Victor Wembanyama produced a commanding 22-point, 14-rebound, six-block performance to lift the San Antonio Spurs past the defending champion Oklahoma City Thunder 111-103 on Sunday night, sealing a 4-3 Western Conference Finals series victory and sending the franchise back to the NBA Finals for the first time since 2014.
The 22-year-old Frenchman, playing his first postseason after missing last year’s playoff run with deep vein thrombosis, delivered the defining moment of San Antonio’s series-clinching Game 7 win at Paycom Center. With the Thunder trailing by three and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander rising for a tying triple with 41 seconds left, Wembanyama swallowed the shot at its apex — his sixth block of the night — then sprinted the floor and finished a lob from De’Aaron Fox to extend the lead to five.
It was a sequence that crystallised the seismic shift in the Western Conference. Twelve months after the Thunder lifted the franchise’s first title since relocation, San Antonio — 22-60 just two seasons ago — have engineered the fastest rebuild in modern NBA memory.
Wembanyama’s two-way masterclass
Wembanyama’s box score barely captured his impact. Beyond the 22 points on 9-of-16 shooting, he posted a plus-19 in 38 minutes, attempted only one three-pointer in a deliberate tactical adjustment, and held Chet Holmgren to 4-of-17 from the field in their head-to-head minutes.
His six blocks pushed his playoff total to 47, breaking Hakeem Olajuwon’s 1986 record for most blocks by a player in their first postseason. Three of them came in the fourth quarter, including a chase-down rejection of Jalen Williams in transition that drew an audible gasp from a Thunder crowd that had spent the entire night trying to manufacture noise.
“He bent the geometry of the floor,” Spurs head coach Mitch Johnson said afterwards. “Every drive Oklahoma City wanted to take, every cut, every rotation — they had to account for him twice.”
Fox added 24 points and nine assists in his first conference finals, while Stephon Castle, the reigning Rookie of the Year, scored 18 off the bench and recorded the defensive possession that forced Gilgeous-Alexander’s contested step-back. Gilgeous-Alexander finished with 31 points but shot 11-of-29, the regular-season MVP visibly drained by a series in which San Antonio’s length forced him into 24 turnovers across seven games.
The Thunder dynasty question
Oklahoma City’s defeat ends a 68-win regular season and what was widely projected as the first leg of a multi-year title run. Mark Daigneault’s group had not lost three consecutive games at any point this season before dropping Games 5, 6 and 7.
The cost of last summer is now in sharp focus. General manager Sam Presti traded Josh Giddey for Alex Caruso in 2024 and locked Gilgeous-Alexander, Williams and Holmgren into long-term extensions worth a combined $822m. Holmgren, who managed just 11 points and seven rebounds on Sunday, was repeatedly pulled away from the rim by Wembanyama’s perimeter activity — an issue that has no easy structural fix.
Caruso, 32, is a free agent this summer. Lu Dort’s contract carries a team option. With the second apron now restricting Oklahoma City’s flexibility, the front office faces decisions that would have seemed unthinkable in October: whether this roster, as constructed, can solve a problem named Wembanyama for the next decade.
What awaits in the Finals
San Antonio will face the winner of the Eastern Conference Finals, where the New York Knicks lead the Cleveland Cavaliers 3-2 with Game 6 in Cleveland on Tuesday. The Spurs will hold home-court advantage in either matchup courtesy of their 58-win regular season, the joint-second-best record in the league.
The historical resonance is hard to ignore. San Antonio’s five championships under Gregg Popovich and the Tim Duncan-David Robinson-Tony Parker-Manu Ginobili era ended in 2014; Sunday’s victory came 12 years to the week after their last Finals appearance, the 2013 loss to Miami. Popovich, who stepped away from the bench in 2024 following his stroke but remains team president, watched from a courtside seat as Wembanyama — the player he traded down draft assets to position for in 2023 — sealed the win.
Three numbers frame what San Antonio have built:
- 36 — wins added between 2023-24 and 2025-26, the largest two-year improvement by any team in the salary-cap era
- 23.1 — Wembanyama’s points per game these playoffs, with 13.2 rebounds and 4.4 blocks
- $214m — combined cap space the Spurs project to carry into the 2027 offseason, when Giannis Antetokounmpo and Luka Doncic can become free agents
The Finals begin on Thursday at the Frost Bank Center. For a franchise that spent a decade in the wilderness after Duncan’s retirement, the question is no longer whether Wembanyama can carry the Spurs back to the summit. It is whether anyone can stop him from staying there.
Sports journalist and editor at SportsPortal.net. Covers cricket, football, Formula 1, tennis, and basketball with a focus on how global sports connect with Pakistani audiences. Follows the PSL, Pakistan national cricket team, Premier League, and major international tournaments. Has reported on sports for digital audiences since 2021.
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