Spurs dethrone OKC, reach NBA Finals after 12 years

By Leobert Julian A. de la Peña

Game over, series bagged.

It’s official. Last year’s 13th seed in the West is headed to the 2025-26 NBA Finals.

A Game 7 win on the road against the defending champs? You couldn’t write a better ending than that.

For the first time since 2014, the San Antonio Spurs made a successful return to the NBA Finals after dethroning the Oklahoma City Thunder, 111-103, with a series-clinching Game 7 win in the Western Conference Finals on May 31, 2026, at Paycom Center.

Talk about guts, heart, and the ability to remain grounded as inexperienced youngsters playing in the conference finals. The Spurs showed that they are the embodiment of discipline and the will to win.

The Spurs finally got past their final hump in their arduous road to the Finals. Playing in uncharted territory in front of 18,203 loyal OKC fans, San Antonio once again received a character test, which they initially passed after stealing a double-OT win in Game 1.

However, the winner-take-all Game 7 was different, as all of San Antonio’s core players had never been in a position like that in their entire NBA careers.

Questions were raised.

Playoff inexperience issues were brought up.

But to reach the pedestal, you have to reverse the doubts and perform under the bright lights, which they did.

WITH AUTHORITY.

To set the tone, the Spurs blitzed to a 14-point lead in the first quarter, banking on their crisp ball movement and tremendous defensive effort, which forced seven turnovers on OKC.

Stephon Castle exploded for nine points in the first 12 minutes, but Jared McCain kept OKC within striking distance as his personal scoring run pulled them to within seven points, 32-25.

The second frame featured wild momentum swings as Jaylin Williams put OKC ahead, 51-49, at the 1:28 mark of the quarter, but much-needed buckets from De’Aaron Fox, Keldon Johnson, and Victor Wembanyama helped the Spurs hang on to a three-point advantage at the half, 56-53.

Reigning MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander was unstoppable during that comeback stretch, erupting for 13 second-quarter points that pushed his scoring total to 19 at the half.

Both teams made massive adjustments in the second half after OKC started Alex Caruso, Cason Wallace, and Williams, while the Spurs deployed early double teams on SGA, who had just dominated the second quarter.

OKC retook the lead off a Caruso triple, 61-60, but the Spurs countered with a 16-4 run for another double-digit lead, 76-65.

With everything on the line in the final 12 minutes of action, it was the Spurs who struck first, receiving two huge triples from Sixth Man of the Year Keldon Johnson and two more trifectas from Wembanyama and Fox.

San Antonio’s pace steered them to a 17-9 run, but Isaiah Hartenstein stopped OKC’s bleeding with a slam dunk. The following sequence caused major concern for the Spurs after Wembanyama got whistled for his fifth foul, driving the OKC fans into a frenzy.

Instead of panicking, the Spurs relied on their balanced two-way attack, led by Julian Champagnie, Castle, Dylan Harper, and Luke Kornet, who arguably made the most impactful defensive play of the game with a chase-down block on Hartenstein.

The Spurs showed they wanted it more.

In the remaining three minutes of regulation, San Antonio hit timely buckets whenever OKC made a run.

Harper was huge down the stretch with five much-needed points, Castle converted a tip-in to extend the Spurs’ lead to eight points, and Devin Vassell put the exclamation point with a thunderous jam inside the final 11 seconds of Game 7.

What a way to cap the seven-game series.

On the road, against the more experienced team, the Spurs did it.

Wembanyama wrapped up his first Western Conference Finals with 22 points, seven rebounds, two assists, one steal, and one block, while Champagnie added 20 big markers on efficient 6-of-10 shooting from downtown.

Castle delivered 16 markers, and Fox finally broke out of his slump after scoring a total of only 14 points in the past two games with 15 markers in Game 7.

On the other hand, SGA led OKC with a game-high 35 points, but his co-star, Chet Holmgren, failed to live up to expectations after playing his worst game of the series with just four points on two attempts from the field.

With the win, the Spurs just had a full-circle moment after arranging an NBA Finals duel with Jalen Brunson and the New York Knicks.

The two franchises last met in an NBA Finals series in 1999, when coach Gregg Popovich and Hall of Famer Tim Duncan took down New York in just five games.

Can New York rewrite the script? Or will the Spurs replicate what the 1999 roster did?