Oklahoma City finally broke through against San Antonio on Tuesday, beating the Spurs 127-114 in Game 5 of the Western Conference finals to take a 3-2 series lead. For the Thunder, it was the kind of response that had felt overdue for months after San Antonio kept finding ways to beat them.
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander said on Christmas that Oklahoma City had to get better after losing to San Antonio for the third time in 12 days, a stretch that had already included the Spurs winning four of five meetings by season’s end. The teams had seen each other again in the NBA Cup semifinals, when San Antonio won after Victor Wembanyama returned from missing nearly a month, and the Spurs had looked like the matchup that kept bothering a Thunder team that otherwise seemed untouchable against the rest of the league.
That is what made Tuesday matter so much. Oklahoma City had already swept the Phoenix Suns in the first round and the Los Angeles Lakers in the second, but the Spurs had been the one opponent that kept forcing the Thunder into uncomfortable nights. By the time the Western Conference finals arrived, the prevailing view was that Oklahoma City’s stars would have to be the ones to turn the series. Instead, one of the biggest reasons the Thunder moved ahead was a 32-year-old guard who fit none of the usual superstar mold.
Mark Daigneault expanded Alex Caruso’s minutes against San Antonio, and the move has paid off in a way that goes beyond box-score noise. Caruso played more than 25 minutes in just one regulation game during the regular season, but through five games against the Spurs he averaged 17 points in 24.7 minutes while shooting 58.1% from beyond the arc. Oklahoma City was plus-45 with him on the court and minus-36 with him on the bench.
Gilgeous-Alexander called Caruso one of the best competitors in the NBA, night in and night out, and said he sets the tone for the group. The point was not that Caruso is built like the league’s obvious stars. It was that he keeps showing up in the spaces where games bend, even when he is not the player opponents spend the most time worrying about. That has become even more valuable with Jalen Williams sidelined by a hamstring injury.
There is a clean lesson in the way this series has unfolded. The Thunder were expected to survive with their stars carrying the load, but the games have been decided as much by depth, adjustments and one veteran guard’s edge as by headline names. If Oklahoma City closes out the series, the path may be remembered less for a singular superstar takeover than for the moment the Thunder’s role players finally solved the one team that had kept having their number.
