The San Antonio Spurs and Oklahoma City Thunder will settle their Western Conference Finals in Game 7 on Monday night, with tipoff set for 8 p.m. ET on NBC and Peacock. After six games, the series has turned into a duel in which the team with the higher-scoring star has won each time.
That makes the spurs schedule search feel urgent now because the winner moves on immediately, and the main question is no longer who has the edge in the series but which team can deliver it in one night. Victor Wembanyama has been at the center of San Antonio’s wins, while Shai Gilgeous-Alexander has carried Oklahoma City’s.
Wembanyama opened the series with 41 points and 24 rebounds in Game 1, then added 33 in Game 4 and 28 points in 28 minutes in Game 6. Gilgeous-Alexander answered with 30 points in Game 2 and 32 in Game 5, and the Thunder guard has still shot only 37.9% in the series. Stephon Castle captured the mood after Game 6 with a simple line about the stage ahead: who wouldn’t want to play in a Game 7?
San Antonio has also changed the shape of the matchup. The Spurs used Wembanyama more in a pick-and-pop role early in Game 6, then switched to a more straightforward defense led by Castle. That has mattered because Oklahoma City has built so much of its identity this season on forcing turnovers and racing into transition, yet the Spurs’ half-court defense has blunted that approach in the series.
The Thunder still have to navigate rotation problems as well. Jalen Williams is out with a left hamstring injury and Ajay Mitchell is sidelined with a calf injury, while Mark Daigneault’s starting five in the last couple of games has featured Gilgeous-Alexander, Jared McCain, Lu Dort, Chet Holmgren and Isaiah Hartenstein. Dort has shot 35.5% overall and 18.2% from 3, which has given San Antonio chances to help off him, even as Holmgren has been more dangerous when he is a scoring threat.
Gilgeous-Alexander said the shots are the same ones he has made many times before, only they are not falling right now. He also said it is too late this deep in the season to abandon his work or his game, and that he has to trust it and live or die by it. Game 7 will decide whether that trust carries Oklahoma City forward, or whether Wembanyama and the Spurs finish the job on the biggest night of the series.
