OKLAHOMA CITY — When the season ended, and his team’s reign as NBA champions along with it, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander tipped his cap.
The Oklahoma City Thunder guard, who recently added a second straight league MVP award to his trophy collection, was great in Game 7 of the Western Conference title series Saturday night at home. The San Antonio Spurs were greater. And that meant there won’t be a repeat champion in the NBA this year.
Gilgeous-Alexander scored 35 points and was his normal brilliant self with an array of mid-range scores, paint attacks, even stepbacks over San Antonio’s 7-foot-4 wall named Victor Wembanyama, the third-year pro who was voted Western Conference MVP for his series dominance.
It wasn’t enough, and SGA made no excuses.
“So many things go into it,” the former prep standout for Chattanooga’s Hamilton Heights Christian Academy said when asked about the difficulty of winning an NBA title — and trying to do it all over again a year later. “Sometimes it’s like things you can’t control, sometimes it’s things you can control. Yeah, it’s a hard task to do one time, so to do it twice will only make it even more challenging.”
The Thunder played throughout the regular season to have home-court advantage in Game 7 and got it by two games, winning 64 to San Antonio’s 62. But the Spurs beat the Thunder four out of five in the regular season, then got four more out of seven in the Western Conference title series. And Oklahoma City, to be fair, was not at its best with Ajay Mitchell and Jalen Williams out with injuries.
“Not to make any excuses, but they’re a really good team over there,” Gilgeous-Alexander said. “And losing Ajay and Dub the way we did in the midst of a series, you would think it would be a lot harder for us.”
Oklahoma City looks like a team that is built to contend for years. So, too, do the Spurs. A rivalry seems very much born.
“Yeah, they’re young, they’re talented, well coached,” Gilgeous-Alexander said. “Play the right way, play together, seems like they like each other. They have the makeup, for sure. You don’t beat us without the makeup, and they beat us. They have the makeup to go get one.”
The Thunder will have some roster decisions to make and have multiple first-round draft picks to either use to add talent — or perhaps combine in a trade if they want to move up for a chance to draft a specific prospect next month in New York.
Those decisions aren’t for Gilgeous-Alexander to make. Canada is hoping he’ll play a little bit of FIBA World Cup qualifying this summer — the next edition of the international championship tournament is in 2027 — and he’ll be looking to add to his game, as elite players always do.
“We just have to take it one day at a time from here on out,” Gilgeous-Alexander said. “Try to get better this summer, be a better team than we were this season — and try to get back over the hump.”