OKLAHOMA CITY –<\/p>\n
The matchup for the 2026 Western Conference Finals is officially set.<\/p>\n
The top-seeded Oklahoma City Thunder will face the San Antonio Spurs beginning Monday, May 18 at Paycom Center after the Spurs eliminated the Minnesota Timberwolves with a 139-109 win in Game 6 Friday night in Minneapolis.<\/p>\n
All games in the best-of-seven series will air on NBC and Peacock.<\/p>\n
Despite Oklahoma City finishing with the NBA\u2019s best record, San Antonio controlled the regular season matchup, winning four of the five meetings between the teams.<\/p>\n
\n Thunder vs. Spurs regular season series<\/p>\n
Dec. 13: Spurs 111, Thunder 109Dec. 23: Spurs 130, Thunder 110Dec. 25: Spurs 117, Thunder 102Jan. 13: Thunder 119, Spurs 98Feb. 4: Spurs 116, Thunder 106<\/p>\n
While the regular season results favored San Antonio, the Thunder enter the series playing some of their best basketball of the year.<\/p>\n
Oklahoma City owns the best offensive rating of any remaining playoff team at 126.3 while also posting the second-best true shooting percentage in the postseason at 62.7%.<\/p>\n
The Thunder also have become a much stronger offensive rebounding team during the playoffs, ranking fifth in offensive rebounding rate (33.3%) and third in second-chance points per game (16.5). That improvement has coincided with the return and health of Isaiah Hartenstein, who battled injuries during parts of the regular season.<\/p>\n
Another advantage for Oklahoma City could be rest.<\/p>\n
The Thunder have played only eight postseason games and have not played since May 11, the fewest games of any team remaining in the playoffs. San Antonio has already played 11 postseason games entering the Western Conference Finals.<\/p>\n
\n Jalen Williams injury update<\/p>\n
Forward Jalen Williams has not played since April 22 after suffering a hamstring strain during the opening round of the playoffs.<\/p>\n
The Thunder have not officially announced a return timeline, but Williams is expected back at some point during the Western Conference Finals and could potentially return as early as Game 1. Monday\u2019s opener would come nearly a month after the injury occurred.<\/p>\n
\n Thunder vs. Spurs Western Conference Finals schedule<\/p>\n
All times Central. Games 5-7 if necessary.<\/p>\n
Game 1: Spurs at Thunder \u2014 Monday, May 18 \u2014 7:30 p.m.Game 2: Spurs at Thunder \u2014 Wednesday, May 20 \u2014 7:30 p.m.Game 3: Thunder at Spurs \u2014 Friday, May 22 \u2014 7:30 p.m.Game 4: Thunder at Spurs \u2014 Sunday, May 24 \u2014 7:00 p.m.Game 5: Spurs at Thunder \u2014 Tuesday, May 26 \u2014 7:30 p.m.Game 6: Thunder at Spurs \u2014 Thursday, May 28 \u2014 7:30 p.m.Game 7: Spurs at Thunder \u2014 Saturday, May 30 \u2014 7:00 p.m.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"OKLAHOMA CITY – The matchup for the 2026 Western Conference Finals is officially set. The top-seeded Oklahoma City…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":674201,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[64,63,590,85],"class_list":["post-674200","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/674200","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=674200"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/674200\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/674201"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=674200"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=674200"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=674200"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}