Game 5 of the Western Conference finals returned to Oklahoma City on Tuesday after the Spurs evened the series 2-2 with a home win in Game 4. Victor Wembanyama punctuated that comeback with an immaculate halfcourt shot at the buzzer, and the series now moves to a best-of-three finish in Oklahoma City.
A victory in Game 5 would give San Antonio a 3-2 lead and put the Spurs one victory away from their first NBA Finals appearance since 2014. The matchup arrives with tangible personnel concerns: Jalen Williams was listed as out for Game 5, and Ajay Mitchell — who suffered a soleus strain in Game 3 — was ruled out later for Game 5. Those absences leave the Thunder shorthanded as the series shifts back home.
The stakes are not just historical. Mitch Johnson, who lifted the Spurs from outside the playoffs to the No. 2 seed in the Western Conference, has been widely credited with the team’s turnaround; he was the runner-up for the 2025-26 NBA Coach of the Year award. That recognition has framed how this series is being read: the Spurs’ season-long construction now hinges on the next three games in Oklahoma City.
San Antonio’s Game 4 win was notable for adjustments as much as for its finish. The Spurs returned to Frost Bank Center and leaned on the home-court success they have enjoyed this postseason, altering their approach defensively by reducing and changing the way they doubled Shai to limit easy entries. Those tweaks produced the two wins that forced the series back to Oklahoma City as a best-of-three after four games.
Voices around the matchup have been blunt: "Victor Wembanyama is owning Chet Holmgren." "Holmgren shouldn’t be shamed for being outplayed by Wembanyama." "No glory gets lost in being bested by a player so unique and transcendent that Spurs fans show up to games dressed like extras in “Mars Attacks.”" "But in a battle of slender big men, in this era where post presence is increasingly measured by length as much as girth, Holmgren is disappearing behind Wembanyama." Those lines — spoken by observers of the series — have come to define the narrative tension heading into Game 5.
The tension is straightforward: San Antonio’s strategic changes and Wembanyama’s procession into the series’ most visible moments have tilted perception, but the Thunder remain dangerous even shorthanded. The Spurs trimmed their doubles on Shai in Game 4, a deliberate choice that let Wembanyama and others operate differently; whether that formula can be repeated on the road against an Oklahoma City squad missing contributors will determine who reaches the brink of the franchise’s first Finals run since 2014.
For the Spurs, the outcome of Game 5 will compress a season’s work into a single result. Win and they take a 3-2 lead and need one more victory to clinch a Finals berth. Lose and the series becomes a four-game swing where home court and depth will get magnified in ways that leave little margin for error. The next game in Oklahoma City will tell whether Wembanyama’s late shot in San Antonio was a turning point or simply a highlight in a series that still refuses to be settled.
