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For the eighth consecutive season, there will not be a repeat champion in the NBA.The young San Antonio Spurs knocked off the defending-champion Oklahoma City Thunder Saturday, May 30, 111-103, in Game 7 of the Western Conference finals.The Spurs deployed their speed and athleticism to play quick in transition, they deflected passes and forced the Thunder into turnovers and they ignited from 3-point range to unseat Oklahoma City.Victor Wembanyama led the Spurs with 22 points, but this was a balanced effort, with seven San Antonio players reaching double-figures in scoring.And with that, the Spurs will face the New York Knicks in the NBA Finals, which are scheduled to begin Wednesday, June 3 in San Antonio.Here are live takeaways from Game 7 of the Western Conference finals between the San Antonio Spurs and Oklahoma City Thunder:Victor Wembanyama played well, but Spurs didn’t need him to be historicAnd that’s a great sign for the Spurs. They didn’t need an elite performance from Victor Wembanyama to unseat the defending champs in their own building, they just needed to play team basketball.That said, at times, Wembanyama has carried the Spurs. Saturday night he was just solid, finishing with 22 points on 7-of-15 shooting and adding 7 rebounds, 2 assists, 1 steal and 1 block. He had to play disciplined through some foul trouble, but this performance was more about San Antonio as a collective.Seven different players reached double-figures in scoring, and role players carved out spaces to contribute.Julian Champagnie, who finished with 20 points, dropped 11 in the third quarter. Backup center Luke Kornet, who played just 6:06, hustled back during a pivotal Thunder fastbreak to pin a momentum-changing block against the backboard in an eventual four-point swing. De’Aaron Fox was a menace on defense all night and collected 3 steals and later found his shooting stroke. Rookie Dylan Harper, a 20 year old, knocked down huge shots down the stretch and scored 12 off the bench on 5-of-8 shooting.Wembanyama has shown that he can take over games and elevate the Spurs into contenders. His teammates showed Saturday night that San Antonio can win even when Wembanyama is just solid.“The biggest play of the game might have been Luke Kornet’s block,” Spurs coach Mitch Johnson told reporters after the game. “When you start peeling back the layers of how many minutes this guy got, or what the box score said, obviously we had a lot of guys step up and make shots tonight, which we needed with the variety of people that got double-digit points, but this was a team effort. Huge, huge moments.”The Thunder couldn’t make up for the absences of Jalen Williams and Ajay MitchellThe Thunder won’t admit this publicly, but they have a good excuse for dropping this series. 2025 All-Star Jalen Williams played just 54 minutes as he battled his hamstring injury. Backup guard Ajay Mitchell (right soleus strain) missed the final four games of the series.With those two gone for the most important parts of the Western Conference finals, the Oklahoma City offense couldn’t recover.The problem is that both Williams and Mitchell are secondary creators and are players who can handle the ball. This takes the pressure of Gilgeous-Alexander, especially when opposing teams throw double-teams at him. Yet, with both out, the Spurs could devote their full attention to Gilgeous-Alexander, which led to moments of stagnation and turnovers.That was exacerbated when Thunder role players couldn’t hit open looks.Second-chance points nearly saved the ThunderIf there’s one thing that sparked Oklahoma City’s run in the second quarter, it was its work on the offensive glass.The Thunder gained a 9-4 edge on offensive rebounds in the first half Saturday night. It was no surprise, then, that Oklahoma City took a massive 17-6 lead in second-chance points into intermission.The offensive rebounding helped revive a moribund Thunder offense that fell into an early hole in the first quarter.The other thing offensive boards did for OKC was neutralize San Antonio’s transition offense; the Spurs wanted to play quickly, and failing to scoop up defensive rebounds momentarily robbed the Spurs of chances to get out on the break.So did Shai Gilgeous-AlexanderA monster, 13-point second quarter from Shai Gilgeous-Alexander lifted the Thunder back into the game. Gilgeous-Alexander, admittedly, was slow to start as the Spurs threw extra bodies at him anytime he got the ball in an attacking position, so some of the early issues were to be expected.But Gilgeous-Alexander was far more decisive in the second quarter and looked to get his looks before the Spurs were able to set their defense.At the half, Gilgeous-Alexander has 19 points on a wildly-efficient 8-of-11 shooting and has added 5 assists and 4 rebounds.His 19 points were most this series during a first half. He looked like an elite player who knows what’s at stake. The biggest issue was that his supporting cast, by and large, let him down.Gilgeous-Alexander finished the game with 35 points on 12-of-21 shooting, 9 assists, 4 rebounds, 3 steals and 1 block.The San Antonio offense to start the game was impressive. Their defense was even betterEarly on in Game 7, the Spurs swarmed the ball, used active hands to deflect passes and took control of the game with turnovers.San Antonio, though the first 6:45 of the game, forced the Thunder into 5 turnovers (on 5 steals), which led to a quick 7-0 advantage on points off turnovers. Of course, it helped that the Spurs didn’t commit a single turnover during that span early, but it was the force and intensity the Spurs brought that impacted the game.The Thunder were better with the ball in the second quarter, which allowed them to get better looks. For San Antonio to win this Game 7, it needs to find a way to continue pressuring ball-handlers into turnovers, because that’s the recipe it can use to play with more tempo.The Thunder needed a lot more from Chet HolmgrenHe was overshadowed all series long, but Oklahoma City could not complete its comeback, in large part, because Chet Holmgren did not provide more — on either offense or defense.By the midway point of the the third quarter, Holmgren had taken just 2 shot attempts (making one), for 4 points. On the other end, he collected just 2 rebounds, 1 block and 1 steal. He’s a premier defender but simply hasn’t been able to protect the rim as well as he has at points during the regular season.On offense, he hesitated far too much when he got the ball in his hands.His season ends after posting these stats in Game 7: 4 points on 1-of-2 shooting, 4 rebounds, 2 steals and 2 blocks.“Some of that is on me,” Thunder coach Mark Daigneault said. “Some of that is the way we approached the game. It’s not all on him. I actually thought he played his minutes pretty well. That run at the end of the second quarter that got us back going and cut into the game, he was a huge part of that in ways that may not be in the box score.”The Spurs pick-and-roll with Wembanyama as a screener destroyed the Thunder in the thirdSan Antonio went on a 16-2 run midway through the third quarter, and there was one offensive action the team turned to time and time again.Whether it was De’Aaron Fox or Stephon Castle handling the ball, the Spurs used Wembanyama as a screener, and then asked him to roll hard to the hoop. The attention paid to Wembanyama — requiring Thunder guards to leak into the paint to provide help defense — left 3-point shooter Julian Champagnie, who had 11 points in the quarter, wide open.
