{"id":696619,"date":"2026-04-03T21:43:35","date_gmt":"2026-04-03T21:43:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/696619\/"},"modified":"2026-04-03T21:43:35","modified_gmt":"2026-04-03T21:43:35","slug":"thunder-spurs-enter-end-of-season-stretch-separated-by-just-2-games","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/696619\/","title":{"rendered":"Thunder, Spurs enter end-of-season stretch separated by just 2 games"},"content":{"rendered":"

OKLAHOMA CITY –<\/p>\n

There\u2019s one week left in the NBA regular season, with five games remaining for both the Oklahoma City Thunder (61-16) and the San Antonio Spurs (59-18). The top seed in the Western Conference is still undecided.<\/p>\n

The Thunder hold a two-game lead over the Spurs, but San Antonio owns the head-to-head tiebreaker after beating Oklahoma City four times to one in the regular season.<\/p>\n

Here is the remaining schedule for both teams:<\/p>\n

\n OKC THUNDER:<\/p>\n

4\/5 – vs. Utah4\/7 – @ LA Lakers4\/8 – @ LA Clippers4\/10 – @ Denver4\/12 – vs. Phoenix<\/p>\n

\n SAN ANTONIO SPURS:<\/p>\n

4\/4 – @ Denver4\/6 – vs. Philadelphia4\/8 – vs. Portland 4\/10 – vs. Dallas4\/12 – vs. Denver<\/p>\n

Strength of schedule analytics on Tankathon<\/a> rank OKC\u2019s schedule as the 12th toughest and San Antonio\u2019s as the 10th. A remaining home-and-home series with Denver makes the Spurs\u2019 schedule a little more challenging, but they do end the season with four home games in a row and a night off between each game. <\/p>\n

The Thunder face three road games against playoff teams in four nights, sandwiched between matchups with the struggling Utah Jazz and the play-in-bound Phoenix Suns.<\/p>\n

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, a recently-named finalist for the NBA Sportsmanship Award<\/a>, said after the team\u2019s loss on the road in Boston that home-court advantage was \u201cas important as everything<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

He pointed to Oklahoma City\u2019s Game 7 wins at home during last year\u2019s playoff run against the Denver Nuggets and the Indiana Pacers. If the Thunder can win four of the last five games, it will clinch the No. 1 seed in the Western Conference for the third consecutive season. <\/p>\n

\n Gilgeous-Alexander vs. Wembanyama MVP debate<\/p>\n

The latest, and final, NBA MVP Straw Poll<\/a> released by ESPN has Gilgeous-Alexander as the clear favorite to win the award for the second consecutive season. He received 88 first place votes and 958 total points, ahead of Victor Wembanyama who received eight first place votes and 644 total points. <\/p>\n

Wembanyama has separated himself as the clear runner-up ahead of Denver\u2019s Nikola Jokic, Los Angeles\u2019 Luka Doncic and Boston\u2019s Jaylen Brown.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"ESPN's<\/p>\n

ESPN\u2019s Tim Bontemps released the final MVP Straw Poll of the season on Friday. <\/p>\n

ESPN<\/p>\n

On DraftKings, Gilgeous-Alexander is the heavy favorite at -1600 to take home the award. Wembanyama is currently at +800. <\/p>\n

SGA would join an exclusive list of players to win back-to-back MVP awards in the league\u2019s history:<\/p>\n

Bill RussellWilt ChamberlainKareem Abdul-JabbarMoses MaloneLarry BirdMagic JohnsonMichael JordanTim DuncanSteve NashLeBron JamesSteph CurryGiannis AntentokounmpoNikola Jokic<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"OKLAHOMA CITY – There\u2019s one week left in the NBA regular season, with five games remaining for both…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":536013,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3783],"tags":[7,6,310,475,179,3966,3965,312],"class_list":{"0":"post-696619","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-nba","10":"tag-oklahoma","11":"tag-oklahoma-city","12":"tag-oklahoma-city-thunder","13":"tag-oklahomacity","14":"tag-oklahomacitythunder","15":"tag-thunder"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116342963502627085","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/696619","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=696619"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/696619\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/536013"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=696619"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=696619"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=696619"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}