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Tim Bontemps
OKLAHOMA CITY — The Oklahoma City Thunder took house the 2025 NBA championship — the primary within the franchise’s 17 years right here — because of a 103-91 victory over the Indiana Pacers in Recreation 7 of the NBA Finals, capping what was a traditionally dominant yr and a outstanding turnaround.
The Thunder went from profitable 22 and 24 video games, respectively, within the 2020-21 and 2021-22 seasons to claiming the highest spot within the Western Convention playoffs every of the previous two seasons. They adopted up a 56-win marketing campaign final season with a 68-win season this yr — one of many seven finest single-season marks in NBA historical past. In addition they set the file for the biggest level differential of all time within the common season, smashing the earlier mark that had stood for greater than half a century.
Regardless of the Thunder’s accomplishment, Recreation 7 could also be most remembered for an unlucky cause as Pacers famous person Tyrese Haliburton suffered what his father confirmed was a left Achilles damage whereas attempting to drive to the basket with 4:55 left within the first quarter. He could be dominated out for the remainder of the sport a short while later with a decrease proper leg damage – bringing what had been, to that time, a panoramic postseason to a heartbreaking conclusion.
The Pacers hung robust instantly following the devastating damage and took a 48-47 lead into halftime. Nonetheless that is when Oklahoma Metropolis — behind an excellent stretch of play from the league’s Most Helpful Participant, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander — had one in all its patented dominating third quarters, outscoring Indiana 34-20 throughout the 12 minutes to take a 13-point lead into the fourth quarter that the Thunder would by no means relinquish.
It would not have been a Pacers playoff sport, although, with out Indiana making its opponent sweat with a possible comeback. They ultimately bought what was a 22-point lead all the way down to as little as 10 on Andrew Nembhard‘s 3-pointer with slightly below two minutes remaining. However in contrast to Indiana’s magical comebacks earlier in these playoffs, Oklahoma Metropolis held on and survived.
“It would not really feel actual,” Gilgeous-Alexander mentioned after the sport. “So many hours. So many moments. So many feelings. So many nights of disbelief. So many nights of perception. It is loopy to know that we’re all right here, however this group labored for it. This group put within the hours and we deserve this.”
The championship is the fruits of the imaginative and prescient of the staff’s basic supervisor, Sam Presti, who has been in cost because the franchise’s last yr in Seattle in 2007-08. Since arriving in Oklahoma Metropolis in 2008, the Thunder have the second-most common season victories, behind solely the Boston Celtics, and the fifth-most postseason victories.
However, till this yr, the final word prize — a championship — had eluded the Thunder. And, after close to misses once they misplaced within the NBA Finals to the Miami Heat in 5 video games in 2012, after which within the Western Convention finals in each 2014 and 2016, it was unclear it could ever occur for one of many NBA’s smallest-market groups.
Satirically, it did on the identical day Kevin Durant, the foundational member of that first championship-caliber Thunder squad, was traded to the Houston Rockets, doubtlessly making them Oklahoma Metropolis’s largest menace to getting out of the Western Convention playoffs once more subsequent season.
However whereas Durant left in 2016, it would not be till 2019 that the primary period of Thunder basketball formally got here to a detailed when Presti shipped out Russell Westbrook and Paul George in a dizzying collection of strikes that laid the muse for this present roster — most notably by getting Gilgeous-Alexander within the deal that despatched George, and by extension Kawhi Leonard, to the LA Clippers that summer season.
And, a few weeks later, Presti penned a letter in The Oklahoman, an area Oklahoma Metropolis newspaper, to put out his imaginative and prescient of the place the franchise could be headed within the years to come back.
“In saying goodbye to the previous, now we have begun to chart our future,” Presti wrote then. “The following nice Thunder staff is on the market someplace, however it would take time to grab and self-discipline to in the end maintain.”
It turned out that it did not take a lot time in any respect. Arriving alongside Gilgeous-Alexander in 2019 was Luguentz Dort, an undrafted free agent who has developed right into a first-team All-Protection choice. In 2022, Oklahoma Metropolis landed its different two long-term foundational items in Chet Holmgren, who went second total out of Gonzaga, and Jalen Williams, who was the twelfth total pick of Santa Clara.
Each of them performed huge roles in OKC’s playoff run. Williams, who struggled at instances earlier in these playoffs, had a unbelievable collection within the Finals, together with going for a career-high 40 factors in Recreation 5. Holmgren — who missed greater than half of the common season with a hip damage — did not shoot the ball nicely within the Finals however impacted the sport in loads of different methods.
And with each of them more likely to signal long-term contract extensions within the coming weeks — together with Gilgeous-Alexander, who’s eligible for an enormous one as nicely — this might solely be the start for a Thunder staff that solely has two gamers on its roster over the age of 27 and is now the second-youngest champion in NBA historical past behind solely the 1977 Portland Trail Blazers.
Gilgeous-Alexander, in the meantime, capped off his historic season with 29 factors and 12 assists to hit a uncommon superfecta of honors: common season MVP, Finals MVP, NBA champion and scoring champion. Doing all of these issues put Gilgeous-Alexander on a wide range of shortlists, amongst them changing into the primary participant to win each the league’s MVP award and a championship in the identical season since Stephen Curry with the 2014-15 Golden State Warriors.
That yr, Curry gained his first championship with a younger, out of the blue ascendant Warriors staff, one that will go on to make six finals appearances in an 8-year span, and a complete of 4 championships as a part of the NBA’s final dynastic staff.
Time will inform if this may begin the same run for this Thunder staff. However to have that form of run, it has to begin with a championship.
And, after 17 years, Oklahoma Metropolis can lastly say it has its first.