Pascal Siakam’s Poster Dunk: A Thunder-Silencing Moment from a Different Angle
With 7:13 left in the third quarter of Game 6 of the 2025 NBA Finals, the Indiana Pacers were trailing the Oklahoma City Thunder by six points. The crowd at Gainbridge Fieldhouse was on edge—tense, expectant, and loud. But then, in a single, thunderous moment, Pascal Siakam shifted the energy of the building—and the momentum of the series—with one of the most explosive plays of his 10-year NBA career.
On a broken play that began with a tipped pass by Tyrese Haliburton, the ball found its way into Siakam’s hands at the top of the key. With one dribble, he accelerated past Thunder forward Jalen Williams. Standing between Siakam and the rim was 7’1″ shot-blocker Chet Holmgren, Oklahoma City’s defensive anchor and candidate for Defensive Player of the Year. It was a showdown of power versus precision. Siakam never hesitated.
From the floor-level broadcast angle, the dunk was already jaw-dropping—a blur of limbs and fury, a collision at the summit. But it was the alternative camera angle, released hours after the game, that turned the play into legend.
Shot from the baseline’s corner-left Steadicam—just feet from the action—the footage captures every ounce of drama. Siakam coils like a spring at the dotted line, both hands cradling the ball high above his head. Holmgren steps forward, arms outstretched in perfect verticality, confident that his timing will prevail.
Then, in a moment that seemed to defy physics, Siakam explodes upward. The camera shakes slightly as the crowd gasps. His right knee drives toward Holmgren’s chest. Time freezes. Siakam cocks the ball back with both hands and slams it down directly over Holmgren, whose head jerks backward under the force of the contact. The ball slams through the net, ricochets off Holmgren’s shoulder, and bounces toward midcourt.
In real time, it was stunning. In slow motion from the alternate angle, it became myth.
The bench erupted. Haliburton spun around at half-court, both hands on his head. Myles Turner screamed into the rafters. The crowd transformed into a single, electric roar. Even the typically stoic Rick Carlisle cracked a wide grin. Siakam, never one for grandstanding, simply jogged back on defense with a sly smile, as if he knew what he had just done.
“That was the moment,” Haliburton said postgame. “That dunk didn’t just give us two points. It punched doubt right out of the building.”
The poster—already printed, memeified, and shared across social media within minutes—became more than just a highlight. It was a statement: that the veteran, the 31-year-old midseason acquisition from Toronto, had come to Indiana not to mentor, but to lead. It was also poetic—Siakam, once doubted, once dismissed as past his prime, rising over one of the league’s brightest young stars to stamp his name onto the series.
The Pacers would go on to win Game 6, 109–102, behind Haliburton’s late-game heroics and Siakam’s 26-point, 9-rebound performance. But ask any fan what they’ll remember, and they’ll point to that alternate angle—the one that captured the moment a champion’s spirit refused to yield.
Pascal Siakam didn’t just dunk the ball. He may have dunked Indiana into destiny.
