The Oklahoma City Thunder are one win away from the NBA Finals. A 127-114 victory over the San Antonio Spurs in Game 5 gave the defending champions a 3-2 lead in the Western Conference Finals and the chance to close the series out on the road on Thursday.
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander led the way with 32 points, but the win was built on a return to form for an offence that had looked broken in Game 4. Oklahoma City nearly doubled its first-half output from that loss, taking a 69-58 lead into the break, and got 20 points from Jared McCain in his first career playoff start and 22 from Alex Caruso off the bench.
Head coach Mark Daigneault pointed to Gilgeous-Alexander's steadiness as the team's anchor. "One of the things about him is he's so consistent. His temperament's the same all the time. His approach is the same all the time," Daigneault said. "He obviously was sloppy early, but I didn't think it was approach-based. That's one of the things that's really a superpower of his."
The defining story of the night was at the other end. Isaiah Hartenstein took the primary assignment on Victor Wembanyama and held the Spurs star to 4-of-15 shooting. "He's a great player, so just coming in with the right game plan, trying to make his life as difficult as possible," Hartenstein said. "It was a little bit too easy in Game 4. So just trying to make his life a little harder — I think I did a pretty good job doing that."
Hartenstein traced the bounce-back to a simple reset. "We knew we couldn't play any worse than we did in San Antonio," he said. "So we just wanted to come out with a little bit more urgency, a little bit more just moving the ball, getting guys certain looks." He was quick to deflect individual credit. "It's team defense at the end of the day. It's a team sport, so I never want to take full claim on anything. That's what makes our team so special — there's no egos involved."
Analyst Kendrick Perkins was more colourful, arguing Wembanyama had been physically overwhelmed and hurts San Antonio when he drifts to the perimeter, suggesting the Frenchman forgot he is "a big man first with guard skills." Perkins reserved his loudest praise for Caruso, calling him the Thunder's best player of the series and "a top-five role player in NBA history."
For all the momentum, Hartenstein refused to look past Game 6. "We still have to win one more game," he said. "Winning three doesn't really matter. We're not really going into this like we've done anything yet. We just want to keep going until we get that last win." The Thunder will try to do exactly that in San Antonio on Thursday, with a place opposite the New York Knicks in the Finals on the line.
