For the eighth consecutive year, the NBA will have a new champion.
The longest streak of seasons with a different champion in NBA history extended Saturday when the reigning champion Oklahoma City Thunder were ousted in Game 7 of the Western Conference finals by San Antonio, 111-103.
Victor Wembanyama had a team-high 22 points and seven rebounds in the win for San Antonio, which will now face the New York Knicks in the NBA Finals. It’s a rematch from 27 years ago, when these teams met in the 1999 Finals won by San Antonio and its twin-tower duo of David Robinson and Tim Duncan, both former No. 1 overall draft picks.
This time around, the Spurs are led by another enormously talented big man in 7-foot-4 Victor Wembanyama, the sensational former No. 1 pick who has led his team to the Finals in his third NBA season, and only his first postseason appearance.
Saturday’s Game 7 was only Wembanyama’s 18th career postseason game. In seemingly a blink, the Wembanyana-led Spurs have already dethroned a Thunder team that looked primed to dominate the Western Conference for years thanks to its championship mettle and an exceptionally deep reserve of talent and draft picks.
The Spurs’ lack of playoff experience had been much discussed, but “people don’t talk about as much the habits, the character, the togetherness, the competitive response,” Spurs coach Mitch Johnson said. “This team has now been pretty damn consistent at a long time, for over 100 games for the most part. and so I’ll take those things with the experience that we’ve gone through.”
Wembanyama was named the most valuable player of his first conference finals after averaging 27.3 points, 10.9 rebounds, 2.7 blocks and shooting 48% from the field.
“We want four more [victories]. We’re not done,” Wembanyama told NBC Sports after the win. “Go, Spurs, go!”
In Game 7, Oklahoma City was down two of its best offensive creators in the injured Jalen Williams and Ajay Mitchell. Early in the first quarter, the Thunder were down 14 points and still trailed by 11 with eight minutes left in the fourth quarter.
San Antonio found its edge in playing fast, scoring repeatedly in transition, and from guard De’Aaron Fox, who had nearly as many points in Game 7 (15) as in the previous two games combined.
“We continued to get better throughout the course of the season,” Fox said. “By the time we got to, I would say to the All-Star break, I was like, ‘It could be real. We definitely have a chance this year.’”
But with seven minutes still to play, Oklahoma City saw a sliver of opportunity reopen again when Wembanyama drew his fifth foul, forcing him to play more conservatively on defense. Less than two minutes after San Antonio had grown its lead to 11 in the fourth, Oklahoma City trimmed it to just six.
Yet, the Thunder’s odds to repeat appeared to dwindle with four minutes left, when they had no timeouts left and trailed again by 11 points. San Antonio never let the Thunder pull off a comeback and in the process won the series after trailing 3-2.
Julian Champagnie scored 20 points in a surprise offensive outburst for San Antonio. Thirty-five points from two-time MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander weren’t enough to give Oklahoma City another chance to hoist the NBA’s Larry O’Brien Championship Trophy for a second straight year.
“They’re young, they’re talented, well coached, play the right way, play together, seems like they like each other. They have the makeup for sure” of a title team, Gilgeous-Alexander said of the Spurs. “You don’t beat us without the makeup, and they beat us, so they have the makeup to go get” a championship.
This is San Antonio’s first Finals appearance since 2015 and New York’s first since 1999. Game 1 is June 3 in San Antonio, followed by Game 2 on June 5. The series then returns to New York for the third and fourth games on June 8 and 10.
Both teams are playing under coaches who are only in their first full seasons.
The 39-year-old Johnson started as a San Antonio assistant before he was elevated to interim coach last season following a health scare by Gregg Popovich, the NBA’s all-time winningest coach. The interim tag was removed before this season.
One year ago, New York hired Mike Brown, who had previously coached Cleveland to the Finals, and later won NBA championships with Golden State as an assistant.
The Spurs will be facing a Knicks team that is on a historically dominant run, having won 11 consecutive games — the fifth-longest streak in a single postseason — by an average of 23.8 points. Yet, San Antonio should be well-prepared for the challenge, having beaten the reigning champion Thunder, which started this season 24-1 and swept its first two playoff opponents.
San Antonio’s road to the playoffs began with a first-round win against Portland before it outlasted Minnesota in six games in the second round. San Antonio won the conference finals’ opening game, evened the series at 2-2 in Game 4, but faced the brink of elimination after losing in Game 5 before winning two straight to topple the team expected by many to win the NBA title.
After its 2024-25 championship season, the Thunder picked up immediately where they left off by starting this season 24-1. Gilgeous-Alexander was named the league’s most valuable player for the second consecutive season and helped Oklahoma City win its first two playoff series in four-game sweeps over the Phoenix Suns and Los Angeles Lakers. Attrition to the Thunder’s roster, and the depth of San Antonio’s, ended their repeat campaign.
“Winning the Larry O’Brien is a childhood dream and having a real shot at it and having a chance, a tangible chance at winning it, realizing your dream, it’s a lifetime chance,” Wembanyama said.
