Aaaaand ... AGAIN

Grab your red pen and circle June 5 on your calendar, because history may not see its like again. OK, so maaayyybe it will, but let's acknowledge its singularity while we can.

June 5, see, is the date an entire state exclaimed, in unison, "Omigod omigod Oh. My. GOD!"

It was the date the Indiana Pacers, thieves in the June night, flat-out stole yet another basketball game.

It was the date Tyrese Haliburton, Mr. May/June the way Reggie Jackson was Mr. October, plunged home another cold-blooded dagger with the game clock down to slivers.

This time the sliver actually was a sliver of a sliver -- 0.3 seconds --but, hey, no worries, brah. Out there in Oklahoma City, Haliburton rose up, launched another sub-orbital flight, and watched it splash down right dead center to tear the heart out of another hostile crowd.

Indiana 111, Oke City 110, thank you very much. Pacers draw first blood in an NBA Finals they're not supposed to win. Another ridiculous comeback, another game-tying or game-winning shot for Haliburton -- he's got four now in these playoffs -- and more evidence that perhaps the basketball gods have gotten drunk and watched "Hoosiers" for the 332nd time.

Fun fact so say "Omigod omigod Oh. My. GOD!" about: When Haliburton's latest dagger dropped, it was the only time in the entire game the Pacers led. They trailed the Thunder for 47 minutes and 59.7 seconds of a game that followed the form chart precisely until ... well, until it didn't.

The home team led by 15, 94-79, with just under ten minutes to play, league MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander was going off -- he'd finish with 38 points -- and the Pacers looked like the willing foils they were predicted to be. This game was gone. The Thunder had it locked in a sealed vault in a sealed bomb shelter 15 feet below ground. 

Except.

Except weird things happen to the Pacers in the last ten minutes of these games, some sort of alarm that compels them to kick the covers away and get crackin'. And, sure enough, here it came again: The P's scored 32 points in the last 9:42, the Thunder scored just half that, and omigod omigod Oh. My. GOD.

The formula was the usual alchemy, for this latest miracle: Balance, regular visits to Threeville and a deep bench that delivered the way a deep bench should. All five starters scored in double figures, led by Pascal Siakam's 19-and-10 double-double. Myles Turner added 15, Andrew Nembhard and Haliburton 14 each and Aaron Nesmith with 10 plus a dozen boards.

Obi Toppin added another 17 off a bench that, sure enough, outscored the Thunder bench 39-28. Ditto the scoring from distance, where the Pacers bottomed 18 threes and shot 46.2 percent while the Thunder made just 11.

If you're keeping score at home or the office, that's a combined bench/three-ball advantage of 32 points for Indiana.

So does this mean the Pacers are gonna win the whole ball of enchilada wax now?

No. It means they won Game 1. It means, the way these narratives spin out, that the Thunder likely will come back and bury them in Game 2 to even the series. It means a Finals well begun is only that.

But, oh, how well begun it was.