OKLAHOMA CITY — With 32.4 seconds left in the NBA season Sunday night, Mark Daigneault mass-substituted, and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander walked off the Paycom Center court. Daigneault met him with a hug.
Daigneault was the proxy for four million Oklahomans burning to embrace SGA and this historic Thunder team.
The NBA champion calls Oklahoma home. The Thunder beat the scrappy Indiana Pacers 103-91 in Game 7 of the NBA Finals, with Gilgeous-Alexander leading the way.
Unless you want to count the Oklahoma Land Run, this was the biggest sporting event ever staged on Oklahoma soil. And Oklahoma’s biggest star ever — sorry, Jim Thorpe, and Heisman winners, and some guys named Durant and Westbrook — came through with a fabulous game and, like the Beatles on Sergeant Pepper, with a little help from his friends.
Oklahoma City’s Shai Gilgeous-Alexander was named NBA Finals MVP after a 29-point, 12-assist performance in Sunday’s Game 7 of the NBA Finals.
SGA had 29 points and 12 assists, Jalen Williams had 20 points and Chet Holmgren had 18 points and five blocked shots.
And thus the Thunder stamped themselves as an historic team. Not just Oklahoma pioneers, bringing the O’Brien Trophy to these parts for the first time, but as NBA extraordinaires.
The Thunder assured themselves company among the best NBA teams of all time, capping an historic season that would have been for naught without a title.
“I’m just so happy for the guys,” Daigneault said. “I mean, this is an uncommon team. This is a great team. All the boxes that this team checked this season, it’s an historic team.
“But there’s no guarantee you end it the way that we did. I just wanted it so bad for them. I was just so thrilled that we were able to get that done and they get to experience this, because they deserve it.”
The Thunder was helped by the first-quarter injury to Pacer star Tyrese Haliburton, who suffered what is feared to be a torn Achilles tendon. These Pacers are stout, having produced one of the great underdog runs in NBA history, and super sparkplug T.J. McConnell kept Indiana in the game. But the Thunder wore down Indiana with a familiar script.
The Thunder takeaway machine was back humming; 14 steals as Indiana committed 23 turnovers. The Thunder passing returned, too, as it totaled 20 assists, not a huge number but far better than what we’ve seen in some games of these Finals. And OKC launched enough 3-pointers to keep pace with Indiana (each team made 11).
That’s the formula the Thunder used to go 68-14 in the regular season, with an NBA record point differential. But historical greatness rides only with the champion. The Thunder needed a Game 7 victory to validate this season.
Validation confirmed. Only one other NBA champion won more than the Thunder’s 84 victories this season — the 199697 Bulls (87).
“Yeah, would have sucked to lose that game,” Holmgren said. “At the end of the day, winning is what’s remembered. It’s what’s immortal. I’m just so happy we were able to do it.”
Gilgeous-Alexander was the Finals’ Most Valuable Player, to go with the scoring championship and season MVP award, a trio of honors achieved in the same season by only Shaquille O’Neal, Michael Jordan and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
“All the achievements and accolades and things, like, they don’t even come close to the satisfaction of winning with your brothers and people that you are so close to and want to succeed just as much as you want yourself to succeed,” SGA said. “That’s been the most impressive and fun part of it, just to know that I have 15 brothers that I just experienced a once-in-a-lifetime experience with. I’ll never forget them, they’ll never forget me.”
And Oklahomans never will forget SGA or his friends.
Pay no attention to his 8-of-27 shooting. That’s the nature of a Game 7. Defenses rule. The Thunder was the first Game 7 team to reach double digits since 1988. That was six Game Sevens ago.
Gilgeous-Alexander missed his last seven shots, after giving the Thunder an 84-68 lead with a 3-pointer to open the fourth quarter. But he was in command of the game, with his 12 assists coming in a variety of ways. Seven of the assists produced 3-pointers. Four others produced layups or dunks.
As the final seconds ticked down, the Paycom Center crowd roared, and Thunder chairman Clay Bennett wept. Bennett and associates brought this franchise from Seattle 17 years ago. And now the O’Brien Trophy resides in Oklahoma.
Call it Blue Heaven in Game 7.
“Feels amazing,” SGA said. “So much weight off my shoulders. So much stress relieved. No matter what, you go into every night wanting to win. Sometimes it just doesn’t go your way. Feels good to be a champion.”
Everything was hard-earned. It’s supposed to be hard-earned in a Game 7. These Pacers are stout-hearted. Even after OKC took a 21-point lead early in the fourth quarter, the Pacers clawed back, twice getting within 10.
But the Thunder staved off the comeback, and the Cinderella Pacers had no storybook ending for what would have been the biggest surprise champion in NBA history.
“You don’t author comebacks like this team did, really, over the course of the entire season, without just an indomitable competitive spirit to fight together,” said Indiana coach Rick Carlisle. “And that’s what they were and that’s what they did.”
Oklahoma City’s Jalen Williams, center, holds the Larry O’Brien Championship Trophy as he celebrates with his team after they won the NBA championship on Sunday in Oklahoma City.
Haliburton’s injury cast a pall over Game 7. He had been playing with a calf strain, sometimes playing well and sometimes not.
Haliburton was off to a hot start Sunday, sinking three 3-pointers in a four-possession span, all in the first five minutes.
But dribbling in the frontcourt later in the first quarter, Haliburton crumbled to the floor, Alex Caruso picked up the loose ball and started a fast break that resulted in a Williams dunk.
Carlisle called a quick timeout, and the Pacers sprinted to surround Haliburton, who eventually was helped off the court in obvious pain.
And to no one’s surprise, the Pacers didn’t quit. They stayed close and even took a 48-47 halftime lead, on Andrew Nembhard’s long 3-pointer with three seconds left in the half.
If there were any holdouts over Pacer respect, they ended in Game 7.
“There’s no moral victories in the NBA Finals,” Indiana center Myles Turner said.
A fabulous third quarter propelled the Thunder. OKC turned a 48-47 halftime deficit into an 81-68 lead. The Thunder didn’t commit a turnover; Indiana committed eight, leading to 18 points.
Williams (nine points in the period) and Holmgren (seven) rose up and gave Gilgeous-Alexander help.
McConnell made Indiana forget its Haliburton problems, scoring 12 points on 6-of-7 shooting in an 11-possession span. But McConnell is accustomed to playing 20 minutes a game, not the 28 required of him Sunday. And while his heroics staved off OKC’s first bombardment, there was no salve for the second.
Cason Wallace’s corner 3-pointer gave the Thunder a 73-66 lead, then Isaiah Hartenstein’s steal off McConnell set up a Wallace layup, Williams scored two straight baskets and Hartenstein’s tip-in with 29 seconds left gave the Thunder that 13-point lead, the game’s biggest.
The fourth quarter became a coronation. A top-of-the-key 3-pointer by SGA. A Wallace layup after a great defensive stand. A Williams wing-3 off SGA’s 12th assist of the game that made it 89-68.
The Pacers were out of gas. They went more than six minutes without a point, extending into the first 4½ minutes of the fourth quarter.
Paycom Center boomed with delight on the biggest sports night in state history.
And the Thunder punctuated an historic regular season with the O’Brien Trophy.
“We prioritize winning,” SGA said. “We don’t prioritize anything else in this game. We want to win and we want to win on the highest level. That looks like something new every night, every opponent, every arena.
“That’s all we focused on this whole season, no matter if it was Game 1, Game 45, Game 105. We prioritized winning. Because we did so, we won on the highest level.”
