OKC Clinches No. 1
The Oklahoma City Thunder have secured the West’s No. 1 seed as the regular season winds down, giving them home‑court advantage through at least the early rounds. (cbssports.com) The team’s April 8 game against the Clippers — full‑game highlights were posted today — is the most recent illustration of how they closed out the top spot. (youtube.com)
Oklahoma City wrapped up the Western Conference’s top seed on Wednesday, April 8, by beating the Los Angeles Clippers 128-110, and the same win also locked up the best overall record in the National Basketball Association at 64-16. Chet Holmgren finished with 30 points and 14 rebounds in the clincher. (apnews.com) That means the road through the West starts in Oklahoma City again. The National Basketball Association’s official playoff page listed the Thunder at No. 1 on April 9, with the San Antonio Spurs at No. 2 and the first round beginning on April 18 after the play-in tournament on April 14-17. (nba.com) This is not a one-year spike. The Associated Press reported that Oklahoma City has now earned the West’s No. 1 seed for three straight seasons, which puts this group in the kind of company usually reserved for long-running contenders. (apnews.com) The shape of the team explains why it keeps ending up here. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is 27, Jalen Williams is 24, and Chet Holmgren is 23, so Oklahoma City’s three biggest pillars are already elite and still young enough that most teams would call this the middle of the build, not the end of it. (espn.com) The numbers under the hood are even harsher for the rest of the league. Basketball-Reference had Oklahoma City first in net rating at plus-11.7, first in defensive rating at 107.3 points allowed per 100 possessions, and on a 63-15 expected record before the final week even finished. (basketball-reference.com) They also did not back into this seed because somebody else stumbled. By April 9, CBS Sports had the Thunder at 64-16 and the Spurs at 61-19, which meant Oklahoma City created enough separation to remove the tiebreaker math entirely. (cbssports.com) The Clippers game looked like a team closing a door, not cracking one open. Oklahoma City had already beaten Los Angeles three times earlier this season by 19 points, 21 points, and 18 points, so the 128-110 clincher fit a pattern that had been running since November. (basketball-reference.com) Now the reward is schedule control. The No. 1 seed gets home court in every Western Conference series, and because Oklahoma City also owns the league’s best record, it would host a National Basketball Association Finals Game 7 as well if it gets that far. (nba.com; cbssports.com) What looked unusual a few years ago now looks routine: Oklahoma City wins 60-plus games in back-to-back seasons, defends at the best level in the league, and enters April with everybody else trying to figure out the bracket around it. On April 9, the only missing detail in the West’s top line was the name of the No. 8 seed. (sports.yahoo.com; nba.com)
