2025 WEST FINALS: (1) Oklahoma City Thunder Vs. (6) Minnesota Timberwolves

where the denvers?

 

I'm rooting for whichever of these two teams would lose to the Pacers/Knicks winner.

Since the Lakers/Warriors/Clippers/Celtics/Cavs are all out, I won't be bummed with whoever wins either series.

I'm also glad we'll get a fresh NBA champion.

 

In regards to there being a Fresh NBA Champion, I have a related question.

Next season, will the NBA and its broadcast partners try to prop up teams from the past such as

• Lakers
• Golden State
• Boston

or will they transition fully to

• OKC
• Minnesota
• Houston
• Pacers
• Etc

and force the teams of the past to do well to justify getting attention? I realize that the Luka & LeBron combo will make it
hard to ignore the Lakers, but I don't have them as a true Contender next season unless they are able to Win multiple trades..

I didn't mention the Knicks because I have it as a given that the League will be pushing/promoting them.

 

When the Thunder are at their best, there's no one left that even comes close. Jokic and the Nuggets were able to land a few on them, but at the end of the series it was clear that the Thunder were so much better and SGA is right there with anyone in the NBA.

The Wolves have a better overall team than the Nuggets, but Edwards will have to increase his scoring while maintaining his playmaking, keeping his turnovers low, and defend either SGA or Williams to stand a chance. Jokic wasn't missing much, but he wasn't able to playmake without turning the ball over consistently either.

 

Looking forward to this one... wondering if we'll see Ant outshine SGA, even if the Thunder win.

 

I like Antman over SGA, so I hope Minnesota wins. But if it’s not Houston, does it even actually matter?

 

I'll be cheering for Minny, but expecting OKC to win.

 

Are you cheering for Minny primarily because you think the Pacers would have a better chance of beating them?

 

Yes, Home court advantage, Minny w. less depth, less team speed, & weaker transition D than OKC

 

NBA will treat this as the finals. The 2 biggest names left in the playoffs matching up. Future of the league. Thunder in 6.

 

How do you feel about the NY matchup?

 

I think the Thunder will win this. Minnesota's bigs aren't on the level of Jokic who was able to punish OKC inside. OKC has great wing defenders to put on Ant and Randle.

 

To be honest, as the regular season was wrapping up I wanted the Pacers NOT to catch the Knicks and to get the #4 seed, thinking that Cleveland was more beatable than Boston and that the Knicks might actually take care of Boston. The Knicks tendency of playing 7 players 35+ minutes should favor the Pacers. Maybe not at first, but as the series progresses.

 

The scheduling is so bad, why OKC and Minny starting off the conference finals? It should be Knicks and Pacers.

 

A tired OKC is the only OKC that the Wolves could beat on at least once.

 

It looks dumb now but if the NY vs BOS went to game 7, it would've been today with the Eastern finals starting on Wednesday. But since both Eastern semis wrapped up early, it looks like they get a longer break than the West who had the only semis to go 7 games.