Oklahoma City Beats San Antonio to Advance to NBA Western Conference Final

At the outset of the NBA playoffs, it looked like a likely scenario for the Western Conference Finals would be a matchup of the teams with the best regular season records in the league, with the Golden State Warriors (73-9 in the regular season) playing the San Antonio Spurs (67-15). The Warriors did their part, beating both Houston and then Portland four games to one to advance to the conference final. The Spurs swept Memphis in four games and then blew out Oklahoma City 124-92 in the first game of their quarterfinal series. The Thunder eked out a one point victory in Game 2, but the Spurs won Game 3 to take a two games to one lead in the series and get back on track for that matchup with Golden State.

But Oklahoma City wasn’t finished. The Thunder throttled the Spurs 111-97 in Game 4 behind a 41 point performance by Kevin Durrant. Oklahoma City then took a 3-2 lead in the series after beating San Antonio 95-91 in Game 5. The game featured a double double by Russell Westbrook, who had 35 points and 11 rebounds. Actually, these days its news if Westbrook doesn’t get a double double. Suddenly, the Spurs were facing elimination.

Oklahoma City then delivered the coup de grace in Game 6, hammering San Antonio 113-99 in a game that wasn’t as close as the score indicates. The Durant—Westbrook combo accounted for 65 of those 113 points, and the Thunder advanced to the Western Conference Finals for the fourth time in five years. They advanced to the NBA Finals once in that time, losing to the Miami Heat in the 2011-12 playoffs.