Little-known Aussie's NBA first as OKC star goes berserk in game five of finals

Little-known Australian Johnny Furphy scored his first NBA Finals points in a moment that he will never forget.

But the fact that Furphy was on court in the first place was a bad sign for the Indiana Pacers, who were walloped 120-109 by the Oklahoma City Thunder on Tuesday (AEST).

Game five was starting to look like game one all over again.

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Oklahoma City, at home, takes a huge lead. Indiana comes roaring back in the fourth quarter. Indiana won that one.

This time, the Thunder crafted a different ending — and a 3-2 lead in the Finals was their reward.

Jalen Williams scored a career playoff-high 40 points, MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander added 31 and the Thunder moved one win from a title by beating the Pacers.

Furphy, a 20-year-old from Melbourne, scored two points in two minutes off the bench with a fast break layup.

"We're learning," said Williams, whose previous playoff best was 34.

It was the 10th — and by far, the biggest — time the Thunder stars combined for more than 70 points in a game.

Williams was 14 of 24 from the field, and Gilgeous-Alexander added 10 assists.

"It wasn't a perfect game at all and there's a lot of room for growth," Thunder coach Mark Daigneault said.

"But our improvement from game four to game five was critical."

Pascal Siakam had 28 points for Indiana, which will host game six on Friday (AEST).

TJ McConnell added 18 for the Pacers, who whittled an 18-point deficit down to two in the fourth — then watched the Thunder pull away again, and for good.

"It kind of went away from us," Siakam said. "But the fight was there."

It was, but now everything favours the Thunder.

Teams that win game six of an NBA Finals that was tied at 2-2 have gone on to win the series 23 times in 31 previous opportunities, or 74 per cent.

And teams with a 3-2 lead in the finals have won 40 times in 49 previous opportunities, or 82 per cent.

But game five was not easy. Far from it.

Down by 18 late in the second quarter, the Pacers — the comeback kings of these playoffs, with as many wins in this postseason from 15 points down or more (five) than the rest of the league has combined, including in game one of this series — did what they do, chipping away.

And they did it with Tyrese Haliburton reduced to basically playing decoy on offence because of a leg issue that he aggravated in the first quarter.

"He's not 100 per cent," Pacers coach Rick Carlisle said.

"It's pretty clear."

Led by McConnell, who scored 13 points in just under seven minutes of the third, the Pacers got within five late in that quarter.

Then, Siakam went to work — a pair of free throws with 9:19 left got Indiana within four, then a 3-pointer about a minute later made it 95-93.

In the play-by-play era of the NBA, starting with the 1997 playoffs, teams with leads of 15 points or more in the finals were 80-9.

Make that 81-9 now, and the Thunder are one win away from giving Oklahoma City its first NBA title.

"That was honestly the same exact game as Game 1," Williams said.

"Learning through these finals, that's what makes a team good."

One more win, and his team will be certified as great.