OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — This is not a one-of-a-kind matchup in the Western Conference finals. And it's not the NBA Finals, either.
It may just seem that way.
In one corner, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and the defending champion Oklahoma City Thunder, winners of 64 games this season. In the other corner, Victor Wembanyama and the San Antonio Spurs, winners of 62 games this season — and four against the Thunder. That's the West finals matchup, with Game 1 on Monday
in Oklahoma City.
“Just the words — ‘conference finals’ — is crazy,” Wembanyama said. “It’s something I heard my whole life and now being in it is just special.”
This is only the seventh time in NBA history that a playoff series features two teams that won 62 games (or had an equivalent winning percentage of .756 or better, when taking into account the years without an 82-game schedule). It's the first since Chicago vs. Utah in the 1998 NBA Finals.
The others: Chicago-Utah in the 1997 finals, Chicago-Seattle in the 1996 finals, Boston-Los Angeles Lakers in the 1985 finals, Boston-Philadelphia in the 1981 Eastern Conference finals and Lakers-Milwaukee in the 1972 West finals.
The first four such matchups obviously decided the NBA champion for that season, because those were all in the finals. The two previous conference finals showdowns between teams with records this good ultimately led to championships as well, with the Celtics taking the title in 1981 and the Lakers in 1972.
“It’s fitting because both teams earned their way here," Thunder coach Mark Daigneault said Sunday. "I mean, that’s how it works. You've got to win four games to advance and then you've got to win four games again — and if you do that, you’re in the Western Conference finals. And that’s what makes it fitting. It is a team we have a ton of respect for. We know what they’re capable of. It’s an opponent that is incredibly worthy and that we’re going to need to be our best to beat and we understand that.”
It's the first playoff matchup between the clubs since 2016, when the Thunder beat the Spurs in six games in the Western Conference semifinals. Only five players from that series — Kevin Durant, Steven Adams, Russell Westbrook, Kyle Anderson and Kawhi Leonard — remain in the NBA and none are still with either the Thunder or the Spurs.
The Spurs went 4-1 against the Thunder this season, winning three of those games by 10 or more points. The rest of the league has a combined six such wins over Oklahoma City this season.
“You could take a bit from it,” Spurs guard De'Aaron Fox said. “But the playoffs is a different story, obviously.”
The Thunder have a huge edge when it comes to having experience this deep into the playoffs.
Only five current Spurs have scored in a conference finals or an NBA Finals game — and since the postseason started only one of those five, Luke Kornet, is averaging more than 10 minutes per contest. Harrison Barnes is playing 9.8 minutes per game and the remaining three Spurs of Kelly Olynyk, Mason Plumlee and Bismack Biyombo aren't in the regular rotation.
But the Thunder have 12 players who have scored in Rounds 3 or 4 of the playoffs, most of that coming on the run to last season's title.
Going back to Game 7 of last season's playoffs, the Thunder have won nine consecutive playoff games — they're 8-0 this season.
A victory on Monday would make this Oklahoma City club the 11th team in NBA history to have a 10-game postseason winning streak. The Thunder could also become the eighth team to begin a postseason run with a 9-0 record.
“Everything that we’ve done so far is behind us,” Gilgeous-Alexander said. “We still haven’t reached our goal. We have two more series to win until we reach our ultimate goal and that’s what we’re focusing on.”
The Thunder were supposed to be here: defending champions, whole team back, the heavy preseason favorites to win this season's title.
The Spurs, well, were not.
Oddsmakers had San Antonio's predicted win total for the season at 44.5. And with championship odds of 66-1, San Antonio had the 17th-best odds in a 30-team league coming into the season.
Here the Spurs are, in the NBA's final four. And that would suggest they're ahead of schedule.
“Ahead of schedule what?” asked Spurs coach Mitch Johnson. “I understand the general expectations of what we were supposed to do in October aren’t necessarily aligned with where we’re at right now. So, if that’s your question, I would guess by general consensus then we're ahead of that schedule. But we never talked about what we were going to be or what we were going to do. We just knew that we had a lot of potential and we were going to try to be the best team we can be.”
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