Thunder Overcome 4th Quarter Deficit To Eliminate Lakers, Advance To Conference Finals At 8-0

Oklahoma City's average margin of victory stands at 16.6 points, the fifth largest through eight games in the conference finals era dating to 1983-84. The last defending champion to match the feat was LeBron James' Cleveland Cavaliers in 2017, per ESPN Research. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander scored a series-best 35 points, including nine in the fourth quarter. Ajay Mitchell, starting in place of the injured Jalen Williams, posted a playoff career-high 28 points. Chet Holmgren contributed 16 points, going 4-of-4 in the final period, including a decisive dunk with 33 seconds remaining that gave Oklahoma City the lead for good. The Thunder had not trailed in the fourth quarter this postseason until Monday, when Los Angeles led by five with 8:37 left. Gilgeous-Alexander re-entered more than two minutes ahead of schedule and orchestrated the decisive run. The Lakers schemed aggressively to contain Gilgeous-Alexander, double-teaming him more than in any prior playoff series of his career, per coach Mark Daigneault. The strategy held him to 21.0 points per game through the first three contests, well below his regular-season average. Hats off to my teammates, Gilgeous-Alexander said. Obviously, their goal was to make my teammates beat them in the first three games, and my teammates did exactly that. We've done our job so far. That's all it really means, Gilgeous-Alexander said. Nothing's guaranteed. In the playoffs, no two games are the same. Everything that we've done so far is behind us. We still haven't reached our goal. The Thunder are -180 favorites to win the NBA championship ahead of the San Antonio Spurs at +375 and New York Knicks at +600.