. Thunder lose control late of Game 1 The Thunder were rolling for most of Game 1, and especially in the first half, where they forced the Pacers to turn the ball over 19 times. The one interesting thing is that with all the turnovers they forced, they were only up 12 points going into halftime. Nonetheless, the Thunder were still able to keep a good lead on the Pacers, but it was late in the fourth quarter when things changed. The Pacers began walking the Thunder down, and a few missed shots late in the game caused their lead to be only one point with seconds left. That’s when Tyrese Haliburton pulled up and hit the go-ahead shot to win the game. “It happened so fast,” Gilgeous said. “He got down doing right, pulled up from the mid, and knocked down the shot. I don’t know, it didn’t feel like anything crazy. He just made a play with the time winding down.” The Pacers are now leading the series 1-0, and the Thunder will have to go back to the drawing board if they want to get a win in Game 2. For the Pacers, they know the worst thing that happened to them in the game was turnovers, and if they can fix that up, this series could work out in their favor.