For a bit, the ending to Game 5 was starting to look like Game 1 all over again. Oklahoma City, at home, takes a huge lead. Indiana comes roaring back in the fourth quarter. Tyrese Haliburton with the heroics. Indiana win game one.

This time, the Thunder's energy rose in the third quarter as they took a 3-2 lead in the NBA Finals as 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 120-109 on Monday night.

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

“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 4 to Game 5 was critical," he told AFP.

Pascal Siakam had 28 points for Indiana, who will host Game 6 on Thursday night. 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 favors the Thunder.

Teams that win Game 5 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%. And teams with a 3-2 lead in the finals have won 40 times in 49 previous opportunities, or 82%.

The Pacers were handicapped this time by an unfortunate injury suffered by Haliburton during the game, meaning he pushed while injured.

“He's not 100%,” 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.

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.

That stands at 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. “We are learning through these finals, that's what makes a team good.”

One more win on Thursday is all they need to secure their names in the Oklahoma basketball record books.