The Week That Was | NBA Finals Is Up For Grabs | NBA Finals History: June 14th 1998

The NBA Finals between the Oklahoma City Thunder and the Indiana Pacers is tied 2-2 apiece where now moving forward it is the best of 3. Who will come out on top going into next week in the NBA Finals? In Game 2 the Thunder bouncing back with a convincing 123-107 win was no surprise displays the Thunder ability to respond back after a loss.

Then the series shifted to Indiana where Indiana Pacers won Game 3 by score of 116-107 where the catalyst came from the Indiana Pacers bench where Bennedict Mathurin scored a career playoff high of 27 points including 9-12 shooting which was the most points by a reserve in the NBA Finals since Jason Terry did it in the 2011 NBA Finals against the Miami Heat.

The Indiana Pacers Game 3 win marked their 10th straight win after a loss dating back to March 15th. The Thunder who went 61-2 when leading going into the 4th quarter during the regular season fell to a 1-2 record in those situations in the Finals.

Then Game 4 became a must win for the Oklahoma City Thunder who knows how to bounce back from a loss couldn't afford to go down 3-1. This game was the best game of the series. Indiana had ample opportunities to take a stronghold on the series going up 3-1 but Shai Gilgeous Alexander displayed why he was the League MVP this season by scoring 15 of his 35 points in the final 4:38 rallying from a 10-point second half deficit to win 111-104.

The Thunder was able to close the game out with a 16-7 run. From a bench perspective, Alex Caruso scored 20 points including great contributions from Jalen Williams who scored 27 points and Chet Holmgren scored 14 points and grabbed 15 rebounds. This game had a back and forth swing to it because of the ties of 91,95,and 97.

Then SGA made a step back shot with 2:23 left to give the Thunder their first lead of the second half at 104-103. The momentum may be in favor of OKC for Game 5 at home on Monday Night only time will tell who will prevail to win the NBA championship.

The NBA Finals of 1998 was a swan song for the Chicago Bulls dynasty beating the Utah Jazz in 6 games. The Game 6 game would be iconic when Michael Jordan made the shot to give the Bulls the lead after trailing 86-83 after John Stockton made a 3-point shot but Jordan scored on a layup then stole the ball from Karl Malone came up the court with a chance to win it for the Chicago Bulls and Jordan delivered the goods with the game winning shot. Michael Jordan scored 45 points in the series clincher for the Bulls 6th championship. The shot was iconic that would be the last as a Chicago Bull for Michael Jordan. The dynastic run of the Chicago Bulls was over. The 1998 NBA Finals is still the highest rated NBA Finals ever in NBA history at 18.7. The Game 6 of the 1998 NBA Finals was the highest rated NBA Finals game at 22.3 and the viewers was 35.89 million.