AILSA CHANG, HOST:
All right, the NBA has a new champion, the Oklahoma City Thunder. Last night, they beat the Indiana Pacers in Game 7 of the Finals and brought home their very first title since the team's move to Oklahoma City. NPR sports correspondent Becky Sullivan joins us now. Hey, Becky.
BECKY SULLIVAN, BYLINE: Hey, Ailsa.
CHANG: All right, let's start with Oklahoma City because this team, like, won only - what? - 20-something games a few seasons ago?
SULLIVAN: Yeah.
CHANG: And now they're here on top.
SULLIVAN: Yeah.
CHANG: How did they do it?
SULLIVAN: Yeah, I think what this team, the Thunder, have done as a franchise is so impressive. Just incredibly savvy team-building. Just for one example, their star, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, was drafted initially by another team and had this, like, promising but not mind-blowing rookie season. But Oklahoma City saw so much potential that they went out and got him in a trade, and he has since blossomed into the league's most valuable player, leading score this past season. So great trades like that, great drafting. They acquire a lot of draft picks.
Mark Daigneault, their coach, has talked about how Oklahoma City, too, the city itself, makes a difference. It's a small market, and there's just less pressure, he says. Fans and media are more supportive. They have a very young team, and young players can grow and make mistakes that any young player does, but still feel supported, he says, and I think that's a big difference-maker, too.
CHANG: Yeah. Well, can we also talk about the injury that changed Game 7? Like, what happened...
SULLIVAN: Yeah.
CHANG: ...To Tyrese Haliburton?
SULLIVAN: Yeah. He's the point guard of the Pacers. Really was the beating heart of that Pacers team. He had built something of a legacy for himself in this playoff run. Just incredible - four different times in this one playoffs, he made a game-tying or game-winning shot in the final few seconds of a game...
CHANG: Wow.
SULLIVAN: ...Including Game 1 of the NBA Finals. Just an incredible player. He strained his calf in Game 5, which is cause for concern, but he said he wanted to push through the injury and play. You know, it's the Finals. But with five minutes to go in the first quarter of last night's game, he caught a pass, tried to cut past a defender, and his leg gave out. He crumpled to the floor. You could just immediately tell something was very wrong because he is screaming, he's pounding the floor with his fist. And sure enough, his dad later told the broadcast crew it was an Achilles injury.
CHANG: Achilles. OK, well, if that's the diagnosis then he's not even the first big star to go down with that kind of...
SULLIVAN: Yeah.
CHANG: ...Injury in these playoffs, right?
SULLIVAN: Yeah, exactly. Really, third notable Achilles tear in this playoffs, and even more happened this past regular season. And a very similar thing actually happened to superstar Kevin Durant back in the 2019 NBA Finals. He missed the entire following season after that. And so it's a huge issue for the NBA. It's raising a lot of questions about what's contributing to these injuries, especially because a couple of these guys are really young. You know, Jayson Tatum with the Boston Celtics, he's only 27. Haliburton's only 25. They've got to figure it out because losing stars, it's bad for fans, bad for business, just, you know, bad for everyone.
CHANG: Yeah. That is NPR's Becky Sullivan. Thank you, Becky.
SULLIVAN: You're welcome.
(SOUNDBITE OF THE HOODFELLAS SONG, "ALL I DO IS WIN (GHETTO TEK REMIX)") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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