It's not Thunder Alley, but OKC Thunder fans can claim free tickets for watch parties held at Paycom Center for NBA Finals road games.

The Thunder didn’t even exist in Oklahoma City when the 1995 bombing happened; the franchise that had been known as the Seattle SuperSonics didn’t relocate to America’s heartland until more than a decade later.

One MGM bettor in Las Vegas is clearly a big believer in the Thunder as well, placing a $1.05 million wager Wednesday night on Oklahoma City at -700 odds to beat the Indiana Pacers in the series. The bet would win $150,000. It's the largest reported wager on the series so far at legal sportsbooks in the United States.

Pascal Siakam is just one of two players on Indiana’s roster who have won an NBA title, having won a championship with the Raptors in 2019. Siakam was named Eastern Conference Finals MVP after leading the Pacers in scoring (24.8 ppg) against New York. Tonight, Thursday, June 5 at 8:30 PM ET.

Sam Anderson, a staff writer for The Times Magazine, first wrote about the Oklahoma City Thunder in 2012. He is the author of “Boom Town” (2018), a book about the team and the city it calls home.

The NBA Finals are set and will feature the Oklahoma City Thunder and the Indiana Pacers. Here are the current predictions, odds and how to watch.

The NBA Finals start Thursday night and will feature a team with something in common with the 1977 Portland Trail Blazers, the only team to bring a championship to Rip City. The Oklahoma City Thunder enter their series with the Indiana Pacers as the second youngest team in NBA history to reach the Finals.

OKC is looking poised to contend for the short- and medium-term future, while Boston might make major changes.

For NBA content creator and die-hard Thunder fan “Three Cone,” that moment came in 2012. Growing up in southeastern Virginia — far from any NBA city — Cone didn’t have a clear team to root for as a child. But everything changed when he first caught a glimpse of a young, explosive guard named Russell Westbrook.