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INGLEWOOD, Calif. (AP) — For the third straight season, the road to the NBA title goes through Oklahoma City.
And this latest No. 1 seed has put the Thunder in some storied basketball company.
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and his defending champs became the seventh team in NBA history to finish with its conference’s best regular-season record in at least three consecutive years when Oklahoma City wrapped up the No. 1 overall seed in the upcoming playoffs with a 128-110 victory over the Los Angeles Clippers on Wednesday night.
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The list of NBA teams who topped their conference standings in at least three straight seasons encompasses most of the greatest groups of the past half-century: The dominant Celtics teams of the 1970s and 1980s, the Showtime Lakers, the storied 1990s Chicago Bulls, the 2000s Lakers and the 2010s Golden State Warriors.
After comfortably holding off the Clippers for their 19th win in 20 games, the defending NBA champion Thunder (64-16) joined that elite group by clinching the top seed over San Antonio (61-19) and the league’s best overall record.
The Thunder said they don’t take this achievement for granted, even as they move on to chase bigger goals over the next two months.
“It feels better for sure, not only because we’ve had to weather a little more (adversity),” said MVP Gilgeous-Alexander, who had 20 points and 11 assists before sitting out the fourth quarter. “But just repeating something and doing it again is always a little bit harder. It’s a little more challenging. The league gets better. Players get better. For us to still have the best overall record through those ups and downs speaks volumes to the team. … We always say at the beginning of the season that no matter what happened, we have to earn what we get to make it to the playoffs and our seeding, and we earned the first overall seed.”
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The Thunder have been a powerhouse ever since they broke through two seasons ago to claim the best record in the West with 57 victories. After winning 68 games last year, they’ve become only the third team in NBA history to win at least 64 games in back-to-back…
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/thunder-lock-no-1-seed-063135699.html
Author : GREG BEACHAM
Publish date : 2026-04-09 06:31:00
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