{"id":704979,"date":"2026-05-30T20:43:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-30T20:43:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/704979\/"},"modified":"2026-05-30T20:43:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-30T20:43:08","slug":"game-7-awaits-spurs-at-thunder-on-saturday-night-to-decide-western-conference-crown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/704979\/","title":{"rendered":"Game 7 awaits: Spurs at Thunder on Saturday night to decide Western Conference crown"},"content":{"rendered":"

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) \u2014 For the 160th time in NBA history<\/a> and fifth time this season alone, a Game 7 awaits<\/a> on Saturday night.<\/p>\n

The defending champion Oklahoma City Thunder will be taking on the San Antonio Spurs to decide the Western Conference title, after a back-and-forth series that has seen both teams leading at various points.<\/p>\n

The winner will take on the New York Knicks<\/a> in the NBA Finals, starting Wednesday. Game 1 will be in either Oklahoma City or San Antonio.<\/p>\n

Game 7s, Thunder star Shai Gilgeous-Alexander said, are the things \u201cdreams\u201d are made of. But at least one of the Spurs said he had a little trouble getting to dreamland on Friday night; Devin Vassell revealed that he tossed and turned for at least a half-hour after trying to go to sleep.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m more excited than anything,” Vassell said at the Spurs’ Saturday morning shootaround. “I think that we have a chance to do something special.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Thunder won a pair of Game 7s last season at home, including the one that delivered the NBA championship over the Indiana Pacers. But guard Alex Caruso warned that having Game 7 experience isn’t a reason to relax.<\/p>\n

\u201cMaybe just being here before, you have comfortability,\u201d Caruso said. \u201cBut at the same time, you don’t want to be comfortable in a Game 7. If you’re comfortable, you’re probably not edgy enough. You probably don’t have a high enough sense of urgency. … You definitely don’t want to be comfortable.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jalen Williams and Ajay Mitchell will not play for the Thunder<\/a> in Game 7 against the Spurs<\/a> because of injuries that have dogged both throughout the series.<\/p>\n

Williams has been dealing with a strained left hamstring<\/a> for much of the playoffs. Mitchell has a strained right soleus.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

AP NBA: https:\/\/apnews.com\/nba<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) \u2014 For the 160th time in NBA history and fifth time this season alone, a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":704980,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[64,63,726,31647,2656,1628,85],"class_list":["post-704979","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-basketball","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-basketball","tag-nba-basketball","tag-nba-finals","tag-s","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/704979","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=704979"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/704979\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/704980"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=704979"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=704979"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=704979"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}