The Oklahoma City Thunder tried their best to balance the euphoria of the moment with the fact that they haven’t completed their mission.
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander scored 34 points, and the Thunder routed the Minnesota Timberwolves 124-94 on Wednesday night to win the Western Conference finals series 4-1 and advance to the NBA finals for the first time since 2012.
After the win, the league MVP was measured in his excitement. Oklahoma City will play the Indiana Pacers or New York Knicks in the finals. Indiana leads the Eastern Conference finals series 3-1 with Game 5 to be played in New York City on Thursday.
“We’ve got a lot of growing to do,” he said. “We’ve got a lot of work to do to get to our ultimate goal, and this is not it, so that’s all that I’m focused on.”
Still, the young Thunder players had some of their usual fun. During a postgame interview, coach Mark Daigneault began complimenting his young squad.
“These guys are uncommon. They do everything right. They’re high character.”
Then, several players started draping towels over Daigneault, as they often do to local sideline reporter Nick Gallo during postgame interview sessions.
“They’re idiots,” Daigneault said without breaking focus.
Chet Holmgren had 22 points, seven rebounds and three blocks and Jalen Williams added 19 points and eight rebounds for the Thunder.
A fanbase that had suffered through losing Kevin Durant in free agency in 2016 and a rebuild that had the team near the bottom of the league’s standings just four years ago let loose in the fourth quarter when the Thunder sat their starters with 5:14 remaining and a 108-74 lead.
Julius Randle scored 24 points and Anthony Edwards added 19 for the Timberwolves, who shot just 41.2% from the field and committed 21 turnovers.
It was a tough loss for Minnesota point guard Mike Conley. The 37-year-old point guard said these opportunities are rare.
“It’s going to take a while just to kind of dissect what we just did and what we weren’t able to accomplish,” he said. “But at the same time, I’m proud of my team, proud of these guys, man. They really fought. Not just for me, but for the whole team.”
Oklahoma City opened the game on an 11-3 run and extended the advantage throughout the first quarter. Cason Wallace drained a 3-pointer as the first quarter expired to put the Thunder up 26-9 at the end of the period. The game was never close after that.
“We just struggled to find a rhythm,” Minnesota coach Chris Finch said. “Everyone was kind of trying to do it all by themselves. We lost our connectivity. But all credit to the Thunder. They certainly deserve this. They played outstanding. And we came up short in a lot of ways.”
