Thunder pull away from Spurs to move within 1 win of Finals

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander scored 32 points, Alex Caruso led another strong bench effort with 22 and the Oklahoma City Thunder moved one win away from a return trip to the NBA Finals by beating the San Antonio Spurs 127-114 on Tuesday night.

Jared McCain — getting the call with Jalen Williams and Ajay Mitchell both sidelined — scored 20 in his first playoff start for the defending NBA champion Thunder, who lead the Western Conference finals 3-2.

Chet Holmgren had 16 points and 11 rebounds for the Thunder, while Isaiah Hartenstein had a 12-point, 15-rebound night in Oklahoma City.

The Thunder, who were held to 82 points in a Game 4 loss two days earlier, had 82 points on Tuesday before the third quarter was 3 1/2 minutes old.

“We obviously played a lot better, in terms of our process and then also the outcome,” Thunder coach Mark Daigneault said. “It’s a playoff series. If you look at any playoff series that goes to six games, at least, there’s going to be some tough games. We had a tough game the other night. This team does a great job of just coming back in the next day in a very neutral way, taking whatever the lessons are, applying them forward and getting into the next opportunity.”

Stephon Castle scored 24 points for San Antonio, which got 22 points from Julian Champagnie and 20 points from Victor Wembanyama — who was held to 4-of-15 shooting.

Keldon Johnson scored 15 off the bench for San Antonio, which missed 29 of its 41 3-point tries.

“It just felt like it was a little bit of everything in terms of we did not put ourselves in position enough to be successful on each possession,” Spurs coach Mitch Johnson said. “And so, to beat a team of this caliber, in their building, with the stakes, we’ll need to be a lot better to give yourself a chance.”

Game 6 is Thursday in San Antonio. If there’s a Game 7, it’ll be back in Oklahoma City on Saturday — and while this series winds down, the New York Knicks are waiting to see who emerges.

The Knicks will visit either the Thunder or Spurs in Game 1 of the NBA Finals on June 3.

Oklahoma City scored 40 points in the second quarter to take control and kept the lead the rest of the way.

“We just played to who we were tonight,” Gilgeous-Alexander said.

It took nearly 10 minutes for the first free throws to be awarded. But when the parade to the foul line started, it didn’t stop.

The teams combined to make 29 free throws in the second quarter alone, the most in the second quarter of any NBA game since the bubble playoffs nearly six years ago. It wasn’t a one-sided thing — the Spurs were 15 for 17 in the quarter, the Thunder 14 for 14.

Oklahoma City went up by 20 in the third, before San Antonio closed within eight. The Spurs might have had some chances to cut even further into the deficit, but were fuming — and rightly so, it seemed — over some missed calls in the final minute of the quarter.

A tip-in try by San Antonio’s Luke Kornet with about 56 seconds left was knocked off the rim by Oklahoma City’s Cason Wallace and should have been goaltending. And on the next Spurs’ possession, an out-of-bounds call that should have gone their way — replays showed the ball went out off of Holmgren — did not. Johnson tried to challenge the call, got ignored, then got a technical foul for arguing.

“They just said they didn’t see me,” Johnson said.

After all that, Oklahoma City’s lead was 101-91 going into the fourth. The Thunder kept a double-digit lead for all but 25 seconds of the final quarter — a huge turnaround from a 21-point loss in San Antonio on Sunday.

“We definitely got better from the last game,” Gilgeous-Alexander said.

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