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Oklahoma City — On Saturday, May 30th, the San Antonio Spurs defeated the reigning NBA champions, the Oklahoma City Thunder, 111-103 to advance to the NBA Finals. This is the first time since the 2013-2014 season that they have beaten Miami’s “Big Three.”

Takeaways from Game 7

Thunder: What a great performance from the back-to-back MVP. Shai came into this game knowing he needed to step up big tonight in order for the Thunder to have a chance to advance to the finals, and he did so. Even though they lost, it wasn’t because of him; he returned to form by dropping 35 points on 57% from the field and 40% from three with 4 rebounds, 9 assists, and 3 blocks to close out this game. He was fantastic this game, but no one outside of Cason Wallace and Jaylin Williams helped him out.

Chet Holmgren has looked like a shell of his All-NBA self in this series. He had only one good game offensively; in every other game, he looked hesitant to attack any of the Spurs players, especially Wemby. He had just two shot attempts in this game—for someone who has been their second-best player this season, especially with Jalen Williams out, he didn’t look like the same All-NBA player in this series. A lot has already been said about him that I don’t agree with, but he will need to rethink his mentality when playing against the Spurs and Wemby.

Offensevily this team, outside of Shai, Jaylin, and Wallace, this team could not find ways towards the end of the game to hit their shots. They also played sloppily with handling the ball, with 14 turnovers. They did have their moments, but this bench did not come and play, especially Alex Caruso. Caruso, who I would argue was the best Thunder player in this series, but in this game, he was blowing layups and missing shots. He shot 21.4% from the field and 16.7% from three, ending with 12 points.

Defensively, this team couldn’t find answers to stop this Spurs team and disrupt their flow as they have done in the other games in this series. Down the stretch in this game, they couldn’t box out any Spurs players; they allowed 11 offensive rebounds to the Spurs, allowing the Spurs’ second chance buckets. No one could find a way to make the Spurs uncomfortable, and the only good player on defense was Chet.

Cason Wallace and Jaylin Williams stepped big in this game, hitting shots to either take the lead or get close to taking the lead in the game. Cason, who was big on defense in the first half but came up big in the fourth, hit threes to keep the Thunder alive. Jaylin Williams, who was the opposite of Cason in the first half, had 6 points on 60% shooting with 9 rebounds.

Jared McCain came out hot in the first half, scoring 10 points on 50% from the field and 50% from three. In the second half, he was a ghost of himself, scoring 2 points on 4 field goal attempts.

Spurs: This team did the unthinkable by making it to the NBA finals with a team outside of a couple of veterans on this team having little to no playoff experience. An impressive thing to do for Wemby’s first time in the playoffs.

Wemby didn’t have an explosive offense in this game, but he didn’t need to because his other teammates understood what was on the line. Wemby had 22 points on 46% from the field, 60% from three. He did get in foul trouble with 5 fouls, but he was smart and trusted his teammates with contesting shots in the paint.

De’Aaron Fox, who hasn’t played well in this series because of an injury plaguing him, came up big for this team. Fox hit clutch shots after clutch shots and made the right passes to his teammates. When they needed him, he showed up. He ended the night with 15 points on 50%, 42% from three, with 5 assists, and 3 steals.

Offensively, this team came up with buckets from everyone on this team, with seven players having over 10+ points in this game. Keldon Johnson came up big with hitting shots. He’s someone who hasn’t looked particularly well in this series, but Game 7 was a different series. Julian Champagnie came up big with 20 points on 54% from the field, 60% from three, and 6 rebounds. He and Johnson came up big down with responding in that fourth with threes of their own after Cason Wallace would hit one for the Thunder.

Defensively, this team was disruptive and made things hard for the other Thunder players outside of Shai. They tried stopping Shai, but that didn’t work well. No one else on that Thunder team could punish them in that second half other than Shai and Cason. They made the Thunder play sloppily with the ball, forcing 14 turnovers. They were great on transitional defense, making it hard for the Thunder to score off a turnover.

Harper is going to be fun to see the growth of his game as his career goes on, and it’s been unbelievable. He’s only a rookie. He had back-to-back great games with his scoring. He finished with 12 points on 62% from the field, 66% from three, with 7 rebounds, and 3 assists.

Castle and Vassell offesnsively weren’t great, especially Vassell, who shot 28% from the field and 16% from three. They made up for it with hustle and their defensive capabilities, with Vassell’s rating being 111 and Castle’s rating being 118. Castle scored 16 points, 6 rebounds, 6 assists, but he had 6 turnovers in this game.

Final Thoughts on the Series

This series didn’t live up to the hype everyone expected it to be, including me. It was disappointing that every game wasn’t close outside of Game 1 and 7 in the score. Most games each team won by 10+ points. Even though I thought it was disapointing It was still a good series to watch from both teams.

It had moments to remember from Wemby’s historic Game 1 performance to Shai putting everything on the court in Game 7. I don’t care what the narrative the media team has told you about this Thunder team, they’re a fun team to watch same goes for the Spurs. Both teams will for sure be going at one another for the foreseeable future.

It will be a fun rematch of the 1999 NBA Finals between the young Spurs core versus the New York Knicks team.