Thunder beat Spurs in Game 7 to reach NBA Finals
Oklahoma City won 103-91 in the Western Conference Finals decider. Gilgeous-Alexander, series MVP, posted 29 points and 12 assists.
- Oklahoma City Thunder beat the San Antonio Spurs 103-91 in Game 7 of the Western Conference Finals.
- Shai Gilgeous-Alexander was named series MVP, with 29 points and 12 assists in the decider.
- Chet Holmgren set a Game 7 record for blocks.
- The Thunder face the New York Knicks in the NBA Finals, with Game 1 on June 3.
The downtown arena in Oklahoma City roared as if it might come apart when the buzzer sounded. Thunder players fell into one another’s arms on their own floor, while across the court San Antonio stared at the ground. Two nights earlier, that same San Antonio side had thrashed them as though the series had no history at all. The decider, as these things tend to go, told a completely different story.
Oklahoma City beat the Spurs 103-91 in Game 7 of the Western Conference Finals to book a place in the NBA Finals. After Game 6, which the visitors won 118-91 to force a winner-take-all, plenty of people assumed the momentum had swung the Spurs’ way. Then Game 7 tipped off and everything reset.
The numbers
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander delivered the kind of performance a Game 7 demands: 29 points and 12 assists, controlling the tempo from the first minute to the last. He was named most valuable player of the Western Conference Finals, and few would argue with the award. When the job was to slow the opposition down, Chet Holmgren took over, setting a Game 7 record for blocks. Tall, long, everywhere. The Spurs kept trying to get into the paint and kept finding his hands instead.
At the other end, San Antonio leaned on Victor Wembanyama, who scored 28 points in Game 6 to drag the series to a seventh game. In the decider, though, the Thunder were determined not to let him repeat it. The 12-point margin at the buzzer does not say everything, but it says enough: the home side controlled the game when it mattered most.
What comes next?
The Thunder now meet the New York Knicks in the NBA Finals, with Game 1 set for June 3. After a decider in which they answered a heavy defeat from the previous game, Oklahoma City head into the Finals with the wind at their backs and a series MVP in peak form. The Knicks, for their part, are a team that knows the big stage, so this looks like a series with no obvious favourite.
Can the Thunder carry the energy from this Game 7 into the Finals against New York?
