Nine years ago, Klay Thompson sent the Oklahoma City crowd home shellshocked.
His 11 3-pointers and 41 points tied the 2016 Western Conference Finals a three a piece, despite just six days earlier the Thunder taking a commanding 3-1 lead. Golden State eventually closed out OKC, ending the Kevin Durant Era and sending the Thunder into a retool.
The vibes in OKC couldn’t be more different in 2025.
Behind a new young, star trio, the Thunder closed out the Minnesota Timberwolves 124-94 in Game 5, dismissing the chances of another blown conference finals lead and clinching its first NBA Finals appearance since 2012.
It did so behind the usual suspects.
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander was brilliant, scoring 34 points and having one of his best playmaking games of the season. His final tally will say only eight assists, but his impact on creating looks for his teammates went beyond the box score.
Chet Holmgren doubled down on his Game 4 performance, scoring 22 points and putting an exclamation point on the win with a huge block on Julius Randle that led to Lu Dort’s backbreaking 3-pointer.
But above any one player, it was OKC’s dominant defense that swung the game.
From the opening tip-off, the Thunder defense was in attack mode.
The Wolves scored just nine first-quarter points. Some of that was Minnesota missing open looks, namely Jaden McDaniels, who missed two wide-open looks in the opening minutes that would’ve given his team a chance to match OKC’s early pace. But he didn’t. And neither did anyone else on Minnesota.
Gilgeous-Alexander looked elite. His playmaking leveled up. He got to his spots at will. He opened up easy 3s for his teammates.
Gilgeous-Alexander leveled off after his 12-point, four-assist opening quarter, but he played at a high level for the rest of the game.
It was the OKC defense that helped it balloon its lead to 37 points before the half.
Minnesota looked discombobulated. Randle, Naz Reid and other key Wolves dribbled off their feet, were stripped in transition and missed open shots.
That attacking OKC defense that has dismantled opponents all season never faded during these Western Conference Finals. Minnesota beat it with good shooting and elite shotmaking at times, but the baseline of excellence was always there.
And that’s what decided Game 5.
Outside of Game 3, a game in which OKC benched its difference-makers with two minutes left in the third quarter, OKC’s defense has been a constant pest. Even in a Game 4 in which Minnesota scored 126 points, it held Anthony Edwards, who struggled again in Game 5, to just 16 points.
There really isn’t much more to it than that.
ESPN’s Tim Legler described OKC’s defense as “takers of joy” during Scott Van Pelt’s SportsCenter after the game.
Truer words haven’t been spoken.
For the first time since the 2004 Pistons, the NBA has a defense that strangles the life out of its opponents. A defense that outduels elite offense.
The moniker of “defense wins championships” has been challenged in recent seasons. Golden State, while a very good defensive team, made its hay on offense. Same with Nikola Jokic and the Denver Nuggets a few years ago.
With an elite Indiana Pacers offense likely on the docket for the NBA Finals, the moniker will be tested once and for all.
But for now, OKC can bask in its glory as the champions of the Western Conference, at least for now. Starting on June 5, no one will care that OKC is the youngest team to make the NBA Finals since the 1976-77 Portland Trailblazers. Few will realize in the moment that the Thunder are, if anything, ahead of schedule, being to this level this early.
In a week’s time, this Western Conference Finals will seem like an eon ago. Until OKC actually wins the NBA Finals and lifts the Larry O’Brien, it’ll be tough for some to truly differentiate between the last time the Thunder was a fast-rising, future dynasty.
But now, for the first time in a long time, OKC has a chance to erase the still-existing pain of the ghosts of Thunder’s past forever, and that is an accomplishment in itself.
