The Thunder and Pacers making the NBA Finals should change how teams think about roster building
Both Oklahoma City and Indiana upended one of professional basketball’s oldest tropes en route to the 2025 NBA Finals.
There are a slew of tropes that come out of hibernation whenever the NBA playoffs come around. You’ve probably heard them all.
The game slows down. Defenses get tighter. Teams make more detailed adjustments… just to name a few.
And all of these have generally been true this postseason, as they often are. But one trope has been completely flipped on its head by the two 2025 NBA Finals participants: that coaches have to go to shorter rotations in the playoffs.
While many squads have relied more heavily on their starters than they did during the regular season, the two most successful playoff teams — the Oklahoma City Thunder and Indiana Pacers — have actually leaned into their depth in a way that should seriously alter coaches’ previously established framework for playoff minutes and rotations.
The conference champions have each played 11 players over 9 minutes per game during these playoffs. Only two other teams — the Bucks and Grizzlies — have done the same, but those teams only played in one round and had a bunch of garbage time mixed in, which essentially removes them from the conversation. Some teams, like the Lakers and Nuggets, only played 8 and 7 guys over 9 minutes per game, respectively. In fact, the last four NBA champions have each played only 9 players over 9 minutes per game, further illustrating this trend.
There’s an obvious benefit to shortening your rotation. The fewer minutes you give to bench players, the more time your best players spend on the basketball court. Seems logical and advantageous, right? Well, it’s a lot more complicated than that, and the ways in which the Thunder and Pacers have found success this postseason illustrate that nuance quite well.
Health
There’s obviously a luck component to injuries in the playoffs, and the data on load managing vs. playing a lot is muddy at best. But, it’s tough to imagine that depth isn’t at least partially responsible for the Thunder and Pacers holding up so well health-wise (thus far, knock on wood) in these playoffs.
While players like Aaron Gordon and Stephen Curry developed soft tissue injuries during their playoff grinds — which can probably be attributed, at least in part, to their extreme minutes load and responsibilities on both ends of the floor — Oklahoma City and Indiana haven’t had any of those on either side. Aaron Nesmith is the only player who’s had any injury (a turned ankle), and even he was able to return quicker than usual, perhaps because of the smaller load he’s responsible for on the Pacers than he would be on another team.
You need some luck to win in the playoffs, and luck often means staying healthy. But maybe we are learning that depth and physical freshness can increase teams’ injury luck. That being less fatigued can help players avoid the sort of freak falls or uneven crash landings that tiredness contributes to. Maybe we’ve been thinking about injuries all wrong.
Pace
Perhaps the most glaring similarity between the Thunder and Pacers can also be credited to their depth: both teams’ breakneck pace.
Oklahoma City and Indiana are ranked second and third in pace during these playoffs, respectively (Memphis is number one and they played the Thunder in the first round). Playing fast has become the backbone of both of these teams’ offensive success; in transition frequency, the Thunder and Pacers are also second and third, with almost a fifth of their possessions coming on the break. And, even in the half court, both teams have relied on quick and decisive passes, screens and cuts to open up space and get the defense moving side to side.
It’s easier to sprint in transition and run into all your cuts when you’re playing fewer minutes, because doing that consistently is tiring. It’s why players tend to lose steam towards the end of games and probably part of the reason why both the Pacers and Thunder have been so successful down the stretch of clutch games against their already-gassed opponents.
Ball Pressure
Ball pressure has also been a cornerstone of these teams’ success. Both teams have relied on aggressive on-ball defense predicated on physicality, fighting over screens, and — to be super frank, and perhaps overly simple — high-level effort. The Pacers pick up opponents full court for the entire game, and while the Thunder sometimes don’t guard opponents until they cross the half-court line, they make it hell for them once they get there.
The ball pressure and pace are, of course, symbiotic. The more pressure is put on an offense, the harder time they’ll have getting back on defense and the more tired they’ll be in general, which aids in the ability to run on them and overwhelm them with pressure. It’s about wearing on opponents, and that’s exactly what both of these teams do.
Different looks
Each team also uses their depth to throw different looks at their opponents. The Thunder utilize double-big lineups with Chet Holmgren and Isaiah Hartenstein, but also won’t shy away from using Jaylin Williams or Kenrich Williams as their center and fully leaning into small-ball.
The Pacers look like a totally different team when T.J. McConnell is on the court. If you only saw his minutes, you’d think he’s an All-Star and the main catalyst to their offense — but that’s just one of the many looks that the Pacers can go with offensively. They also threw virtually their entire roster at Jalen Brunson defensively over the course of the last round.
The more players a coach has confidence in and relies upon, the more comfortable they can be playing multiple different ways, and the more prepared their team will be for the inevitable surprises that come with the playoffs.
The big picture
While some television networks will undoubtedly be disappointed by two small-market teams making the finals, I can promise you one thing: NBA franchises will be tuned in with their notepads, because the Thunder and Pacers are on the cutting edge of NBA philosophy, and are thus on the verge of changing some of the NBA’s most long-standing playoff tropes.