WASHINGTON.- Led by the 22 points of Victor Wembanyamathe San Antonio Spurs They won this Saturday 111-103 over the Oklahoma City Thunder in the seventh game for the final of the Western Conference and classified the NBA Finals.
The Texan team achieved its seventh conference title in the Paycom Center (Oklahoma City) and qualified for the finals for the first time since the 2013-14 season, when they managed to win 4-1 over the Miami Heat.
Wembanyama, 22 years old and Defense of the Year In the current campaign, he went through the last eight minutes of the game with five fouls, on the verge of expulsion.
“Part of the dream is going to become a reality, it’s a feeling I can’t explain,” Wembanyama told NBC after being named as the Most Valuable Player (MVP) of the Western finals.
The French star shot 47 percent (7/15), including three of his five attempts from three-point range.
“My teammates don’t know how much I love them, they all had an excellent game,” Wemby added.
“This all means a lot to me, but we’re not done, we have four more games to win.”
The Spurs aim to start a new dynasty with an electrifying youth movement around their star, with the explosive Stephen Castle (21 years, 16 points) and Dylan Harper (20 years, 12 points).
Last year, the Spurs were still in 13th place in the Western Conference before becoming the second-best regular-season team in a single year, behind only the Thunder, setting up a hot matchup in the Western Conference Finals.
Four days to recover
Julian Champagnie with 20 points and Castle with 16 were fundamental for the Spurs in the final stretch of the game, when they had to respond to the constant attack of a desperate OKC.
For the Thunder, the Canadian Shai Gilgeous-Alexander He played 43 minutes, being the top scorer of the game with 35 points.
“They were the best team today from start to finish,” explained Gilgeous-Alexander. “My respect to them, they deserved to win the game.”
“Winning a title in the NBA is very complicated, there are many variants, there are things you can control, others you can’t, it is a very complicated task.”
The escort Chet Holmgren He had one of his worst nights of the season, scoring four points in 33 minutes with just two shots in the entire game.
The locals sped up the game, adding speed to each of their attacks and got a San Antonio defense that knew how to respond at the right moment in trouble.
“In October we knew we had a chance,” said the San Antonio coach, Mitch Johnson. “OKC is a great team, it’s been a phenomenal series.”
“We faced this team 12 times, we know what we are made of.”
Although San Antonio achieved a lead of up to 14 points early in the match, the game was even overall, with the three-point line being the big difference where the Spurs scored 17 of their 40 attempts against 12 of 35 for the hosts.
The NBA Finals will be played in the traditional best-of-seven-game format, starting this Wednesday at the Frost Bank Center in San Antonio, Texas.
The Spurs have four days to recover before the Finals, where they will have home field advantage in this best-of-seven series against the New York Knickswho have accumulated a streak of 11 victories.
