The matchup is set. The defending champion Oklahoma City Thunder will face the Phoenix Suns in the first round of the NBA Playoffs.<\/p>\n
Phoenix punched its ticket Friday night, knocking off the Golden State Warriors 111-96 in the final Western Conference play-in game to secure the No. 8 seed. That sets up a first-round showdown with the top-seeded Thunder, beginning Sunday in Oklahoma City.<\/p>\n
The Suns controlled the game from the start, fueled by Jalen Green\u2019s 36-point explosion and a strong two-way effort that completely disrupted Golden State\u2019s offense. Devin Booker added 20 points, while Jordan Goodwin made a major impact with 19 points, nine rebounds and six steals.<\/p>\n
The biggest storyline was Phoenix\u2019s defense on Stephen Curry.<\/p>\n
The 38-year-old superstar never found a rhythm and finished with just 17 points on 4-of-16 shooting as the Suns smothered him into one of his toughest performances of the season. Brandin Podziemski led Golden State with 23, but the Warriors never seriously threatened in the second half.<\/p>\n
Phoenix built separation in the third quarter, stretching the lead to 16 after a Royce O\u2019Neale fast-break layup and never looked back.<\/p>\n
Now the reward is a first-round date with the Thunder.<\/p>\n
Oklahoma City enters the postseason as the No. 1 overall seed and defending NBA champions, fully healthy and positioned for another deep run. The Suns arrive battle-tested out of the play-in with momentum and confidence.<\/p>\n
Thunder vs. Suns First Round Schedule<\/p>\n
Game 1: Sunday, 2:30 p.m. (ABC) \u2014 OKCGame 2: April 22 \u2014 OKCGame 3: April 25 \u2014 PhoenixGame 4: April 27 \u2014 PhoenixGame 5: April 29 \u2014 OKC*Game 6: May 1 \u2014 Phoenix*Game 7: May 3 \u2014 OKC*<\/p>\n
*if necessary<\/p>\n
The Western Conference playoff field features several new faces this year, including the Suns, Spurs and Trail Blazers, but the path still runs through Oklahoma City.<\/p>\n
And now it officially starts with Phoenix.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The matchup is set. The defending champion Oklahoma City Thunder will face the Phoenix Suns in the first…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":713055,"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-713054","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\/116424883800049311","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/713054","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=713054"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/713054\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/713055"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=713054"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=713054"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=713054"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}