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The 68-win Oklahoma City Thunder were pushed to their absolute limit by a veteran Denver Nuggets squad that still had the core quartet that won the NBA championship in 2023. But in the end, the Thunder prevailed, and in convincing fashion as well, as they took a resounding 125-93 victory in Game 7 to punch their ticket to the Western Conference Finals for the first time since 2016.
Long before the playoffs began, the Thunder and Nuggets have been pitted against each other as Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Nikola Jokic went neck and neck in the MVP race. But with OKC eliminating Denver from championship contention by virtue of their Game 7 dominance, Chet Holmgren believes that the debate has been completely settled.
“You know who this is? The MVP,” Holmgren said in the Thunder's group postgame interview on ESPN, via the official ClutchPoints account on X (formerly Twitter).
"You know who this is? The MVP."
Chet Holmgren to Shai Gilgeous-Alexander 🙌
(via @espn)pic.twitter.com/QGKVqPwwsG
— ClutchPoints (@ClutchPoints) May 18, 2025
It's quite odd that the NBA hasn't yet announced the winner of the MVP award; aside from those years where the NBA held an end of season awards show, the league's most prestigious individual award has usually been awarded by this time. It's not as if playoff performance can change how the voting went down.
Nonetheless, it looks as though the timing of the announcement will end up being opportune for Gilgeous-Alexander; he's been the favorite to bag home the 2025 NBA MVP award for quite some time now, and voters are justified to reward the best player on the league's best team when he put up incredible numbers himself (32-5-6 on 52/38/90 shooting splits).
Gilgeous-Alexander's incredible effort in Game 7 is simply the cherry on top of his MVP cake. In leading the Thunder to a Game 7 rout of the Nuggets, SGA put up 35 points on 12-19 shooting from the field — with his best performance of the series coming in the biggest game of his career to this date.
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Thunder avoid being upset by Nuggets
The Thunder went off to a bit of a shaky start in Game 7 as they couldn't buy a bucket from beyond the arc. But they went into full overdrive on the defensive end from the end of the first quarter onward and did not look back. They built up a lead that grew to as many as 43 points, forcing Denver to wave the white flag early on in the fourth quarter.
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and company will now be hosting Anthony Edwards and the Minnesota Timberwolves in the Western Conference Finals, and the MVP announcement should be coming within the next few days.
