When it isn’t Charles Barkley dishing out ‘guarantees’, Shaquille O’Neal becomes the resident prophet on ‘Inside the NBA’. The TNT Tuesday crew was missing Chuck, Ernie, and Kenny, so Shaq took it upon himself to predict the matchup of the 2025 NBA Finals.
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“Can we make up our own parlay?” the four-time NBA champion asked Adam Lefkoe, who told O’Neal to reveal his bet. “OKC and Cleveland in the Finals.”
Lefkoe responded that the odds on that bet would be in Shaq’s favor right now. After all, most of the NBA community assumes that it’ll be the Boston Celtics who make it out of the East. However, that clearly didn’t affect the Diesel’s confidence in his pick. “That’s what I know will happen for a fact,” O’Neal added.
Thunder vs Cavs in The Finals? 🔮
"That's what I know will happen for a fact" – @SHAQ pic.twitter.com/IMTF1emDdW
— NBA on TNT (@NBAonTNT) January 15, 2025
Lefkoe, who has experience dealing with Shaq’s hot takes on ‘The Big Podcast’, wisely segued out of the 7-footer’s parlay. He reminded Shaq that his predicted Finals matchup will see a preview on Thursday night when the Cavs travel to Oklahoma for the second leg of their regular season series against the Thunder.
O’Neal will be happily reunited with Chuck, Kenny and Ernie for that game and it’ll be interesting to see if the home team will come out victorious once again. The league’s best offense hosted the league’s best defense in Cleveland last week and the home team squeaked by with a 7-point win in the marquee matchup.
It was the first time in 3o years and only the third time in NBA history that both teams were playing to protect double-digit win streaks. Ultimately though, the Thunder would have their 15-game win streak broken by the home team.
The hotly contested game saw 30 lead changes until the Cavaliers finally pulled away in the dying minutes. Mark Daigneault’s side will look to exact their revenge at Paycom Center this Thursday in what very well could be the Finals matchup this season, if we are to believe Shaq’s prediction. OKC, Boston and Cleveland have the three best odds of winning the 2025 NBA champion, per DraftKings.
However, it’s worth noting that the Thunder will play both regular season matchups against the Cavs without Chet Holmgren. The former second overall pick has missed the last 28 games due to a right iliac wing fracture but is slowly ramping up to a return.
During the previous Thunder-Cavs game, it was the bigs, Jarrett Allen and Evan Mobley, who led the way for Kenny Atkinson by exploiting OKC’s lack of size in the paint. Holmgren will certainly not be back in time to help Isaiah Hartenstein against Cleveland’s twin towers on Thursday, but if the two #1 seeds do clash in June, it will make for a highly competitive and evenly contested series.
