There in the arena, there was a weird vibe after Halliburton went down. Literally everyone knew he was done, even without the benefit of instant replay. I thought they'd get blown out after that but Indy played hard and played well. OKC was kind of taken off guard but they came out in the 3rd dialed in. I think had he stayed healthy, it's still 50/50. Indy was a much better team than I thought. Two legit stars and the other guys are well rounded and pretty good. If McConnell were 6'4", he's be a motherfucker. Dude can play. Indy was the best team OKC played by far. They beat Denver and they'd beat Minny by a wide margin. Denver was not a "great" team but Jokic is a fucking load. They just had no one after their top 3.
Sucks about Halli, though. Indy would be the odds on East favorite next season otherwise.
A side note, the Pacer fans were great. I managed to go to 3 Finals games in OKC and the visiting fans were friendly, knew the game, and were generally awesome. They also said OKC fans were the friendliest they'd encountered but one guy said "We're in the East with Boston, NY, and Philly and they're a bunch of assholes."
I was a great series between two small market teams who really care about basketball.