{"id":627574,"date":"2026-02-27T05:18:38","date_gmt":"2026-02-27T05:18:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/627574\/"},"modified":"2026-02-27T05:18:38","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T05:18:38","slug":"dwyane-wade-leaves-okc-out-of-his-nba-finals-prediction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/627574\/","title":{"rendered":"Dwyane Wade leaves OKC out of his NBA Finals prediction"},"content":{"rendered":"

When the Oklahoma City Thunder<\/a> had their smoldering start, winning 24 of their first 25 games, it seemed like a foregone conclusion that they would return to the NBA Finals.<\/p>\n

But while the Thunder still have the best record<\/a> in the league at 45-15, they have looked rockier over the past few weeks, especially with the injuries to Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Jalen Williams.<\/a><\/p>\n

Oklahoma City is eager to defend its championship, but for NBA legend Dwyane Wade<\/a>, that will not happen, as he predicted<\/a> on \u201cThe Zach Lowe Show\u201d that the San Antonio Spurs and the Detroit Pistons will face off in this year’s NBA Finals.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve watched the Spurs, I\u2019ve done a few of their games. Even though I don\u2019t feel like they\u2019re supposed to be ready. They\u2019re supposed to be a team in the next three years, but they just do things sometimes. You look at their roster, you look at their guys, with the right matchups, they\u2019re going to be tough to beat,\u201d said Wade.<\/p>\n

The Thunder have lost thrice in four meetings with the Spurs this season, including in the semifinals of the NBA Cup, wherein San Antonio also snapped OKC’s 16-game winning streak.<\/p>\n

As for the Pistons, Wade, who works as an analyst for NBC and Prime, said their depth will propel them to the ultimate round.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just watched Detroit the other night in New York without (Jalen) Duren and without (Isaiah) Stewart, and I didn\u2019t see them miss a beat. I was like, \u2018This team is deep.’ They know their style, they know their game, they know how to win. That\u2019s tough when a team doesn\u2019t have to figure it out,\u201d explained the three-time champion.<\/p>\n

The Thunder lost to the Pistons on Wednesday<\/a>, although they were heavily depleted without Gilgeous-Alexander, Williams, Chet Holmgren, Isaiah Hartenstein, and Ajay Mitchell.<\/p>\n

Oklahoma City will have another tough test on Friday versus the Denver Nuggets.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When the Oklahoma City Thunder had their smoldering start, winning 24 of their first 25 games, it seemed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":627575,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3783],"tags":[7,572,6,1540,310,475,179,3966,3965,312],"class_list":{"0":"post-627574","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-oklahoma-city-thunder","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-dwyane-wade","10":"tag-nba","11":"tag-nba-stories","12":"tag-oklahoma","13":"tag-oklahoma-city","14":"tag-oklahoma-city-thunder","15":"tag-oklahomacity","16":"tag-oklahomacitythunder","17":"tag-thunder"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116140907569709975","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/627574","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=627574"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/627574\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/627575"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=627574"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=627574"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=627574"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}