Shai Gilgeous-Alexander finally shows up in Thunder's Game 5 win over Spurs

[ASFN Admin]

You must be registered for see images

Analyzing the halfcourt, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander decided to go solo. With Julian Champagnie in front of him, the reigning MVP went with his signature stepback 3-pointer. Swish. A little over two minutes into the second half, he forced the Spurs to call a timeout as he finally found a scoring groove.

The Oklahoma City Thunder picked up a critical 127-114 Game 5 win over the San Antonio Spurs. They're now ahead 3-2 in the 2026 Western Conference Finals.

Gilgeous-Alexander finished with 32 points on 7-of-19 shooting, nine assists and two rebounds. He shot 2-of-3 from 3 and went 16-of-17 on free throws. He also had two steals.

Welcome to the 2026 Western Conference Finals, Gilgeous-Alexander. Took you a minute to arrive, but you finally reached your destination. In one of the highest-pressure moments of his career, he delivered with a big-time performance and big-time win — per usual.

It took Gilgeous-Alexander a little bit to get going, but he finally did. Once he got his turnovers out of his system, he owed his Thunder teammates some stellar basketball. Especially down Jalen Williams and Ajay Mitchell. And in a now-or-never situation, he eventually pulled through as he wore down San Antonio's defense. Maybe not from the field, per se, but definitely in the scoring column.

Gilgeous-Alexander's jumper wasn't a frequent visitor, but showed up when it mattered — ala your favorite cousin showing up to your graduation. He scored 19 points in the first half. He one-upped himself with 11 additional points in the third quarter alone.

"We're a team out there. We don't get this far, I don't have this individual success, because the team doesn't have the success without all 15 guys in the locker room. We proved this. If it were full five me's out there, we would've been down 20 after the first quarter," Gilgeous-Alexander said. "Guys were great to start the game. Probably should never start like that again. Give us a better chance to win a ball game."

While the jumpers seldom swished through, he showed guts by going right at Wembanyama. Something the Thunder haven't really done a whole lot this series. But if you're going down in a super-duper important Game 5, you might as well go down swinging. He emptied the tank. Constant drives to the basket resulted in a high-volume free-throw night that will surely dominate NBA Twitter discourse the next day.

What should be OKC's rebuttal? If you don't want him at the free-throw line, quit fouling him. That simple. Regardless, Gilgeous-Alexander stepped up when it mattered most. The citizens in Metropolis wondered when Superman would save the day. He finally did so at the 11th hour when things looked most dire because of continued bad health luck.

"There are still things we could've did better tonight. We got to watch those, get better from them, see how they reacted to their losses. Try to put ourselves in their mindset of them going into the next game," Gilgeous-Alexander said. "Just got to be ready, obviously. A really good team and a really tough environment to go out there and win with their season on the line. We've got to understand what's going on."

This article originally appeared on OKC Thunder Wire: Shai Gilgeous-Alexander finally shows up in Thunder's Game 5 win over Spurs

Continue reading...