![\"Victor](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/AFP__20260527__2277764422__v1__HighRes__SanAntonioSpursVOklahomaCityThunderGameFive-1779867898.jpg\")
San Antonio Spurs All-Star centre Victor Wembanyama #1 struggled to score and rebound against Oklahoma City Thunder in Game 5 [Joe Murphy\/Getty Images via AFP]\u2018Need to be a lot better\u2019<\/p>\nShai Gilgeous-Alexander and the Oklahoma City Thunder are a win away from a return to the finals after Game 5 victory.<\/p>\n
Published On 27 May 202627 May 2026<\/p>\n
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander scored 32 points as the Oklahoma City Thunder defeated the San Antonio Spurs 127-114 to move within one win of a return to the NBA Finals on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
Gilgeous-Alexander and the Thunder punished an error-strewn performance by San Antonio to claim a victory which leaves the reigning NBA champions 3-2 up with two games remaining in the Western Conference finals.<\/p>\n
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San Antonio had leveled the series at 2-2 with a battling performance on Sunday but never got going in a lacklustre game five display at Oklahoma City\u2019s Paycom Center.<\/p>\n
Spurs player Victor Wembanyama had a miserable shooting night, scoring 20 points but making just 4-of-15 attempts from the field while grabbing only six rebounds.<\/p>\n
Spurs forward Devin Vassell also had a night to forget, scoring just six points from 2-of-11 shooting after averaging 17 points in the opening four games of the series.<\/p>\n
Oklahoma City will head to San Antonio for Thursday\u2019s game six with a chance to clinch the series after a typically clinical performance, recovering from a slow start to seal a deserved win.<\/p>\n
Gilgeous-Alexander was one of five Thunder players to finish in double figures, with Alex Caruso scoring 22 from the bench, including four three-pointers, and Jared McCain impressing with 20 points.<\/p>\n
Chet Holmgren had 16 points with 11 rebounds, while Isaiah Hartenstein had 12 points with 15 rebounds.<\/p>\n
\u201cI might have had the worst start to a basketball game in my career, but the group held it down and kept us in the game,\u201d Gilgeous-Alexander said of a sluggish first quarter by the Thunder that saw San Antonio jump into an early eight-point lead.<\/p>\n
\u201cSomehow we still won the first quarter but that\u2019s a testament to the guys in the locker room.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been saying it all year \u2013 we\u2019re a group of one through 15, and we wouldn\u2019t be this deep in the season without everybody on the team, and it showed again tonight,\u201d the two-time NBA Most Valuable Player (MVP) added.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe made adjustments after the last game and applied what we learned.<\/p>\n
\u201cAgainst a really good team you\u2019ve just got to try to be better each and every game, and we definitely got better from the last game.\u201d<\/p>\n
San Antonio Spurs All-Star centre Victor Wembanyama #1 struggled to score and rebound against Oklahoma City Thunder in Game 5 [Joe Murphy\/Getty Images via AFP]\u2018Need to be a lot better\u2019<\/p>\n
After a slow start, Gilgeous-Alexander scored 12 points in a 40-point second quarter for Oklahoma City, which helped the champions pull into a comfortable lead that would ultimately prove decisive.<\/p>\n
The Thunder led by as many as 20 points in the third quarter, and while San Antonio cut the lead to eight points late in the quarter, Oklahoma City regrouped to pull clear again.<\/p>\n
San Antonio coach Mitch Johnson bemoaned his team\u2019s error count throughout the game \u2013 and called on Wembanyama to take a more aggressive approach in Thursday\u2019s must-win game six battle.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt just felt like it was a little bit of everything in terms of that we did not put ourselves in a position to be successful in each possession,\u201d Johnson said.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo beat a team of this calibre in their own building with what\u2019s at stake, you need to be a lot better to give yourself a chance.\u201d<\/p>\n
Johnson said Wembanyama would need to increase his offensive output if San Antonio were to keep the series alive.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s got to take more than 15 shots, and he\u2019s gonna have to score more than 20 points for sure,\u201d Johnson said.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019ll definitely need to take more shots but there\u2019s a lot of things all over the place, where we had advantages and we just didn\u2019t make simple plays to take advantage,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and the Oklahoma City Thunder are a win away from a return to the finals after…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":745158,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3797],"tags":[7,6,67,969,474,4075,4074,275,534,417,418],"class_list":["post-745157","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-antonio-spurs","tag-basketball","tag-nba","tag-news","tag-san-antonio","tag-san-antonio-spurs","tag-sanantonio","tag-sanantoniospurs","tag-sport","tag-spurs","tag-united-states","tag-us-canada"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116645596216057870","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/745157","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=745157"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/745157\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/745158"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=745157"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=745157"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=745157"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}