The Oklahoma City Thunder are in the NBA Finals, and with the season that they had this year, it should be no surprise that they made it this far. They'll be going up against the Indiana Pacers, and early predictions show that the Thunder have a huge advantage. The Thunder have the better team, but Kendrick Perkins thinks it's one reason why they have such an advantage over the Pacers, and it's Shai Gilgeous-Alexander.

“When you talk about SGA, we're talking about the best perimeter player in basketball,” Perkins said. “Not just in this postseason, in basketball. Knocking on the door of being the best player in the game. We know he's going to go out there and get you 30 points a night; he led the league in scoring. Throughout these playoffs, we saw growth in SGA.

“He has the mid-range game. So pressuring him 94 feet, that's not going to work. When he gets a head of steam and gets downhill, we know he's finishing. He's a finisher around the basket, and we definitely know you can't stop him from finishing around the basket because he knows how to get to the free-throw line.”

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Gilgeous-Alexander showed that he was the best player in the league this season, and he will be the biggest difference-maker in the Finals.

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander continues to dominate for Thunder

Gilgeous-Alexander has been dominant for the Thunder since the beginning of the season, and his hard work is paying off. The Thunder had one of the best teams in the league in the regular season, and they're looking to solidify that by getting four more wins to win the NBA championship.

Looking at the Thunder, they have everything a team needs in order to win a championship. On offense, Gilgeous-Alexander leads the way, but players such as Jalen Williams and Chet Holmgren also contributed at a high level on that side of the ball. On defense, the whole team has bought in, and they've been one of the better units in the league in that department.

Some people thought that their inexperience would get in the way of them making it this far, but they shut down that noise and came up in big moments throughout the postseason. The numbers and stats that they produced this season show that they're supposed to be in the Finals, and all they have to do now is win.