{"id":30395,"date":"2025-05-13T17:40:10","date_gmt":"2025-05-13T17:40:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/30395\/"},"modified":"2025-05-13T17:40:10","modified_gmt":"2025-05-13T17:40:10","slug":"ahead-of-important-game-5-against-nuggets-thunder-see-championship-path-start-to-form","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/30395\/","title":{"rendered":"Ahead of important Game 5 against Nuggets, Thunder see championship path start to form"},"content":{"rendered":"

As the Oklahoma City Thunder<\/a> prepare for the biggest game in the Shai Gilgeous-Alexander era, you can’t help but look up and notice how everything is breaking their way. To win a championship, you need as much luck as talent. The West’s first seed has received both so far.<\/p>\n

The Boston Celtics<\/a> and Cleveland Cavaliers<\/a> \u2014 who everybody penciled in as OKC’s biggest title threats \u2014 are on the verge of a Round 2 exit. Both are down 3-1 in their respective playoff series. The Indiana Pacers<\/a> have turned it up a notch once again, while the Celtics have likely lost Jayson Tatum for the rest of the playoffs with a catastrophic leg injury that sure looked like a torn Achilles.<\/p>\n

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Meanwhile, the Golden State Warriors<\/a> are down 3-1 to the Minnesota Timberwolves<\/a> as Stephen Curry’s hamstring strain has completely derailed their season. That leaves the Thunder in a 2-2 deadlock against the Denver Nuggets<\/a>.<\/p>\n

If everything goes chalk and the Thunder are joined by the Timberwolves, Pacers and New York Knicks<\/a> in the NBA’s Conference Finals, OKC will stick out among that group for all the right reasons. But that’s a big if. Let’s see how the cards play out. If these playoffs taught us anything, it’s that you can’t assume anything.<\/p>\n

The Thunder have been the better team in the playoff series, but clutch meltdowns in Games 1 and 2 have made it a series. Like most playoff series, Game 5 will be pivotal and give the winner a serious leg-up to advance to the Western Conference Finals.<\/p>\n

That should be the Thunder’s entire focus. They’ve limited Nikola Jokic to his worst playoff series so far. The league’s best defense will hope for similar luck in Game 5. But if they can get a home win and do what Las Vegas thinks they’ll do, suddenly a path to a championship looks clear as day.<\/p>\n

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You can’t get too far ahead, but it’s difficult to fight off those thoughts despite being in a heavyweight bout against the Nuggets. But hey, the chaotic nature of the NBA playoffs makes for dramatic emotional swings daily. That’s why everybody loves these three months.<\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on OKC Thunder Wire: Ahead of Game 5 against Nuggets, Thunder see title path start to form<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As the Oklahoma City Thunder prepare for the biggest game in the Shai Gilgeous-Alexander era, you can’t help…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":30396,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3781],"tags":[7,75,413,193,301,187,3943,164,126,77,152,6,191,253,302,179,1165,209,573],"class_list":{"0":"post-30395","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-denver-nuggets","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-boston-celtics","10":"tag-championship","11":"tag-cleveland-cavaliers","12":"tag-denver","13":"tag-denver-nuggets","14":"tag-denvernuggets","15":"tag-golden-state-warriors","16":"tag-indiana-pacers","17":"tag-jayson-tatum","18":"tag-minnesota-timberwolves","19":"tag-nba","20":"tag-new-york-knicks","21":"tag-nikola-jokic","22":"tag-nuggets","23":"tag-oklahoma-city-thunder","24":"tag-playoff-series","25":"tag-shai-gilgeous-alexander","26":"tag-stephen-curry"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/114501755207729033","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30395","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30395"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30395\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30396"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30395"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30395"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30395"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}