San Antonio and Oklahoma City are headed to Game 7 of the Western Conference Finals after six games in which the team with the higher-scoring star won every time. The deciding game is set for 8 p.m. ET on NBC and Peacock, with Victor Wembanyama and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander carrying the weight of a series that has stayed tight from the start.
That is why SGA is being searched now. He has been central to Oklahoma City’s run, but the numbers are not fully matching the load. Gilgeous-Alexander is shooting 37.9% through the first six games, even after scoring 30 points in Game 2 and 32 in Game 5. The pattern has been simple and stubborn: when Wembanyama had the bigger scoring night, San Antonio won in Game 1, Game 4 and Game 6; when Gilgeous-Alexander led the way, Oklahoma City took Game 2 and Game 5. In Game 3, both scored 26 and the Thunder still found a way to win.
Wembanyama’s best nights have been emphatic. He opened the series with 41 points and 24 rebounds in Game 1, added 33 points in Game 4, then put up 22 points on 9-of-16 shooting in the first half of Game 6 before finishing with 28 points in 28 minutes. The series has turned on those peaks because neither team has found a cleaner answer than leaning on its star and hoping the rest holds up long enough around him.
Oklahoma City, though, has had to do more than just wait on a hot night from Gilgeous-Alexander. Jalen Williams and Ajay Mitchell are out for Game 7, and Mark Daigneault’s starting five in the last couple of games has been Gilgeous-Alexander, Jared McCain, Lu Dort, Chet Holmgren and Isaiah Hartenstein. Dort is shooting 35.5% overall and 18.2% from 3, which leaves the Thunder asking their offense to do a lot of work even before San Antonio’s defense tightens around the lane.
That is where the matchup has become less about star power alone and more about the shape of the game around it. The Spurs have used a more straightforward defense, sending help when Gilgeous-Alexander drives into dangerous spots, while Oklahoma City has relied on aggressive defense, forcing turnovers and turning them into transition buckets. Gilgeous-Alexander said the shots feel good and are ones he has made plenty of times before, but they are not going in. He added that it is too late to abandon his work or his game now, and that this late in the season he has to trust it and live or die by it.
That is the gamble Game 7 now asks both teams to make. If San Antonio can keep turning Gilgeous-Alexander into a difficult finisher and keep Wembanyama in rhythm, it has already shown the formula to win. If the Thunder can get cleaner shooting around SGA and survive the missing rotation pieces, they can still drag the series back onto their terms. Either way, the next game will decide whether the series has been a showcase for the higher scorer all along, or a reminder that the better answer is sometimes the deeper one.
