Indiana Pacers center Myles Turner, left, rebounds over Oklahoma City Thunder center Isaiah Hartenstein during the first half of Game 6 of the NBA Finals on Thursday in Indianapolis. (AP photo)

OKLAHOMA CITY — Game 6 of the NBA Finals had been over for only about 10 or 15 minutes, and the Indiana Pacers and Oklahoma City Thunder were turning the page. What happened over the previous couple of hours in Indianapolis had already been deemed irrelevant.

The only thing on their minds: Game 7.

“A privilege,” Thunder coach Mark Daigneault said.

“A great privilege,” Pacers coach Rick Carlisle said.

A back-and-forth title matchup — Indiana led 1-0 and 2-1, Oklahoma City led 3-2 — will end on Sunday night with an ultimate game, the first winner-take-all contest in the NBA Finals since 2016. It’ll be Pacers at Thunder, one team getting the Larry O’Brien Trophy when it is over, the other left to head into the offseason wondering how they let the chance slip away.

“We have one game for everything, for everything we’ve worked for, and so do they,” Thunder guard and reigning NBA MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander said. “The better team Sunday will win.”

History favors the home team in these moments: 15 of the previous 19 Game 7s in the NBA Finals were won by the club playing on its own court.

The Thunder played a Game 7 at home earlier in these playoffs and won by 32, blowing out Denver to reach the Western Conference finals. Indiana’s most recent Game 7 was at Madison Square Garden in last season’s Eastern Conference semifinals; the Pacers blew out New York by 21 in that game.

All-time, home teams are 112-38 in Game 7s (excluding the 2-2 record “home” teams had in the bubble in the 2020 playoffs, when everything was played in Lake Buena Vista, Florida). But in recent years, home sweet home has been replaced by road sweet road; visiting teams have won nine of the last 14 Game 7s played since 2021.

“It’s exciting, man. It’s so, so, exciting,” Pacers guard Tyrese Haliburton said. “As a basketball fan, there’s nothing like a Game 7. There’s nothing like a Game 7 in the NBA Finals. Dreamed of being in this situation my whole life. So, to be here is really exciting. Really exciting for our group. What happened in the past doesn’t matter. What happened today doesn’t matter. It’s all about one game and approaching that the right way.”

The fact that Haliburton is playing at all right now is a story in itself. He looked good as new in Game 6 even with a strained right calf, something that he’s needed around-the-clock treatment on this week.

There’s a lot of work for the Thunder to do right now as well. A different kind, of course.

They were massive favorites going into Game 6 — plus-3000 odds to win the series, according to BetMGM Sportsbook. That means a $100 bet on the Thunder would have returned a whopping $103 or so if they had won the game and clinched the title. A 36-9 run by Indiana turned a one-point lead early in the second quarter into a full-fledged blowout early in the third. And with that, a Thunder team that finished with the best record in the NBA this season now has zero room for error.

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