The Oklahoma City Thunder pushed the San Antonio Spurs to the edge of elimination on Wednesday night, winning 127-114 on the road to take a 3-2 lead in the Western Conference finals. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander scored 32 points, Alex Caruso added 22 and the defending champions answered after a rough stretch that had put the series in doubt.
Victor Wembanyama finished with 20 points on 4-of-15 shooting after entering the night with back-to-back explosions of 41 and 33 points in the series. Oklahoma City had already shown what happens when it finds its rhythm: the Thunder led by 20 points in the third quarter and took a 101-91 advantage into the fourth, then kept San Antonio from turning the game into another home-court surge.
The win mattered because the series had been swinging hard in both directions. Oklahoma City was held to 82 points in Game 4, then lost by 21 points in San Antonio on Sunday, leaving room for questions about whether the Thunder could recover fast enough. Instead, the response came from across the roster. Caruso’s 22 points led another strong bench effort, and Jared McCain scored 20 points in his first playoff start for Oklahoma City while Jalen Williams and Ajay Mitchell were sidelined.
Thunder coach Mark Daigneault said his team was better in both process and result, and he pointed to the way playoff series can produce ugly stretches before the next game changes the tone again. He said the group handled the poor showing two days earlier by coming back the next day in a neutral way, taking the lessons and applying them to the next chance. That was the difference here. The Thunder did not need a perfect night. They needed a steadier one.
San Antonio coach Mitch Johnson gave the blunt version of why his team fell short. He said the Spurs did not put themselves in position enough to be successful on each possession, and added that to beat a team of Oklahoma City’s caliber in its own building, with the stakes this high, they would need to be much better. That is the gap now separating the teams: one side found composure, the other could not keep pace long enough to survive the runs.
Game 6 is scheduled for Thursday in San Antonio. If there is a Game 7, it will be played in Oklahoma City on Saturday. The winner will face the New York Knicks in the NBA Finals, with Game 1 set for June 3 after New York disposed of the Cleveland Cavaliers inside four games on Monday night.
