Thunder Stay 'in character', take part in a wonderfully surprising NBA Final Four

Oklahoma City-es would have been one thing if this young, exuberant and absurdly talented Oklahoma City Thunder imposed her will in this West Semifinal series to conquer her on the way to her superiority of the title, or, badly, to send her with a gentleman swing.

But they didn't do it.

Or if Shai Gilgeous-Alexander was so great that they were asked how a defense could (and with proxy, you) might be (soon future) MVP campaign. That didn't happen either.

This was a seven-game Slugfest that revealed the Nuggets championship sign in the middle of so many setbacks (Aaron Gordons Hamstring, Michael Porter Jr.'s shoulder), while revealing the warts (inexperience and inconsistency), which still exist in this invited Thunder team that has reached the youngest, which has achieved the Westfinals. And in this post-season in which everything we have learned in the past six months, with alleged jobs like the Boston Celtics and Cleveland Cavaliers, who bounced down in modest fashion, and so many teams that once as Middle-the-Pack (Minnesota, New York and Indiana) (Minnesota, New York and Indiana) somehow as Guthy anger anger profit (125-93) The game of the game of the game (125-93) was viewed as the game of the truth about the game of the game (125-93). NBAS Final Four.

This title can be won in the most wonderful way.

In this age of parity and hell in the second apron, all of which were designed by (collective agreement), they could not ask for a better flood at the finish. The Knicks, who have reached the East Finale for the first time in a quarter of a century, have all New York City about the possibility of a title that would be their first since 1973. The Pacers, whose turnaround looks like a 10-15 start to this beautiful basketball by Renaissance man Rick Carlisle to win the first NBA advocate.

The Minnesota Timberwolves, of which so many believed to have their future (for financial purposes), when they decided last summer to exchange Karl Anthony cities for Julius Randle and Donte Divincenzo, are not only in the last 11 weeks, not only in the last 11 weeks, not only in the last 11 weeks (they have in the last 11 weeks). And then there is the thunder that caused chaos in the regular season, just all the dangerously close to join the other unfortunate elites when the second round rolled around.

Instead, we experience Gilgeous-Alexander and his dynamic bunch against Anthony Edwards and his Timberwolves team, which were so many for dead.

“My belly says OKC wins the series,” continued a scout on Sunday evening. “Your defensive covers and plans are so good.

May the best young star (and his squad) win.

As Gilgeous-Alexander and I discussed in mid-April, there is a counterintuitive truth that goes hand in hand with this thunder squad. While her youth should inspire patience, with the 26-year-old SGA, the older statesmen of a core, to which Jalen Williams (24) and Chet Holmgren (23) also include life-comes-you-fast-nature of this modern NBA climate means that there is simply no (consulted) time to waste. Just ask the Celtics, whose dreams of long-term dominance were in serious danger before Jayson's Achilles tendon tear and are now as much disappeared.

On the one hand, this Thunder team is constructed in such a way that you want to fight for a title for the next half decades. On the other hand, a loss in the second round would have welcomed questions whether you would have to quickly track the program with a blockbuster parade for another superstar such as Milwaukees Giannis Antetocounmpo (although league sources were highly unlikely regardless of the playoff result).

“(It is) like (Thunder) coach (Mark Daignault) said a few weeks ago, this group we have today could be the best group of players I have ever played with,” said Gilgeous-Alexander at the time. “You think:” Oh, we're all 25 or below, so we have an entire runway in front of us. “But you never know what happens.”

He knew little about how true these words would be.

All in all, the Thursday of the Thursday deserves a double-digit deficit overcame-conscious recognition that game 7 was done the work. Gilgeous-Alexander, who admitted that nerves were early in the first game 7 for the core players, ended with 35 points (12-from 19 shootout), while he also played his crucial role at the other end. Williams (24 points, seven templates) broke his break -in at the perfect time, and Holmgren (13 points, 11 rebounds) was a constant threat to the edge at both ends.

Alex Caruso, the 6-foot 5 defender, who frustrated the 6-11 Nikola Jokić so much from the evening, was the real MVP of the night (Jokić had 20 points on 5 von-9 shootings with nine rebounds, seven assists and five gymnastics). Her enthusiastic, relentless defense, which the Nuggets wrapped in the final at 39.3 percent and Jokić's size for so much of the series, is the most intimately part of her program. And it's not even close.

When it was over, the trainer who was through the Thunder's G-League program and was handpicked by General Manager Sam Presti to take on the role of the head five years ago, which he decreases from this recent experience.

“Only that we were who we are,” said Daigneult and twisted the famous quote from the late NFL trainer Dennis Green. “That's the biggest. That is enough with this team. I mean if we only bet who we are individual and together, we are a really hard team to beat. I just thought we stayed in the character. We came (but) we did not panic. We played the 48 and pointed out to us.

“It was our best energy game and the best activity game. You hit it for game seven. I only give you a lot of recognition … … there are not many games (when) you wake up in the morning and you know that you will remember the game for the rest of your life, and game seven is one of you.”

But game of one of the West Finale on Tuesday is now for the thunder and this Timberwolves team, which brought all the extra break in five games to end the Golden State. The Knicks and Pacers start on Wednesday.

What a time for Playoff basketball and these four teams to be alive.

“We believe in each other” The athlete Advanced after Minnesota. “We believe in our chances. We believe that this group has the chance to raise this trophy in June. So that has been our goal since the beginning of the season. And they know that we had a lot of adversity, many growing pain during the regular season, and I have the feeling that they helped us to grow enormous, defensive and offensive and individual.”

This is really the beauty of these playoffs. This feeling, exactly what all four teams really believe that they could be the one is in every changing room that is left.

(Photo: Joshua Gateley/Getty Images)