After an all-time series, it’s only right that the Oklahoma City Thunder and Denver Nuggets will fight it out in a Game 7. The entire NBA world will clear its calendars for Sunday afternoon as both teams get two days to prepare.
The Thunder couldn’t close it on the road in their 119-107 Game 6 loss to the Nuggets. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander scored an efficient 32 points, but the rest of his squad failed to show up.
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Jalen Williams reached a new low in his Round 2 struggles. He finished with six points on 3-of-16 shooting. Besides Game 3, the 24-year-old has been a non-factor against the Nuggets. That’s put OKC in a tough spot where it needed fourth-quarter heroics to win Games 4 and 5.
Meanwhile, the Nuggets won’t die. Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray received help from Christian Braun and Julian Strawther to fight off elimination. Denver needed the unlikely contributions as its top-heavy roster started to wear down.
After a chaotic last month that saw the Nuggets fire their head coach days before the playoffs, interim coach David Adelman has put Denver in a good spot to upset the Thunder and have plenty of Game 7 experience to lean on with Jokic and Murray.
“Thoses losses were tough but it was still 3-2. This series is still here. I know it’s cliche, but every game is its own chapter, its own game. It’s its own entity,” Adelman said. “Different people are going to step up. Just like for them, they had people step up for Games 4 and 5. Tonight we had that team that did it. Now you put yourself in a situation where, ‘Hey, let’s go see what happens on Sunday.’ I know I got a group of guys out there who’ve been in a lot of Game 7s, seen a lot of things. We’re excited for the opportunity.”
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It’s now or never for the Thunder. If they can survive and beat the Nuggets in Game 7, it’ll punch their ticket for the Western Conference Finals against the Minnesota Timberwolves. If not, they could face serious offseason discussions after another disappointing second-round exit.
This article originally appeared on OKC Thunder Wire: Nuggets coach David Adelman on Game 7: ‘Let’s go see what happens’