Melissa Rohlin
FOX Sports NBA Writer
The Oklahoma City Thunder showed that they’re no fluke.
With a trip to the Western Conference Finals on the line in a winner-takes-all Game 7 that pitted the top two MVP contenders against one another in Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Nikola Jokic, the Thunder proved that their NBA-best record and their top-rated defense weren’t successes confined to the regular season.
The youngest team in the postseason not only stood up to a Denver Nuggets team that had won a championship two years ago and routed the LA Clippers in a Game 7 in the first round of these playoffs, they annihilated them.
After the Nuggets jumped to an 11-point lead in the first quarter, the Thunder responded by outscoring them in the second period, 39-20, and led by as many as 43 points in the fourth quarter.
It was a stunning win for a team that seemed great, but wasn’t really battle-tested. Last season, the Thunder also finished with the No. 1 record in the Western Conference, but fell apart against the Dallas Mavericks in the second round of the playoffs.
This was their chance to prove that they had real postseason chops.
The Thunder emphatically answered any questions about whether they were ready for this stage. They transformed a battle-tested Nuggets team with a superstar who is widely considered the greatest player in the world into a ragtag group that looked deflated and stunned apart from the first quarter.
While Shai Gilgeous-Alexander led the Thunder’s offensive charge with 35 points, Alex Caruso was the head of the snake on the other end of the court. The 6-foot-5, former undrafted player almost single-handedly unraveled the Nuggets’ offense at times, robbing them of their confidence.
Caruso, a former NBA champion whom the Thunder acquired last summer for moments like this, finished with the highest plus-minus of anyone on the court (+40). He helped force the Nuggets to commit 22 turnovers, more than twice as many as the Thunder’s nine. The Thunder outscored the Nuggets in fast-break points, 27-14.
The Nuggets crumpled after the first quarter, despite 20 points, nine rebounds and seven assists from Jokic, 19 points from Christian Braun and a gutsy showing from Aaron Gordon, who played despite suffering a grade 2 hamstring strain in Game 6.
As for the Thunder, they’re advancing to their first conference finals since 2016, with Game 1 against the Minnesota Timberwolves set for Tuesday. The Thunder will be trying to win their first title since relocating from Seattle in 2008.
And even though they’re young and unproven, they sent a strong message to the three remaining teams in the postseason.
The Oklahoma City Thunder isn’t just a regular-season phenom who can’t handle the bright lights of the playoffs, when pressure intensifies, benches shrink and physicality reaches a feverish level.
They’re more than ready for this moment.
Melissa Rohlin is an NBA writer for FOX Sports. She previously covered the league for Sports Illustrated, the Los Angeles Times, the Bay Area News Group and the San Antonio Express-News. Follow her on Twitter @melissarohlin.
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