Wembanyama leads Spurs past Thunder, San Antonio reaches NBA Finals
Wembanyama’s 22-point Game 7 sent San Antonio back to the NBA Finals, and the Spurs’ young core answered the West finals’ biggest pressure test.
Victor Wembanyama carried the Spurs through the final, decisive game, and San Antonio finished off the defending champion Thunder 111-103 in Game 7 on Saturday night in Oklahoma City to win the Western Conference finals and return to the NBA Finals for the first time since 2014.
Wembanyama scored 22 points, Julian Champagnie added 20, and ESPN noted that 18 of Champagnie’s points came from beyond the arc, a vital sign that San Antonio’s spacing held up when the season hung in the balance. After the win, Wembanyama said, “This feeling, I can’t explain it.” The quote fit a series in which he repeatedly looked too big for the stage, then proved it again when the moment got tight.
The Spurs did not advance on one star alone. Stephon Castle scored 16 points, De’Aaron Fox had 15, Dylan Harper added 12, and Keldon Johnson and Devin Vassell each finished with 11. That kind of spread mattered against an Oklahoma City team that entered the series as the defending NBA champion and the favorite to repeat. It also showed why San Antonio’s rebuild has moved faster than expected: the roster list around Wembanyama, Fox, Harper, Castle, Vassell, Champagnie and Johnson is packed with players still early in their careers, with Wembanyama just 22 and Champagnie 24.
The pattern of the series suggested the Spurs are not just surviving on a hot night. They ended the West finals the same way they started them, with a win in Oklahoma City, and they forced Game 7 by hammering the Thunder 118-91 at home in Game 6 on Thursday, May 28. Wembanyama had 28 points, 10 rebounds and three blocks in that rout, after putting up 41 points and 24 rebounds in San Antonio’s double-overtime Game 1 win on May 18. Those numbers point to a player who can dominate across different game scripts, from a track meet to a grind.
NBA.com named Wembanyama the recipient of the Earvin “Magic” Johnson Trophy as Western Conference finals MVP, a fitting cap to his third season. The Spurs now move into the Finals against the Knicks, with Game 1 set for Wednesday, June 3, in San Antonio and all games scheduled for 8:30 p.m. ET. Gregg Popovich is no longer on the sideline, having stepped down as coach and taken over as president of basketball operations, which makes this San Antonio run feel even more significant: the franchise is back on the league’s biggest stage, and its next benchmark is whether this young core can sustain it all the way to a title.
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