Luke Kornet returned to the bench a hero.
The San Antonio Spurs backup big man had just turned in perhaps the biggest defensive play of Game 7 of the Western Conference finals, coming in for a stretch in relief of Spurs star Victor Wembanyama.
Wembanyama exited the game with five fouls and the defending champion Oklahoma City Thunder had what seemed like a prime chance to seize control.
But instead, Kornet blocked Isaiah Hartenstein just seconds after entering, the Spurs came through on the other end, and the Spurs were on their way to an NBA Finals berth with a 111-103 road win over the Thunder on Saturday.
"The definition of a winning play," Wembanyama said.
San Antonio will open the NBA Finals against the New York Knicks at home Wednesday.
The teams have met in the Finals once before, with San Antonio winning the 1999 NBA Championship in five games.
It was the first of five titles for the Spurs. Their last visit was in 2014, when they beat the Miami Heat in five games.
In the playoffs for the first time since Wembanyama became the face of the franchise, San Antonio is four wins away from adding to that total.
Spurs coach Mitch Johnson said his team's relative inexperience isn't a limiting factor by this point.
"This team has now been pretty damn consistent for a long time, for over 100 games, for the most part," Johnson said. .".. I don't know who has as much experience as we do this year in the season of 2025-26."
The Spurs led for much of the game but struggled to put away the pesky Thunder, who continually battled back from double-digit deficits to get back within striking distance.
And when Wembanyama, who was San Antonio's tone-setter throughout the series, left the game with five fouls with 6:48 remaining, the Spurs could have been in trouble.
Hartenstein's steal got the Thunder in transition with a chance to cut the deficit to four.
But Kornet blocked Hartenstein's shot, getting between Hartenstein and the basket, then Stephon Castle drained a pullup jumper for a 99-91 advantage.
Kornet headed to the bench just 59 seconds after he entered, and was greeted enthusiastically by the rest of the Spurs -- including Wembanyama.
Coming out of that stoppage, Julian Champagnie drained his sixth 3-pointer of the game to stretch the lead back to 11.
The Thunder pulled back to six with just more than two minutes remaining, but Oklahoma City went 0-for-4 the rest of the way on chances to trim the deficit even further.
Wembanyama had 22 points and seven rebounds.
"I want to win so bad, it's like my life depends on it," Wembanyama said.
Wembanyama was named the Most Valuable Player of the Western Conference finals.
"He has such a vision, in my opinion, of who he wants to be as a person and as a player," Johnson said. "And the commitment and investment that he puts into that vision, it's nothing like I've ever seen before."
Champagnie scored 20 and Castle, De'Aaron Fox and Dylan Harper also came up big for San Antonio.
"They were just the better team tonight, start to finish," Thunder star Shai Gilgeous-Alexander said. "And then every time we tried to like cut into and take control of the game, it felt like they had an answer."
Gilgeous-Alexander had struggled in the series, shooting just 37.9% from the floor through six games, but looked much more like the back-to-back NBA Most Valuable Player in Game 7.
"I was a little bit closer to it, for sure," Gilgeous-Alexander said.
He finished with 35 points on 12-of-21 shooting with nine assists and three steals.
"He was brilliant," Thunder coach Mark Daigneault said.
But the other two of Oklahoma City's big three -- Chet Holmgren and Jalen Williams -- made little impact.
Williams missed his fourth game of the series with a hamstring injury, while Holmgren finished with just four points on 1-of-2 shooting. Holmgren didn't attempt a shot after the first quarter.
His two field-goal tries were tied for the fewest of Holmgren's career. His only other two-shot game came March 27, 2024.
Cason Wallace added 17 points, returning to the starting lineup with Williams and Ajay Mitchell out again.
Alex Caruso scored 12 off the bench but was just 3 of 14 from the field.
Kornet, who won a title with Boston in 2024, was all smiles after the game.
"Someone from the bench yelled, ‘Who is it, LeBron James?'" Kornet said of his block and referring to James' block of an Andre Iguodala shot in Game 7 of the 2016 NBA Finals. "We'll see which one has more staying power in the record books of history."
Gilgeous-Alexander sees plenty more matchups with the young Spurs in the future.
"They're young, talented, well-coached, play the right way, seems like they like each other," Gilgeous-Alexander said. "They have the makeup. You don't beat us without the makeup."
--Field Level Media
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