If the San Antonio Spurs beat the Oklahoma City Thunder in Saturday’s Game 7, a brand new NBA champion will be crowned for an eighth consecutive season.
The Thunder, who entered the playoffs as overwhelming favorites to repeat as NBA champions, are in danger of falling short at the hands of Victor Wembanyama and Co.
The NBA highlighted on Friday that the seven-year streak of new champions will be kept alive if the Spurs dethrone the Thunder.
If San Antonio advances to the NBA Finals with a win on Saturday night, we will be guaranteed eight different champions in eight straight seasons with the Spurs and the Knicks in the NBA Finals.
Should San Antonio advance, they will also be the seventh different Western Conference team to make the NBA Finals in seven years.
Previous six: Lakers (2020), Suns (2021), Warriors (2022), Nuggets (2023), Mavericks (2024), Thunder (2025).
Should San Antonio advance, they will also be the seventh different Western
Thunder Favorites Despite Injuries
The Thunder enter Game 7 as 4.5-point favorites despite dealing with injuries to key players Jalen Williams (hamstring) and Ajay Mitchell (calf). Both Williams and Mitchell have already been ruled out for the winner-takes-all game and are also doubtful for Game 1 of the NBA Finals on Wednesday — if the Thunder can get past the Spurs.
Williams, who aggravated his left hamstring strain in Game 2, made an unsuccessful comeback in Game 6 when he played 10 minutes off the bench. The All-Star wing was not healthy enough to stay on the court, as revealed by head coach Mark Daigneault.
“He’s obviously not 100%,” Daigneault said of Williams, via ESPN’s Anthony Slater.
“He didn’t know what to expect. I didn’t know what to expect. So, it was a matter of getting him out there in kind of an insulated role and see what he can bring to the team. He’s an All-Star player, he’s an All-NBA player. He hasn’t done a full return to play [protocol] like he would if this was the regular season, and yet, he just wants to do whatever he can to try to contribute whatever he can to the team.”
Spurs Try to Make History
If Victor Wembanyama and Co. do pull off the Game 7 win, they will achieve something that past San Antonio Spurs teams led by Hall of Famers George Gervin, David Robinson and Tim Duncan could not — win a Game 7 on the road.
Amazingly, the Spurs are 0-5 in their previous five Game 7s on the road, dating back to the 1979 Conference Finals against the Washington Bullets. Since that loss to Washington, the Spurs have lost four more Game 7s on the road — 1990 Western Conference Semifinals vs. Portland Trail Blazers, 2013 NBA Finals vs. Miami Heat, 2015 First Round vs. LA Clippers and 2019 First Round vs. Denver Nuggets.
The Spurs last won a Game 7 against the Dallas Mavericks in 2014, but that was at home and in the first round. The stakes are a lot higher on Saturday. Although the odds are stacked heavily against them, the youthful Spurs are not lacking in confidence.
“As a group, we all want this,” Stephon Castle said, via The Oklahoman.
“It’s right there in front of us. We feel like collectively that we’re better than this team and we didn’t want to let our fans down on our home court either.”
Spurs vs Thunder Game 7 tips off at 8:00 p.m. ET on Saturday. The winner will face the New York Knicks in Game 1 of the NBA Finals on Wednesday.
NBA Announces Major Spurs News Ahead of Game 7 vs Thunder