{"id":713902,"date":"2026-04-19T12:22:34","date_gmt":"2026-04-19T12:22:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/713902\/"},"modified":"2026-04-19T12:22:34","modified_gmt":"2026-04-19T12:22:34","slug":"nba-playoffs-2026-everybody-chasing-the-champion-thunder","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/713902\/","title":{"rendered":"NBA playoffs 2026: Everybody chasing the champion Thunder"},"content":{"rendered":"

Oklahoma City guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander doesn\u2019t sound all that excited about the idea of becoming a back-to-back NBA champion.<\/a><\/p>\n

That might seem strange. It\u2019s not. It\u2019s just who the Gilgeous-Alexander and the Thunder are.<\/p>\n

They live in the present. They try not to skip steps or waste energy on things out of their control. The Thunder \u2014 the NBA\u2019s defending champions and No. 1 overall seed in this year\u2019s playoffs, which open on Saturday \u2014 just keep things simple and see how things work out.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s why, to the reigning NBA MVP and NBA Finals MVP<\/a> in Gilgeous-Alexander, any talk of the Thunder going back-to-back and snapping the league\u2019s unprecedented run of parity \u2014 seven different champions in a seven-season span \u2014 can wait, at least for a few more weeks.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s so far down the line,\u201d Gilgeous-Alexander said. \u201cSo many things are going to happen before we get to the finals-clinching game. Yeah, it\u2019s cool. To have the opportunity to repeat means you won before, so it\u2019s cool. I\u2019ll keep it there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Translated: Round 1, Game 1 is all that\u2019s on Oklahoma City\u2019s mind right now.<\/p>\n

The road to the title will goes through OKC yet again, with 16 teams set to start the two-month journey to decide who will raise the Larry O\u2019Brien Trophy sometime in June. Detroit is the No. 1 seed in the Eastern Conference, the Thunder are atop the West bracket, San Antonio\u2019s Victor Wembanyama<\/a> is about to go to the playoffs for the first time and the Los Angeles Lakers\u2019 LeBron James<\/a> is about to go for the 19th time in the last 21 seasons.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s competitive basketball,\u201d James said. \u201cAnytime you\u2019re able to be in meaningful games, it definitely means a lot more for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n

The matchups<\/p>\n

In the East: No. 1 Detroit awaits Orlando or Charlotte (to be decided Friday night), No. 2 Boston plays No. 7 Philadelphia in a series for the 23rd time (the most common postseason matchup the NBA has), No. 3 New York takes on No. 6 Atlanta and No. 4 Cleveland meets No. 5 Toronto.<\/p>\n

In the West: No. 1 Oklahoma City awaits Phoenix or Golden State (also to be decided Friday night), No. 2 San Antonio meets No. 7 Portland, No. 3 Denver gets No. 6 Minnesota (the third meeting of those franchises in the last four years) and the No. 4 Lakers will play No. 5 Houston \u2014 setting up a matchup for the ages and of the ageless, the 41-year-old James leading his team against the 37-year-old Kevin Durant and the Rockets.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously it\u2019s the biggest stage of basketball and there\u2019s a lot that comes around the game,\u201d Durant said. \u201cBut at the end of the day, when that ball\u2019s tipped up, it\u2019s just basketball. We all know how to play at this level. We all know what it takes to win basketball games. Just got to do that consistently.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Thunder \u2014 who got off to a 24-1 start, then went 19-3 in their final 22 games as well \u2014 didn\u2019t spend a single day this season outside of first place in the West. The Pistons came close to pulling off that feat in the East; it took them about 2 1\/2 weeks to get to the No. 1 spot on that side of the league, and they stayed there the rest of the way.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe feel like we play a playoff brand of basketball every night,\u201d Pistons coach J.B. Bickerstaff said. \u201cWe\u2019re a physical team. We\u2019re a gritty team. We\u2019re a tough team. We orchestrate well in the trenches. Those are things you have to do in the playoffs.\u201d<\/p>\n

The parity run<\/p>\n

Toronto won the title in 2019, followed by the Lakers in 2020, Milwaukee in 2021, Golden State in 2022, Denver in 2023, Boston in 2024 and the Thunder last year.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s never been a run like that \u2014 seven champions in seven years<\/a> \u2014 in NBA history.<\/p>\n

And there are some legitimate contenders to extend that list. The most likely candidates, according to oddsmakers, include Detroit, New York and San Antonio.<\/p>\n

\u201cI dream about it every day,\u201d Wembanyama said.<\/p>\n

He doesn\u2019t know how the dream might match up to the reality, if a title comes the Spurs\u2019 way. The Thunder found out last year, after they won a Game 7 of the NBA Finals on their home floor to finally bring a championship to OKC and cap one of the winningest seasons in league history.<\/p>\n

From the outset of this season, the Thunder haven\u2019t been trying to win two in a row. The pressure of trying to defend a title is real, but they would also say it\u2019s external. All the Thunder worry about is whatever the day brings, an approach that worked last year and has them the overwhelming favorite to win it all again this year.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis group of guys is preconditioned to compete,\u201d Thunder coach Mark Daigneault said. \u201cThey\u2019re preconditioned to stay inside the team. And they\u2019ve stayed in character on that through a lot of different experiences over a long period of time. So, that\u2019s allowed us to just focus a lot on the basketball.\u201d<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

AP NBA: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/nba<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Oklahoma City guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander doesn\u2019t sound all that excited about the idea of becoming a back-to-back NBA…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":713903,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3783],"tags":[382,11047,7,160,585,765,301,583,420,2330,2397,1648,938,11297,185,150,1622,2740,584,1739,102,307,577,1407,6,446,11,1567,1136,7295,1773,578,16,586,310,475,179,3966,3965,6912,2470,11760,4015,2065,17593,209,66,2098,312,582,693],"class_list":["post-713902","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oklahoma-city-thunder","tag-arizona","tag-az-state-wire","tag-basketball","tag-california","tag-co-state-wire","tag-colorado","tag-denver","tag-fl-state-wire","tag-florida","tag-ga-state-wire","tag-georgia","tag-j-b-bickerstaff","tag-kevin-durant","tag-larry-obrien","tag-lebron-james","tag-los-angeles-lakers","tag-mark-daigneault","tag-massachusetts","tag-mi-state-wire","tag-michigan","tag-milwaukee","tag-minnesota","tag-mn-state-wire","tag-national-basketball-association","tag-nba","tag-nba-basketball","tag-nba-playoffs","tag-nc-state-wire","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-north-carolina","tag-oh-state-wire","tag-ohio","tag-ok-state-wire","tag-oklahoma","tag-oklahoma-city","tag-oklahoma-city-thunder","tag-oklahomacity","tag-oklahomacitythunder","tag-or-state-wire","tag-oregon","tag-pa-state-wire","tag-pennsylvania","tag-phoenix","tag-portland-pilots","tag-shai-gilgeous-alexander","tag-sports","tag-texas","tag-thunder","tag-tx-state-wire","tag-victor-wembanyama"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/713902","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=713902"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/713902\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/713903"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=713902"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=713902"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=713902"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}