The reigning NBA-champion, No. 1 seed Oklahoma City Thunder will face off against the No. 2 seed San Antonio Spurs in a highly-anticipated Western Conference Finals matchup, beginning with Game 1 on Monday night.
This series pits two of the league’s most dominant teams against each other with a trip to the NBA Finals on the line. The Thunder and Spurs represent one of the NBA’s biggest budding rivalries, with several intriguing storylines to follow.
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander just won his second consecutive league MVP trophy, but 22-year-old NBA superstar Victor Wembanyama is challenging him for the title of best player in the world. And while the Thunder finished the regular season with the best record in the NBA, four of their 18 losses came against the Spurs.
Multiple league insiders have hyped this matchup in the days leading up to Game 1, according to ESPN’s Tim Bontemps.
“This is the Finals,” a Western Conference assistant coach said.
“This has a chance to go down as one of the best series of the past decade,” an Eastern Conference executive added.
“This is the start of [another] Magic vs. Bird,” a Western Conference scout said.
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Gilgeous-Alexander acknowledged the magnitude of this series during an interview with Amazon Prime Video on Tuesday night.
“Obviously a really good team. They’ve been right behind us all year so we obviously don’t take them in the slightest. They’re a really good team,” Gilgeous-Alexander said of the Spurs.
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Game 1 will tipoff at 8:30 p.m. ET on Monday.
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