The San Antonio Spurs did not just win Game 7. They ended a championship reign.
On Saturday night in Oklahoma City, the Spurs beat the Thunder 111-103 in Game 7 of the Western Conference Finals, taking the series 4-3 and reaching the NBA Finals for the first time since 2014. It was a road Game 7 against the defending champions, inside one of the league’s loudest buildings, against Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and a Thunder team that had spent the year looking like the future. San Antonio walked in anyway and took it.
Victor Wembanyama finished with 22 points and seven rebounds and was named Western Conference Finals MVP, but the beauty of the Spurs’ win was that it did not depend on one giant miracle. Julian Champagnie hit six threes and scored 20 points. Stephon Castle added 16 points, six rebounds and six assists. De’Aaron Fox scored 15. Dylan Harper, Keldon Johnson and Devin Vassell all gave San Antonio double figures. Seven Spurs scored at least 10 points, the kind of balance that makes a Game 7 feel less like survival and more like arrival.
Oklahoma City did not go quietly. Gilgeous-Alexander poured in 35 points and nine assists, and Cason Wallace erupted for 17 points, including 14 in the fourth quarter. But the Thunder never fully found the support they needed. The Spurs led for most of the night, watched OKC cut the margin to six late, then held their nerve when the building was begging for one last champion’s comeback.
Now the Finals are set: Spurs vs. Knicks, a rematch of 1999, with Game 1 in San Antonio on June 3. New York brings Jalen Brunson and Madison Square Garden’s long-delayed roar. San Antonio brings Wembanyama, a fearless young core, and the proof that the defending champs could be beaten in their own house.
The Thunder’s title defense is over. The Spurs’ new era is no longer coming. It is here.
