B/R Staff Predictions for Game 7 NBA West Finals Between OKC Thunder, San Antonio Spurs

It all comes down to this.

The Oklahoma City Thunder entered the Western Conference Finals as the NBA's top regular-season team and looked poised to punch their ticket to the Finals when they took a 3-2 series lead. Then, the Spurs responded with a dominant Game 6 performance to force Game 7.

Now, two of the league's brightest young stars, MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and MVP finalist Victor Wembanyama, will meet one final time with everything on the line.

Before tipoff, B/R's NBA staff made our picks for the decisive showdown.

Andy Bailey: Spurs

For a series as hotly contested and intensely discussed as this one, it's featured a lot of blowouts. But you can expect that trend to come to a screeching halt in Game 7.

The Thunder and Spurs have been the two best teams in the NBA for the overwhelming majority of this season. Both are going to be as locked in as they've been at any point in 2025-26 with a Finals berth on the line. And neither will have any letdowns on the effort front.

That's going to make for a physical, ultra-competitive game that you might think would favor OKC (one of the more physical defenses in recent memory), but the ahead-of-schedule Spurs will prevail for a couple reasons.

First, they have waves of high-end perimeter defense to throw at SGA with Stephon Castle, Dylan Harper, Devin Vassell and even Carter Bryant. After going 6-of-18 in Game 6, Shai is now shooting 37.9 percent from the field in this series. More importantly, San Antonio may now have the biggest (physically and otherwise) trump card in the NBA with Wemby. He has all-time-great potential. He certainly senses how close he is to the Finals. And he won't be denied against a team that has quickly become his primary nemesis.

—Bailey

Dan Favale: Thunder

Recency has a magnetic pull when looking ahead. The Spurs' total annihilation of the Thunder in Game 6 is so fresh that choosing the reigning champs to win Game 7, on their own floor, feels risky.

Credit Victor Wembanyama, Dylan Harper, Stephon Castle, Devin Vassell and, yes, even Carter Bryant with making Oklahoma City's offense look wildly uncomfortable. The Thunder's struggles go beyond proffering any one adjustment.

To that end, Game 7 isn't about embracing a gimmick or pivot. It's about making shots. The Thunder can't keep pace with the Spurs if they don't drill their threes or more field-goal attempts in general.

It just so happens they do just that when playing in Oklahoma City. The Thunder are shooting 40 percent from distance through three home games this series. They're at 37.5 percent overall from long range in Paycom Center for the playoffs. That beats the sub-30-percent clip they posted in Game 6.

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander likewise seems due for a breakout night (by his standards). Jalen Williams should look a little better now that he's got a game under his belt. The Spurs also aren't going to convert 1 trillion percent of their own triples in hostile territory.

Failing all of that, OKC's experience can't be written off. San Antonio is good. Great, even. The Thunder are still better.

—Favale

Zach Buckley: Spurs

The Thunder are the defending champs, and they're almost unbeatable on their home floor (40-8 this season, playoffs included). You'd think they'd be the obvious choice here, and some will argue they should be.

Not me, though. Momentum may not carry over in the playoffs, but Game 6 carried a couple of potentially huge hints about what could be coming next. Like Victor Wembanyama meeting the moment and looking like the best player in this series. Or Jalen Williams appearing not just rusty after three absences with a left hamstring strain, but potentially unplayable come Saturday night.

Throw in a bounce-back showing from Dylan Harper and another shaky shooting night from MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, who's only topped 40 percent from the field once this series, and San Antonio has a wide array of confidence sources.

Oklahoma City might have experience on its side and a raucous home crowd behind it, but with availability/effectiveness concerns around Williams and Ajay Mitchell, and the forever daunting challenge of containing Wemby, this might be more than it can overcome. My crystal ball says this will be a slugfest early, but San Antonio pulls away late.

—Buckley

Eric Pincus: Thunder

The Oklahoma City Thunder will punch their ticket to the NBA Finals on Saturday against a very tough San Antonio Spurs. After a dominating Game 6, the Spurs may look like the favorite, and rightfully so. The squad is tremendous.

Still, the Thunder have championship experience that will prevail at home.

Both teams are 1-2 on the road. Oklahoma City earned the best overall NBA record with 64 wins, slightly better than San Antonio's 62. That home-court advantage will play a significant role in the final decision. The Thunder feed off their crowd; the Spurs are younger and less experienced.

More importantly, on the court, the Thunder will keep too many bodies in the paint on defense for Victor Wembanyama to dominate inside. He'll need to have another brilliant shooting night from the perimeter to keep pace with the Thunder's offense. Getting Jalen Williams back for a short stint in Game 6 from a hamstring strain helped him shake off the rust. His additional offensive creation will relieve some of the pressure on Shai Gilgeous-Alexander to carry the scoring.

As for the Spurs, this will be a brief setback as they will continue to dominate the Western Conference for the next several years.

—Pincus

Grant Hughes: Spurs

The only things we can count on as one of the best postseason series we've seen in a long time reaches an era-defining Game 7: The level of physicality will be off the charts; Isaiah Hartenstein will shoot 100 percent (don't look that up) on lefty push shots even when he has to arc them so high they scrape the jumbotron; and De'Aaron Fox will never get all the way to the rim.

That's it. Those are your givens. In the wake of six games that, at times, made both the San Antonio Spurs and Oklahoma City Thunder appear unbeatable, there's really nothing else you can categorize as a guarantee.

This makes predicting a winner difficult.

In the end, the heart, which wants to see Victor Wembanyama emerge as a sport-altering great who forces an entire league to figure out how to solve him (a la Wilt, Jordan, Curry, etc.), wins out over the head, which suspects Shai Gilgeous-Alexander will not be bottled up for a second straight game, and which also suspects the Thunder will hit a few open threes playing at home.

A Game 7 road win for San Antonio would just be more fun, so that's the pick. And if that's not analytical enough, here: Isaiah Hartenstein is actually only shooting 54.8 percent for the series. So maybe he'll miss one or two floaters at some point.

—Hughes