The Oklahoma City Thunder looked invincible when the 25/26 season began, getting off to a 24-1 start. But an NBA Cup semifinal clash against the San Antonio Spurs changed everything, with their dream of surpassing the 2016 Warriors slowly fading and the entire squad looking rattled.
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A Victor Wembanyama-led Spurs side defeated the Thunder 111-109 in the semifinals in Las Vegas and followed it up by beating them twice more. On December 23, they were outclassed 130-110, and then again on Christmas Day, the Spurs won 117-102. The mask of invincibility has certainly come off.
It made sense. The Thunder had just won 16 straight games before their first clash with the Spurs and were bound to come up short eventually. It seemed likely they would bounce back and continue on a path toward a monumental 73-win season. Instead, the losses have begun to pile up at the hands of the Spurs, and the rest of the league will now be looking to rack up wins against a rattled superteam as well. Analyst Zach Lowe has claimed that the landscape has been completely changed.
“In two weeks, they have changed the entire landscape of the NBA from ‘The Thunder versus the field, the Thunder versus 73 wins’ to ‘We’re 3-0 against this team. We are beating their a** twice in the last 10 days. We have their number,” stated Lowe on his podcast. “
The whole NBA has flipped on its head because of what Wemby and these guards are doing to the Oklahoma City Thunder.”
The Thunder were dominating almost every single game, but even Superman has his weaknesses. “Have they found their kryptonite?” asked Lowe. “Can they even beat the San Antonio Spurs? The Spurs are 3-0 in two weeks against Oklahoma City, and they have obliterated all those narratives.”
One thing that seems certain is that the monumental 73-win chase, the all-time record for regular-season wins set by the Warriors nine years ago, is now a long shot.
“73 wins? Goodbye. We can table that discussion unless they go on a massive winning streak soon,” Zach said. He later suggested that while Shai Gilgeous-Alexander has been lights out, Nikola Jokic is once again the frontrunner for MVP.
“MVP? Not only is the door open, Jokic is now the favorite and the leading candidate to win MVP. There’s only a 3-game gap in the loss column between the Nuggets and the Thunder,” he said. “I think the Thunder are better than the Spurs against 29 NBA teams. The Spurs have looked straight-up better than the Thunder 1-on-1. These last 2 games have been beatdowns,” he added.
That is how quickly a narrative can change in the NBA. It is similar to when a team stages a late fourth-quarter comeback against an opponent that was once up by 30. How did it happen? Someone wanted it more and simply came in and took it. The Spurs might be the new kings of the West. The Thunder will be fine, but after being humbled, this could serve as a wake-up call that they are not unbeatable.
