Thunder Rumors

Northwest Notes: SGA, Randle, Wolves, Blazers

May 22nd, 2025 at 4:00pm CST by Luke Adams

While Shai Gilgeous-Alexander always thought he was capable of becoming “a really good player,” the Thunder guard admitted on Wednesday that he didn’t view himself as a potential MVP until several years into his NBA career, writes Anthony Slater of The Athletic. He first earned MVP votes in 2023, when he finished fifth, then was the runner-up to Nikola Jokic a year ago before flipping spots with the Nuggets star this spring and winning the award for the first time.

“I dreamt about (winning MVP) as a kid, but as a kid, it’s a fake dream,” Gilgeous-Alexander said. “As the days go on and you realize that you get closer to your dream, it’s hard to not freak out. It’s hard to not be a six-year-old kid again. I think that’s what’s allowed me to achieve it.”

Because he earned All-NBA honors in 2023 and 2024, Gilgeous-Alexander was already eligible to sign a four-year, super-max extension this offseason. That deal, which would begin in 2027/28, would be worth a projected $293.4MM based on annual 10% salary cap increases.

As a result of being named Most Valuable Player this season, Gilgeous-Alexander now has the option of waiting until the 2026 offseason and signing a five-year super-max deal at that time, as Bobby Marks of ESPN tweeted on Wednesday. That contract would look the same through the first four seasons but would include a fifth year worth a whopping $86.45MM, bringing the total value of the projected extension to nearly $380MM.

Here’s more from around the Northwest:

After averaging 27.0 points and 7.8 assists per game on 55.7% shooting in the Timberwolves‘ four wins vs. Golden State, Julius Randle had another big scoring night in Game 1 vs. Oklahoma City with a team-high 28 points. But his 13 field goal attempts were well below his postseason average and he was held to one assist while committing five turnovers. He also had just eight of his points in the second half as the Thunder pulled away with the game. “That’s on me, I got to get him the ball,” head coach Chris Finch said, per Dave McMenamin of ESPN. “I got to get him more involved to start the second half.”
While Randle and Anthony Edwards combined for 46 points on 14-of-27 shooting on Tuesday, the rest of the Timberwolves scored just 42 points and made 15-of-57 field goals (26.3%). Zach Kram of ESPN.com examines the challenges a strong Minnesota offense faces against the league’s best defense in this series, while Jon Krawczynski of The Athletic writes that the Wolves need more out of a second unit led by Naz Reid and Donte DiVincenzo. That duo combined to make just 4-of-25 shots in Game 1, including 3-of-19 three-pointers.
In a Substack article, Sean Highkin of the Rose Garden Report attempts to answer five questions related to the Trail Blazers‘ sale, including how long it will take, how much they’re worth, and how the process might affect the on-court product. Most importantly, Highkin writes, while it’s technically possible that a new owner could look to relocate the franchise, that’s a highly unlikely outcome — and one that the sellers don’t want.
The Trail Blazers‘ sale won’t affect Moda Center renovations that are already underway, including an upgraded videoboard, but additional major arena projects will likely be on hold until the sale is complete, says Aaron Fentress of The Oregonian.

NBA Announces 2024/25 All-Defensive Teams

May 22nd, 2025 at 1:07pm CST by Luke Adams

The NBA has officially announced its All-Defensive teams for the 2024/25 season (Twitter links).

The teams are determined by a panel of 100 media members, with players receiving two points for a First Team vote and one point for a Second Team vote.

There were no unanimous First Team selections this year, but Defensive Player of the Year Evan Mobley came close, having been named to the First Team on 99 ballots (Twitter link). He was selected to the Second Team on the 100th ballot, for a total of 199 points.

The honorees are as follows, along with their point totals:

First Team

Evan Mobley, Cavaliers (199 points)
Dyson Daniels, Hawks (191)
Luguentz Dort, Thunder (180)
Draymond Green, Warriors (179)
Amen Thompson, Rockets (171)

Second Team

Ivica Zubac, Clippers (114)
Jaren Jackson Jr., Grizzlies (107)
Jalen Williams, Thunder (79)
Toumani Camara, Trail Blazers (74)
Rudy Gobert, Timberwolves (65)

The NBA adjusted the voting rules in 2023 to allow All-Defensive ballots to be positionless. Up until that point, each team consisted of two guards, two forwards, and a center.

Despite the lack of positional requirements, this year’s teams are reasonably well balanced — while Mobley, Green, Zubac, Jackson, and Gobert all serve as defensive anchors for their respective clubs, Mobley, Green, and Jackson spend much of their time on the court playing forward rather than center.

It’s the ninth time that Green has made an All-Defensive team and the eighth time that Gobert has earned the honor. Jackson and Mobley have each been recognized multiple times too — it’s the third time Jackson has made the cut and the second time for Mobley. However, Daniels, Dort, Thompson, Zubac, Williams, and Camara have never been named All-Defensive players before this season.

Among the other players who received votes, Knicks forward OG Anunoby came closest to cracking the top 10, having been named to the First Team on two ballots and the Second Team on 45 ballots for a total of 49 points. An additional 13 players received at least one vote, but none of them had more than 18 total points.

That group of players who missed the cut includes Heat big man Bam Adebayo, whose streak of five straight All-Defensive seasons has come to an end.

Players were required to meet the criteria of the 65-game rule in order to qualify for All-Defensive consideration. The full voting results can be viewed here (Twitter link).

As Bobby Marks of ESPN tweets, Dort has earned a $500K bonus for making the First Team this season. In addition to increasing his earnings for this season, that will bump Dort’s cap hit for 2025/26 from $17,722,222 to $18,222,222, since the bonus will now be considered likely to be earned next season.

Conversely, after missing out on All-Defensive spots this season, Derrick White and Jaden McDaniels will see their cap hits for next season reduced by $250K and $431K, respectively, Marks adds (Twitter link). Those bonuses, which had been considered likely after the duo earned All-Defensive nods in 2024, won’t be earned this season, which means the Celtics and Timberwolves will each receive a tax variance credit and both bonuses will be considered unlikely for 2025/26.

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander Named 2024/25 MVP

May 21st, 2025 at 6:13pm CST by Arthur Hill

Thunder guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander has been named the NBA’s Most Valuable Player for the 2024/25 season, the league announced on Wednesday (Twitter link). Shams Charania of ESPN (Twitter link) first reported the news.

Gilgeous-Alexander and Nuggets center Nikola Jokic were the frontrunners for the award virtually all season, with Bucks forward Giannis Antetokounmpo as the other finalist. While Jokic has three MVP awards and Antetokounmpo has won twice, this is a first for SGA, who was the runner-up to Jokic last year.

Gilgeous-Alexander led the NBA in scoring at 32.7 points per game as part of an overall excellent year. In 76 contests, he also averaged 6.4 assists, 5.0 rebounds, 1.7 steals and 1.0 block while shooting 51.9% from the field. Tim MacMahon of ESPN notes that the only other player to post similar numbers in a season was Michael Jordan, who did it while capturing MVP honors in 1987/88 and 1990/91.

On top of his individual brilliance, Gilgeous-Alexander likely won over some voters by leading Oklahoma City to the best record in the league at 68-14. MacMahon states that it’s the 10th time that a player has led the league in scoring for a team with at least 60 wins.

Gilgeous-Alexander won the award by a comfortable margin by earning 71 of 100 possible first-place votes and placing second on the other 29 ballots. However, Jokic made it a competitive race by claiming the remaining 29 first-place votes and earning the No. 2 spot from the other 71 voters. The Nuggets star turned in one of the most prolific seasons of his career, averaging a triple-double with 29.6 points, 12.7 rebounds and 10.2 assists in 70 games.

Jokic helped the Nuggets secure the fourth seed in the West, but they won 18 fewer games than the Thunder and were eliminated by OKC in a seven-game second-round series.

Antetokounmpo was outstanding again for a 48-win Bucks team, posting 30.4 points, 11.9 rebounds and 6.5 assists in 67 games, but he was considered a long shot to win the award. He claimed 88 third-place votes and showed up on all 100 ballots.

Celtics forward Jayson Tatum and Cavaliers guard Donovan Mitchell rounded out the top five, with Tatum earning 84 fourth-place votes and Mitchell coming in fifth on 60 ballots. Seven other players earned at least one fourth- or fifth-place vote: LeBron James, Cade Cunningham, Anthony Edwards, Stephen Curry, Jalen Brunson, James Harden, and Evan Mobley. The full voting results can be found here.

Gilgeous-Alexander is the third player in Thunder history to capture MVP honors, joining Kevin Durant in 2014 and Russell Westbrook in 2017.

As MacMahon notes, Gilgeous-Alexander has been an All-NBA selection the past two seasons, so he already met the qualifications for a historic four-year, $294MM extension this summer. The $73.3MM annual value would be the largest in NBA history.

The MVP award will make him eligible for a five-year, $380MM extension if he waits until 2026, according to Bobby Marks of ESPN (Twitter link).

Thunder Notes: Holmgren, Caruso, K. Williams, SGA

May 21st, 2025 at 1:02pm CST by Arthur Hill

Chet Holmgren was expected to be a star for the rebuilding Thunder when he was selected with the No. 2 pick in the 2022 draft, but it hasn’t fully worked out that way, writes Anthony Slater of The Athletic. Instead, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander developed into an MVP candidate and Jalen Williams became an All-Star in his third NBA season.

Holmgren has accepted a complementary role in the offense as a floor-spacing big who can also score at the rim. His development has been hampered by injuries that caused him to miss his entire rookie year and another 50 games this season.

“It’s gone under the radar a little bit how hard it is to be a guy, then sit out for a couple months and have to integrate yourself into a team that has the best record in the NBA and not step on nobody’s toes, but also sticking to yourself,” Gilgeous-Alexander said of Holmgren. “That’s a hard position to be in. The way he’s handled it has been special. I don’t know if he gets enough credit.”

Slater points out that Holmgren was the only prominent center who was on the court for the most important stretch of Tuesday’s Western Conference Finals opener, as both Isaiah Hartenstein and Minnesota’s Rudy Gobert sat out the entire fourth quarter. Oklahoma City was able to leverage the smaller lineups to pull away for a 114-88 victory.

Holmgren finished with 15 points and seven rebounds in 26 minutes, but he wasn’t happy with how he started the game.

“I was out there stinking it up in the first half,” he said. “The game’s not gonna reward you for that. I feel like I turned up the intensity, played harder, was able to find a little more gas in the tank and really exert that.”

There’s more on the Thunder:

After matching up with Nikola Jokic in the second round, it looks like Alex Caruso will be spending a lot of time guarding Julius Randle, Slater adds. The 6’5″, 186-pound Caruso said the idea of facing bigger, stronger opponents doesn’t intimidate him. “Like or dislike, it’s my job,” he said. “Get stops. Either the game tells me to battle 300-pound guys or get over screens on the perimeter.”
Slater notes that OKC got a boost in Game 1 from Kenrich Williams, who had eight points and three rebounds in 10 minutes and made both of this three-point attempts. It marked the first rotation minutes in the playoffs for Williams, who was used ahead of third-string center Jaylin Williams, and coach Mark Daigneault said the move “breathed life” into his team.
Serving as a guest commentator for ESPN, Michael Malone said Gilgeous-Alexander “showed why he’s the MVP” (YouTube link). It’s a surprising comment from the former Nuggets coach, who spent years with Jokic, SGA’s chief rival for this year’s Most Valuable Player honors.

Anthony Edwards Unwavered By Game 1 Loss

May 21st, 2025 at 10:52am CST by Dana Gauruder

The Thunder looked dominant as they pulled away from the Timberwolves in Game 1 of the Western Conference Finals on Tuesday. Minnesota’s star was unfazed by the 26-point loss, according to Dave McMenamin of ESPN.

Anthony Edwards just thinks he needs to be more assertive in order for the Timberwolves to turn things around.

“I definitely got to shoot more,” Edwards said. “I only took 13 (bleeping) shots. … Probably just get off the ball a little more, play without the ball. I think that will be the answer. Because playing on the ball, they’re just going to double and sit in the gaps all day. So, got to go watch some film and pick it apart. We’ll figure it out.”

Edwards averaged 26.8 points and 6.2 assists while taking 22.4 shots per game against the Lakers in the opening round. In the conference semifinals against Golden State, he averaged 26.2 points and 5.6 assists on 21.8 shots per game.

In the conference finals opener, Edwards had 18 points, three assists and four turnovers and took only 13 shots in 37 minutes. All but one of his attempts came from outside the lane.

“I mean, they clogged the paint,” Edwards said. “That’s what they do. They don’t got much size down there, so they bank on us not making shots, I guess. Because every time I go to the rim it’s like four people in the paint.”

Edwards and his teammates fired away from beyond the arc and shot mostly blanks, going 15-for-51 from long range.

“We had good looks, we just have to make shots,” guard Donte DiVincenzo said. “Myself, I have to make a couple shots and it loosens up the defense for Ant. It’s a domino effect.”

Edwards briefly left the game when he tweaked his right ankle in the first quarter but said that had nothing to do with his performance. “I feel great,” he said.

NBA To Reveal MVP Winner This Evening

May 21st, 2025 at 8:20am CST by Dana Gauruder

The NBA has kept the Most Valuable Player award announcement a secret for weeks. The speculation is over — this season’s MVP will be revealed tonight at 7 p.m. ET during the TNT broadcast, the league’s PR department tweets. The announcement will come prior to Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals.

Thunder guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, 26, is considered the strong favorite to win the award for the first time. He averaged a career-best 32.7 points, 5.0 rebounds, 6.4 assists, 1.7 steals and 1.0 blocks in 34.2 minutes per game while appearing in 76 games. This is SGA’s seventh NBA season.

Nikola Jokic and Giannis Antetokounmpo are the other finalists.

Jokic averaged a triple-double — 29.6 points, 12.7 rebounds and 10.2 assists per night — in his 10th season while appearing in 70 games. The Nuggets center has won the award in three of the last four seasons.

Antetokounmpo was named MVP in 2019 and 2020. In his 12th season, the Bucks forward posted averages of 30.4 points, 11.9 rebounds and 6.5 assists in 67 games.

No guard has won the award since 2018, when James Harden claimed the honor while playing for Houston.

Northwest Notes: Nuggets, Finch, Thunder, Wolves

May 20th, 2025 at 10:02am CST by Eli Cohen

There’s a chance that Game 7’s loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder will be the last game together for the Nuggets‘ core four of Nikola Jokic, Jamal Murray, Aaron Gordon, and Michael Porter Jr., writes Bennett Durando of the Denver Post. The quartet, which has played together since the Gordon was acquired via trade in 2022, is looking at a financial reality that might prove too onerous for ownership to bear, especially with the team unable to get past the second round since winning the title in 2023.

Asked after Game 7 whether the Nuggets could win a championship as currently constructed, Jokic said, “If we could, we will win it. So I don’t believe in the ‘if, if’ stuff. We had opportunity. We didn’t win it. So I think we can’t.”

The loss comes after the abrupt termination of general manager Calvin Booth and longtime head coach Michael Malone, both of whom were crucial architects of the championship identity, just weeks before the playoffs began. Interim head coach David Adelman ended up coaching nearly as many Game 7s as he did regular season games.

Murray and Gordon both have extensions about to kick in. Murray’s four-year deal is worth nearly $208MM, while Gordon’s is a three-year $109MM extension after he exercised his $22.84MM player option in the 2025/26 season.

While both are trade-eligible, they have been crucial pieces of the Nuggets’ success, with Murray providing scoring and play-making while Gordon has consistently been a big-shot maker and elite defender who has displayed a seamless connection with Jokic as a cutter and screener. That may leave Porter as the best chance the team has to address some of its roster holes while it still can, especially with Christian Braun‘s extension eligibility looming.

We have more from around the Northwest:

Whatever decisions the Nuggets are forced to make due to finances and a lack of repeated Finals runs will be made more difficult by the bonds that have developed over the years. One such relationship is between Porter and Gordon, who have become close friends and support pillars for each other, Marc J. Spears writes for Andscape. Gordon played this season after losing his older brother, Drew, and Porter was someone he could lean on in times of hardship. Gordon and Porter both fought through injuries that limited them in their series against the Thunder, to the point that Porter wondered if he made things worse by being out there. “I probably should’ve just let it heal for a few games and then try to come back,” he said. “That is just not the person I am.”
Timberwolves head coach Chris Finch‘s journey to back-to-back conference finals appearances began with a rejection from a Pennsylvania high school coaching gig, writes Jon Krawczynski of The Athletic. At the time, he was coaching basketball in England and desperate for a way home. That journey led him to the Rockets’ G League team, the Rio Grande Valley Vipers, which eventually led him to Minnesota, where, for the second time in three seasons, Finch had to figure out how to construct an identity around a team with a new All-Star. The results were tumultuous to start the season, with the team booed for a lackluster start amid discourse about whether newly-acquired star Julius Randle should be benched for Sixth Man of the Year Naz Reid, but Finch eventually found the right buttons to push for to his new-look team. “The validation I feel is for what we’re doing overall as a program,” he said.
Randle and Gobert struggled to find their footing early on together, but in the second round of the 2025 playoffs, the Timberwolves veterans showcased why they are such dangerous players and silenced criticism about their playoff histories, writes Mark Medina of Athlon Sports. “You’ve gotten a lot of disrespect your whole career,” Gobert said to Randle. “And so have I.” Finch, who was an assistant coach in New Orleans for Randle’s breakout year, says that finding the balance of Randle’s responsibilities was key to unlocking the team: “We, at different times of the season, gave him the message, ‘Hey we need you to score more. Hey, we need you to pass more.’ And sometimes it was the wrong message… So that was a lot of our early season growth with him.“
The Thunder have some fascinating lineup choices to consider as they enter Tuesday’s Game 1 against the Wolves, says SI’s Rylan Stiles. After having gotten past Jokic, the team is likely to be less reliant on the two-big lineups featuring Chet Holmgren and Isaiah Hartenstein against the athletic Randle and a more traditional center in Rudy Gobert. That, in turn, would allow the Thunder to bring more of their defensive-minded guards or wings into the lineup to try their hand at slowing down Anthony Edwards.

Thunder Notes: SGA, Williams, Caruso, Conference Finals

May 19th, 2025 at 9:47pm CST by Dana Gauruder

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, the favorite to win this season’s MVP award, admitted that his stomach was churning prior to the Game 7 showdown with the Nuggets on Sunday afternoon. He sure didn’t play scared, pouring in 35 points as the Thunder rolled into the Western Conference Finals.

“I was nervous, to be honest,” Gilgeous-Alexander told Ramona Shelburne of ESPN. “Just knowing what was on the line. …To know if you don’t bring your A-game, it could all be over. But I think that nervousness motivated me.”

The Thunder in general showed some nerves in the early going but took control late in the first half.

“I think the nerves were natural,” Gilgeous-Alexander said. “We actually shot horribly to start the game. But I knew we were getting really good looks, and if we just stuck with it, we would loosen up and the ball would find the basket. I never was worried about this, the way we started. Once I felt the flow of the game and we had the right intentions and the right energy, I knew it would turn around.”

Here’s more on the Thunder:

First-time All-Star Jalen Williams scored 17 of his 24 points in the pivotal second quarter and added seven assists, Joe Mussatto of The Oklahoman notes. Williams bounced back from a Game 6 dud in which he shot 3-for-16 from the field. “Great force, especially early,” Thunder coach Mark Daigneault said. “It was definitely a conscious effort by him to use his speed and his power. He was on the gas from the jump (Sunday).”
Williams was fined $25K by the league for wearing clothing with profane language in his post-game media session on Sunday, NBA Communications tweets.
Daigneault used Alex Caruso as the primary defender on Nuggets star Nikola Jokic on Sunday, though Caruso got plenty of help from his teammates. Caruso gave up six inches in height and 100 pounds. The unconventional strategy worked as Jokic only took nine shots and committed five turnovers. “It’s a lot of hard work, obviously,” Caruso told Kelly Iko of The Athletic. “But he’s a difficult matchup because he does so many different things to get others involved and influence the game. Being relentless with my energy, the effort to make it tough on him. The guys around me did a good job of helping and swarming, because I’m not doing that on my own. Understanding the flow of the game, where you could be physical and where you can’t.”
Next up for the Thunder — the Timberwolves, who are making their second straight appearances in the conference finals. The subplot between the teams is the matchup of star guards SGA and Anthony Edwards. “My gut says OKC wins the series,” one scout told Sam Amick of The Athletic. “Their defensive coverages and schemes are so good. (They’re) closing up the paint and rotating out of scheme, then they have the best scorer in the game who has proven to come through when they need it.”
Daigneault believes the team has earned everything it has achieved. “We’re not perfect, but they’re just so easy to bet on. They’re great competitors, “ he said, per Joel Lorenzi of The Oklahoman. “They do things the right way, they’re professional, they’re inside the team. Everybody sacrifices for the team. Not everybody always gets what they deserve, but this team deserves these types of opportunities.”

Jazz Announce Dates For Salt Lake City Summer League

May 19th, 2025 at 1:53pm CST by Rory Maher

The 10th edition of the Salt Lake City Summer League will take place at the University of Utah’s Jon M. Huntsman Center on July 5, 6 and 8, the Jazz announced today in a press release. The Grizzlies, Thunder and Sixers will also participate in the six-game, round-robin event.

“Salt Lake City Summer League has become an annual summer staple in our community since its launch 10 years ago,” said Jonathan Rinehart, president of the Salt Lake City Stars and Salt Lake City Summer League. “While Delta Center undergoes renovations, we’re committed to preserving the tradition of the event and look forward to giving fans a first look at the highly anticipated 2025 draft class.”

The 2025 draft will occur over two days, June 25 and 26. Salt Lake City Summer League could feature several first- and second-round picks, with Philadelphia (Nos. 3 and 35) and Utah (Nos. 5, 21, 43 and 53) currently controlling the earliest selections. Oklahoma City owns Nos. 15, 24 and 44, while Memphis has Nos. 48 and 56.

SLC summer league is a prelude to the primary Las Vegas Summer League, which features all 30 teams and will take place from July 10-20.

Poll: Who Will Win Western Conference Finals?

May 19th, 2025 at 12:00pm CST by Luke Adams

By blowing out Denver on Sunday in the lone Game 7 of the NBA postseason’s second round, Oklahoma City set up a showdown of Northwest rivals in the 2025 Western Conference Finals.

The Timberwolves went just 49-33 during the regular season, which was the 10th-best record in the league and was barely enough to earn a guaranteed playoff spot in the West — Minnesota moved into the conference’s No. 6 seed on the last day of the season. But the Wolves have looked more dangerous in the postseason than their regular season record would suggest, winning 10 of 12 games against star-studded Lakers and Warriors teams in the first two rounds.

Skeptics will argue that the Lakers were still adjusting to a midseason revamping of their roster and that the Warriors would’ve been a far more formidable opponent if Stephen Curry hadn’t strained his hamstring in Game 1 of the second round. Still, the Wolves beat the teams in front of them and looked good doing it — their 114.6 postseason offensive rating ranks fifth among 16 playoff teams, while their 106.8 defensive rating is second-best.

Anthony Edwards has proven to be an effective postseason closer, averaging 26.5 points per game in the first two rounds, while Julius Randle (23.9 PPG, 5.9 APG) has played some of his best basketball of the season in the playoffs.

Rudy Gobert wasn’t part of the Defensive Player of the Year conversation this year, but he has shown against L.A. and Golden State that he still deserves to be considered one of the league’s best rim protectors and defensive anchors. And the Wolves are getting necessary contributions from the rest of their eight-man rotation too, including Jaden McDaniels, Naz Reid, Donte DiVincenzo, Mike Conley, and Nickeil Alexander-Walker.

Still, Minnesota will enter the Western Finals as a significant underdog against the 68-14 Thunder. Despite the fact that it took Oklahoma City seven games to finish off Denver in round two, oddsmakers and bettors love the club’s chances of advancing to the NBA Finals — BetOnline.ag currently OKC listed as a -355 favorite.

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander leads the way for Oklahoma City and has found his rhythm this spring following an up-and-down start to the postseason. After making just 18-of-68 shots from the field (26.5%) in his first three games against Memphis, Gilgeous-Alexander has put up 30.8 points per contest on 53.1% shooting in his last eight outings.

Jalen Williams (19.6 PPG on .440/.254/.750 shooting) hasn’t been as effective in the playoffs as he was in the regular season, but the Thunder’s depth has more than made up for it. Chet Holmgren, Isaiah Hartenstein, Alex Caruso, Luguentz Dort, Aaron Wiggins, Cason Wallace, and Isaiah Joe have all appeared in each of OKC’s 11 playoff contests and are averaging between 5.3 and 15.7 points per game.

The defense that ranked No. 1 in the NBA during the regular season hasn’t let up in the postseason either. The Thunder had the best first-round defensive rating (97.6) out of 16 teams and ranked first among eight clubs in the second round with a 103.9 mark. And even though it took seven games to get past Denver, Oklahoma City had the best second-round net rating (+9.9) of any team, outscoring the Nuggets by 64 points in the series.

Even though the Thunder finished 19 games ahead of the Timberwolves in the regular season standings and will have home-court advantage, this series could be a very competitive one. The two teams split their four regular season matchups this season, with one of those games going into overtime and two more decided by single digits. And the Timberwolves probably hold the slight edge in postseason experience, having been in the Western Finals last spring too.

We want to know what you think. Who will win this series and represent the Western Conference in the 2025 NBA Finals? Are you counting on the Thunder to come through or do you think the Wolves will pull off the upset? How many games do you figure it’ll take?

Vote in our poll and head to the comment section below to weigh in with your thoughts!

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