Hype from around the NBA has built for the Western Conference finals between the Oklahoma City Thunder and San Antonio Spurs, with one Western assistant coach saying, “This is the Finals,” and other personnel calling it among the best series in recent memory, according to ESPN. The matchup — featuring two teams that have spent most of the season near the top of the standings — begins Monday at 8:30 p.m. ET on NBC/Peacock. ESPN spoke with 10 league insiders; eight of those sources picked Oklahoma City to win the series.
The matchup pits two of the top three Most Valuable Player candidates against one another, according to ESPN: Thunder guard and back-to-back winner Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Spurs center Victor Wembanyama. Each star has supporting pieces, the network noted: Jalen Williams and Chet Holmgren for Oklahoma City, and De’Aaron Fox and Stephon Castle for San Antonio, with emerging contributors such as Ajay Mitchell for OKC and Dylan Harper for the Spurs.
One of the most-discussed subplots was how San Antonio’s guards will handle Oklahoma City’s defensive pressure. Multiple league sources named the Thunder’s Luguentz Dort, Alex Caruso and Cason Wallace as consistent pests, and one West assistant coach asked, “How do they combat it? Can they handle the 48 minutes of that suffocating defense?” according to ESPN. The Thunder’s emphasis on winning the possession game and creating turnovers was cited repeatedly as central to their approach.
League insiders told ESPN that turnovers would force the Spurs out of set defenses and invite constant defensive disruption. “No matter what your roster is, you have to take care of the ball [against Oklahoma City], because if you don’t it’s automatic points,” a West assistant coach said, according to ESPN. Scouts and executives also praised the development of San Antonio’s younger guards but warned that Oklahoma City presents a different kind of challenge: “Harper has been awesome, but OKC is a whole different beast… There’s nobody to target on Oklahoma City,” one West executive said, according to ESPN.
How the Thunder can limit Wembanyama’s defensive influence was another major question raised by league personnel. “Shai is f—ing good, but he ain’t a cheat code,” an East assistant coach said, according to ESPN. Gilgeous-Alexander averaged 31.4 points per game while shooting 55.3 percent — a single-season mark that shattered the record for a guard averaging 30 — and Oklahoma City’s options for attacking around a 7-foot-5 rim protector drew repeated attention from scouts. “What does OKC do to score around Victor’s defense? To me, that’s the biggest question of the series,” a West scout said, according to ESPN.
