Oklahoma City – Oklahoma City Thunder She acquired the American Professional League Championship for the year 2025-the first in the 17 years of the concession here-thanks to the victory of 103-91 over Indiana Basars In the game 7 of the American Professional League finals, they put what was a historic dominant year and a noticeable transformation.
Al-Raad moved from winning 22 and 24 games, respectively, in the seasons of 2020-21 and 2021-22 to the demand for first place in the Western qualifiers in both the past two seasons. They followed the campaign of winning 56 wins last season with a season of 68 wins this year-one of the best seven seasonal marks in the history of the American Professional League. They also set the record for the largest team point in all ages in the normal season, where they achieved the previous mark, which was standing for more than half a century.
Despite the achievement of Thunder, game 7 may be remembered for an unfortunate reason as the Pacers Tyrese Haliburt star suffered, which confirmed his father was the injury of Achilles left while trying to drive to the basket with a height of 4:55 in the first quarter. It will be excluded for the rest of the match shortly after an injury to the right leg – which was, to this point, the post -breathpst to a tragic conclusion.
Pesrez was stuck immediately after the devastating injury and took 48-47 at the end of the first half. However, Oclahoma City – behind a great extension of the most valuable player in the league, Gilgos Alexander tea If it was one of the third quarter of the dominant patent, as it outperformed Indiana 34-20 over a period of 12 minutes, to lead 13 points in the fourth quarter that will never be thunder.
Pacers Playoff will not be, though, without Indiana making her sweat with a possible return. Ultimately, they got what was leading to 22 points to less than 10 Andrew NimbardIndex 3 with just less than two minutes. But unlike Indiana’s magical return earlier in these qualifiers, Oklahoma City commented and survived.
“He doesn’t feel realistic,” said Gilgus Alcander after the match. “Several hours. Many moments. Many feelings. Many of the nights of disbelief. Many nights of belief. It is crazy to know that we are all here, but this group worked for it. This group was placed in hours and we deserve it.”
The championship is the culmination of the vision of the general manager of the team, Sam Presti, who has been responsible since the last year of the Cattle in Seattle in 2007-2008. Since his arrival in Oklahoma City in 2008, thunder achieved the second most victories for the normal season, only behind Boston CelkusAnd the fifth is the most post -season victories.
However, until this year, the final prize – a championship – was thunder. And after I made a mistake in their proximity when they lost in the American Professional League Finals to Miami Hit In five games in 2012, then in the Western Conference Finals in both 2014 and 2016, it was not clear that it would never happen to one of the smallest market teams in the American Professional League.
One of the paradoxes, on the same day that Kevin Durant was traded, the institutional member of the Thunder Squad in the first championship, to Houston RuctasIt is possible that they will make them the biggest threat in Oklahoma City to get out of the western qualifiers for the conference again in the coming season.
But while Durant left in 2016, until 2019 until 2019 it will not be the first era of thunder basketball permanently when Bristi was shipped Russell Westprick and Paul George In an amazing series of moves that laid the basis for this current list-the most prominent of which is Gilgeous-alexander in the deal that sent George, and thus Kohi Leonardto No clips That summer.
A few weeks later, Presti formulated a speech in Oklahman, the local Oklahoma City newspaper, to put his vision of the place where the privilege will go in the coming years.
“By saying goodbye to the past, we started drawing our future,” Bristi wrote at the time. “The next great thunder team is somewhere, but it will take some time to seize and discipline to eventually keep it.”
It turned out that it didn’t take much time. Access was alongside Gilgeous-Elexander in 2019 Luguentz DortFree undesirable agent developed into a choice for the first defense in the first team. In 2022, Oklahoma City fell by its other constituent cut in the long run in Chit HolmegrenWho went second in general from Gonzaga, and Gallin WilliamsWhich was the twelfth choice of Santa Clara.
Both played huge roles in the OKC race. Williams, who had previously struggled in these qualifiers, had a great chain in the finals, including going to 40 points in game 5. Holmegren-who missed more than half of the normal season due to a hip injury-did not shoot the ball well in the finals but affected the game in other ways.
And with both of them, they are likely to sign long-term extensions in the coming weeks-besides Gilgeous-alexander, which is eligible for a huge one-this can be the beginning of Thunder team only two players in its list over 27 years, and it is now the second largest champion in the history of NBA only behind the date of 1977 only. Portland Trail Blazrez.
Meanwhile, Gilgos Alexander from his historic season crowned 29 points and 12 assists to strike a rare Superfecta of honor: MVP normal season, MVP finals, US Professional League champion and recording champion. Doing all these things put Gilgeous-Elexander on a variety of short lists, from which he became the first player to win the MVP prize in the league and championship in the same season since Stephen Carrey with Golden STITIOT 2014-15.
That year, Carrey won its first championship with the young Warriors, which will continue to appear six final matches in the 8 -year period, and a total of four championships as part of the last family team in the American Professional League.
Time will determine whether this will start a similar operation for this Thunder team. But to get this type of running, you should start with a heroic.
After 17 years, Oklahoma can finally say it has the first.
