Shai Gilgeous-Alexander was only afforded a sliver of space. And a sliver was all he needed. With the Spurs draped over him like a blackout curtain, SGA kept finding daylight. Kept hitting impossible midrange jumpers. Kept the Thunder in it.
Flummoxed by Victor Wembanyama and the Spurs for the better part of six games, Gilgeous-Alexander reached a flow state in Game 7. And still the Thunder lost, a 111-103 defeat in the finale of these Western Conference finals.
After dapping up a few Spurs players and staff members, Gilgeous-Alexander walked off the floor with his head held high. He did everything he could.
“Didn’t really have a choice,” Gilgeous-Alexander said. “Big game, win or go home, just wanted to leave everything out there.”
We don’t always know what to do with performances like these. Where do losses belong on an all-timer’s ledger of legacy games? Gilgeous-Alexander is a two-time MVP. An NBA champion and an NBA Finals MVP. Who knows how many more trophies the 27-year-old Thunder star will have by the end of his career. Before he’s inducted into the hall of fame.
The context of this Thunder loss will be lost to time, as will the mastery of how Gilgeous-Alexander played in the loss, but it should be appreciated in the moment. Our memories are short, but not that short.
“We knew what he was gonna do,” teammate Alex Caruso said. “He was gonna try to will us to a victory and unfortunately I think we could’ve made a couple more plays to help him out. Myself included. Just heroic from him to try and put us on his back to win the game … That’s why he was the two-time MVP.”
OKC had a few pathways to victory in Game 7.
1. Role players hitting shots: Take a bow Cason Wallace, who was all kinds of clutch with 14 points in the fourth quarter. Wallace finished 5 of 9 from three. Lu Dort, Jared McCain, Alex Caruso, Jaylin Williams and Kenrich Williams combined to shoot 5 of 21 from three.
2. The Spurs would be overwhelmed by the moment. Yeah right. San Antonio shot 61% in the fourth quarter. The Spurs matched the Thunder big bucket for big bucket. The Spurs are young and inexperienced. Scared, they are not.
3. SGA would outplay Wemby, reminding everyone who the MVP was.
“We knew coming into Game 7 that he was going to take the weight of that team,” said Spurs wing Lindy Waters III, who saw SGA’s game up close as a former Thunder teammate. “Make or miss he was gonna live with the result, and he wasn’t missing.”
Gilgeous-Alexander took seven non-paint two-pointers. He made six of them.
“For him to come out and have that kind of performance, it made that Game 7 legendary,” Waters said.
Gilgeous-Alexander was magnificent, but not so much as to overcome the fact that OKC was missing its second-and third-best offensive engines in Jalen Williams and Ajay Mitchell — an All-NBA player and an ascendent star. OKC probably wins the series with one of J-Dub or Ajay healthy.
Not having either to supplement SGA was too tall a mountain.
“He gave it his all,” Thunder veteran Kenrich Williams said. “We just came up short as a team.”
Gilgeous-Alexander finished with 35 points on 12 of 21 shooting. It was both his highest scoring and most efficient game of the series. Wallace was the Thunder’s second-leading scorer with 17. Wembanyama led a balanced Spurs attack with 22 points.
Gilgeous-Alexander’s nine assists were also a game high. So were his 43 minutes played.
“I wanted to make sure I gave it my all,” he said. “I was who I was today.”
SGA was SGA.
“He was brilliant,” Thunder coach Mark Daigneault said. “… Obviously that would’ve been one of the stories of the game had we been able to figure out a way to win it.”
Would’ve been a legacy game for Gilgeous-Alexander. And maybe it still was.
Joe Mussatto is a sports columnist for The Oklahoman. Have a story idea for Joe? Email him at jmussatto@oklahoman.com. Support Joe’s work and that of other Oklahoman journalists by purchasing a digital subscription today at subscribe.oklahoman.com.
This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: SGA ‘brilliant’ in Game 7, but he needs more for Thunder to beat Spurs