The San Antonio Spurs and Oklahoma City Thunder have been on a postseason collision course for months, and they will finally meet in the NBA Playoffs.
Oklahoma City finished the regular season 64-18 to win the No. 1 seed in the West. San Antonio went 62-20 to earn the No. 2 seed.
Recommended Videos
The Thunder swept their first two playoff opponents, the Phoenix Suns (4-0) and the Los Angeles Lakers (4-0). The Spurs knocked off the Portland Trail Blazers (4-1) and Minnesota Timberwolves (4-2) to advance to the conference finals.
Now the top two seeds in the West will meet in the NBA Western Conference Finals.
The Silver and Black enter with confidence. San Antonio dominated the regular-season series, beating the Thunder in 4 of 5 games.
The teams met five times because of the NBA Cup. That was the first meeting between the two, and the Spurs won 111-109, knocking the Thunder out in the semifinals.
San Antonio won the next two games 130-110 and 117-102, before falling in the fourth game 119-98. The Spurs closed out the regular season series with a 116-106 win. Oklahoma City sat all five starters in that game due to injuries.
San Antonio won both home games at Frost Bank Center and went 1-1 at Paycom Center, home of the Thunder. The NBA Cup game was played in Las Vegas.
Each side has a regular-season MVP finalist — Spurs big man Victor Wembanyama and Thunder guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander.
Wembanyama played in all five games against Oklahoma City and averaged 18.4 points, 9.2 rebounds and 1.2 blocks per game.
Gilgeous-Alexander faced the Spurs four times and averaged 29.5 points and 5.5 assists while shooting nearly 51% from the floor.
The Spurs and Thunder last met in the 2015-16 Western Conference Semifinals, a series won by the Thunder 4-2. That series featured the final game of Spurs legend Tim Duncan.
Much has changed since that series, and now the two franchises will battle for the right to advance to the NBA Finals.
As the top seed, the Thunder will have home-court advantage in this best-of-seven series.
Game 1 is set for 7:30 p.m. on Monday, May 18, in Oklahoma City.
Read also: