By Jeff McDonald, Staff Writer | San Antonio Express-News (SAEN), 2026-05-31 12:54:17
2026年5月30日，星期六，在俄克拉荷马城Paycom中心进行的西部决赛抢七大战最后时刻，圣安东尼奥马刺队前锋凯尔登·约翰逊 (Keldon Johnson) (3) 庆祝，后卫迪伦·哈珀 (Dylan Harper) (2) 帮助球队扩大了对俄克拉荷马雷霆队的领先优势。马刺以111-103赢下比赛，挺进总决赛，将与纽约尼克斯队争夺总冠军。
周六深夜，凯尔登·约翰逊站在俄克拉荷马城那间依然人声鼎沸的客队更衣室里，环顾着身边的狂欢景象，试图去理解这件看似不可思议的事情。
这位马刺前锋头上戴着他标志性的斯特森 (Stetson) 牛仔帽。而更衣室里的其他几乎所有人——首发、替补、发展联盟球员以及球队工作人员——都戴上了印有马刺队标的崭新黑色棒球帽，宣告着球队本赛季奇幻之旅的下一站：
“2026年NBA总决赛。”
“这是我经历过的最令人动容、最得偿所愿的夜晚之一，”作为队史唯一一位经历过连续六年无缘季后赛的球员，约翰逊说道，“从去年开始，到今年一路走来，我们始终相信自己。能走到今天这一步，离不开全队上下的共同努力。”
就在一个赛季前，马刺的战绩还排在西部倒数第三；两个赛季前，他们刚刚经历了连续第二个仅胜22场的赛季。而如今，他们将队史第七次杀入总决赛，也是自2014年以来的首次。
马刺将迎战纽约尼克斯队，重演1999年总决赛的经典对决——当年那场对决为马刺带来了悬挂在霜银中心 (Frost Bank Center) 上空五面总冠军旗帜中的第一面。双方的首场较量将于周三在圣安东尼奥打响（美东时间晚上7:30，ABC直播）。
原本被认为太年轻、太稚嫩、太缺乏经验的马刺，在周六的客场抢七大战中，凭借一场111-103极具职业素养且冷酷无情的胜利，将卫冕冠军俄克拉荷马城拉下马，硬生生闯出了一条晋级之路。
这种胜利属于一支不信邪、誓要改写篮球历史的叛逆之师，他们绝不想按部就班地排队等待属于自己的时代。
“像竞争精神、决心、团结、执行力、习惯这些词，”马刺主教练米奇·约翰逊 (Mitch Johnson) 说道，“他们根本不在乎‘经验’这个词。”
维克托·文班亚马 (Victor Wembanyama) 谈到抢七大战终场哨响时的感受：“说真的，你付出的所有努力，投入的无数时间，都是为了这一刻的情感释放。我太想赢了，就好像我的生命全系于此。” pic.twitter.com/pZRGYoP2fH
— Spurs Nation (@ Spurs_Nation) May 31, 2026
文班亚马荣膺西部决赛MVP，在系列赛中他场均砍下27.3分、10.4个篮板和2.7次盖帽。在第七场决战中，他得到22分，成功终结了雷霆。
这位22岁的法国新星与其说是击败了两次常规赛MVP谢伊·吉尔杰斯-亚历山大 (Shai Gilgeous-Alexander)，不如说是从他的猛烈攻势中“生还”。吉尔杰斯-亚历山大轰下35分，拼尽全力试图维持雷霆的卫冕希望，虽败犹荣。
然而，文班亚马和马刺队最终带走了西部冠军奖杯，并预定了与尼克斯队的总决赛之约，昂首离开Paycom中心。
“在我的生命中，我想一次又一次地体验这种感觉，”情绪激动的文班亚马说道。
对于马刺而言，周六的胜利兑现了三年前播下的希望之种。当时他们赢得了NBA选秀抽签，获得了选择文班亚马的权利——这位身高7英尺4英寸、来自法国的奇才，注定将改变比赛规则、改写队史。
尽管如此，依然没有人料到文班亚马领衔的马刺能走得这么远、这么快。最难以置信的，恰恰是马刺队自己。
早在去年10月，也就是他第三个NBA赛季开始前的几星期，文班亚马曾被问及怎样的赛季对马刺来说才算成功。
他当时回答说，只要打进季后赛就行。对文班亚马而言，在竞争惨烈的西部赛区至少拿到第六名，就已经是进步了。
考虑到马刺自2019年以来就再未染指季后赛，这个门槛在当时看来已经有些高了。但现在回过头来看，这个目标低得有些荒谬。
“在某个时刻，”前锋朱利安·尚帕尼 (Julian Champagnie) 说道，“我们开始意识到我们正在创造一些特别的东西。”
马刺在常规赛豪取62胜，随后在他们建队以来的首次季后赛之旅中一路过关斩将。周六，在他们许多人人生中最为重要的一场比赛中，他们在卫冕冠军的主场将对手拉下了神坛。
在周六赢下晋级之战后，文班亚马解释了自己对本赛季的期望是如何随着时间的推移而改变的。
“当你抓住每一次机会去砌好一块砖，并且砌得完美无瑕，到头来，你就会收获一座宏伟的城堡，”文班亚马说道，“而这，仅仅是我们城堡的入口。”
在周六比赛开打前的最后几个小时里，马刺的更衣室里弥漫着一种和平常一样的自信氛围。
伴随着2000年代夏奇 (Shaggy) 的经典歌曲《It Wasn’t Me》在墙壁间回荡——这得归功于凯尔登·约翰逊那如影随形、声音大得惊人的音响系统——马刺球员向自己提出了一个与音乐无关的问题。
“为什么不能是我们？”尚帕尼说道。
在对抗强大的雷霆的四个小节里，马刺给出了他们的答案。确实没有任何理由说“不”。
在这场马刺队史仅有的第二次客场抢七胜利中，立下赫赫战功的不仅有文班亚马，还有总经理布莱恩·莱特 (Brian Wright) 围绕他打造的整支球队。
2024年的4号秀斯蒂芬·卡斯尔 (Stephon Castle) 贡献了16分，并在防守端延续了他在整个系列赛中的表现，让吉尔杰斯-亚历山大打得极其难受。2025年2月通过交易从萨克拉门托转会而来的全明星后卫德阿隆·福克斯 (De’Aaron Fox) 贡献了15分，并为球队注入了老将特有的沉稳。
周六晚上，整个圣安东尼奥陷入了狂欢。
随着马刺自2014年以来首次锁定NBA总决赛席位，球迷们涌入市中心和西北军路（N.W. Military）。 https://t.co/X3NAwiv9Xa pic.twitter.com/PcbUlFdqmy
— 圣安东尼奥快报 (@ ExpressNews) May 31, 2026
2023年被费城裁掉后，马刺从裁员名单中“捡漏”淘回了尚帕尼，本场比赛他表现神勇，砍下20分并飙中6记三分。
去年6月的榜眼秀、新秀迪伦·哈珀 (Dylan Harper) 替补出场贡献12分。马刺在夏天从波士顿引进的老将中锋卢克·科内特 (Luke Kornet) 虽然仅登场6分钟，但依然在第四节后半段贡献了一次关键盖帽，大帽扇飞了雷霆队以赛亚·哈尔滕施泰因 (Isaiah Hartenstein) 的出手，成功遏制了对手的反扑势头。
在这场决定赛季命运的生死战中，马刺共有七人得分上双。
曾在2024年随凯尔特人队夺得NBA总冠军的科内特表示，他也对这支马刺队在通往总决赛的道路上能够“跳级”成长感到有些惊讶。
“我觉得你只是在努力赢下每一场比赛，”科内特说道，“然后突然有一天你抬起头，发现自己已经走到了这里。”
还有凯尔登·约翰逊，这位2019年的首轮29号秀，曾一度以为自己永远也等不到这一天。
作为阵中效力时间最长的球员，约翰逊一路熬过了队史最黑暗的岁月才走到今天。他曾无数次怀疑这些挣扎是否会有尽头，或者当一切结束时，所有的付出是否值得。
“当时真的不知道发生了什么，也看不到方向，”约翰逊说道，“我脑子里全是问号。”
那些疑虑在周六之前早已烟消云散，在这场比赛中，约翰逊在第四节飙中两记关键三分，彻底粉碎了雷霆最后的反扑希望。
终场哨响后，约翰逊努力让自己从这种不真实感中清醒过来，去相信这件看似不可能的奇迹。
棒球帽上的字不会说谎。马刺队——他的马刺队——正在挺进NBA总决赛。
身边环绕着等待多年的狂欢，约翰逊用两个词总结了球队这段不可思议的旅程。
“过程很艰难，”他说道，“但一切都值了。”
由生成式 AI 翻译，译文内容可能不准确或不完整，以原文为准。
点击查看原文：How the Spurs have arrived at the NBA Finals, well ahead of schedule
How the Spurs have arrived at the NBA Finals, well ahead of schedule
San Antonio Spurs forward Keldon Johnson (3) reacts as guard Dylan Harper (2) helps widen the lead over the Oklahoma City Thunder in the final minutes of Game 7 of the Western Conference finals at Paycom Center in Oklahoma City on Saturday, May 30, 2026. The Spurs won 111-103 to advance to the NBA Finals against the New York Knicks.
Late Saturday night, Keldon Johnson stood inside a still-buzzing visitors locker room in Oklahoma City, surveyed the bedlam surrounding him and tried to fathom the unfathomable.
Atop his head, the Spurs forward was wearing one of his trademark Stetson cowboy hats. Almost everyone else in the room – starters, benchwarmers, G Leaguers and team staffers – had donned crisp black ballcaps bearing the Spurs’ logo that proclaimed the next stop in the team’s magical mystery tour of a season:
“2026 NBA Finals.”
“This is one of the most emotional, rewarding nights I’ve ever been a part of,” said Johnson, the only player in franchise history to endure six seasons without a playoff berth. “Starting with last year, coming in this year, believing in ourselves. It takes a village to be where we’re at.”
One season after finishing with the third-worst record in the Western Conference, two seasons after posting a second consecutive 22-win campaign, the Spurs are headed to the Finals for the seventh time in franchise history and first time since 2014.
The Spurs face the New York Knicks, in a rematch of the 1999 Finals that produced the first of five title banners hanging in the Frost Bank Center rafters. Game 1 is Wednesday in San Antonio (7:30 p.m., ABC).
Supposedly too young, too callow, too inexperienced for any of this, the Spurs got here by knocking off defending champion Oklahoma City in Game 7, on the road, by way of a brutally professional 111-103 victory Saturday.
It was the type of triumph authored by a defiant team bent on bucking basketball history, in no mood to wait its turn.
“Words like competitiveness, resolve, togetherness, execution, habits,” Spurs coach Mitch Johnson said. “They don’t give a damn about the word ‘experience.’ ”
Victor Wembanyama, on his emotions at the buzzer after Game 7: “Really, you work, all of these hours you put in, is for these type of emotions. I want to win so bad, it’s like my life depends on it.” pic.twitter.com/pZRGYoP2fH
— Spurs Nation (@ Spurs_Nation) May 31, 2026
Victor Wembanyama was named the Western Conference finals MVP, following a series in which he averaged 27.3 points, 10.4 rebounds and 2.7 blocks. He closed out the Thunder with 22 points in Game 7.
The 22-year-old Frenchman did not so much outduel two-time league MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander as survive him. Gilgeous-Alexander went down swinging with 35 points, doing everything he could to keep OKC’s title defense afloat.
Wembanyama and the Spurs, however, left the Paycom Center with a Western Conference championship trophy under one arm and a date with the Knicks on the calendar.
“I want to have this feeling plenty, plenty more times in my life,” an emotional Wembanyama said.
For the Spurs, Saturday fulfilled the promise first planted three years ago, when they won the NBA draft lottery and the right to select Wembanyama, the 7-foot-4 game-changing, franchise-altering savant from France.
Still, nobody expected Wembanyama’s Spurs to come this far, this fast. Least of all Wembanyama’s Spurs.
Back in October, a few weeks before the start of his third NBA campaign, Wembanayma was asked what it would make for a successful Spurs season.
Just make the playoffs, he said then. To Wembanyama, at least a sixth-place finish in the rugged Western Conference would constitute progress.
The bar seemed somewhat high at the time, considering the Spurs hadn’t qualified for the postseason bracket since 2019. It seems absurdly low now.
“At some point,” forward Julian Champagnie said, “we started to realize we had something special.”
The Spurs won 62 games, then fought their way through two rounds of their first playoff run together. Saturday, in the biggest game of many of their lives, they dethroned the champs on the champs’ home floor.
After Saturday’s clincher, Wembanyama explained how his expectations for the season changed over time.
“When you lay a brick like this every time you get a chance, and you lay it perfectly fine, at the end of the day, you get a big castle,” Wembanyama said. “This is just like the entry of our castle.”
In the last hours before tipoff Saturday, the Spurs’ locker room projected a sense of business-as-usual confidence.
As the 2000s-era Shaggy song “It Wasn’t Me” bounced off the walls — courtesy of Keldon Johnson’s infernal omnipresent speaker system — the Spurs asked themselves a non-musical question.
“Why not us?” Champagnie said.
For four quarters against the mighty Thunder, the Spurs gave their answer. There was no good reason why not.
In only the second road victory in Game 7 in Spurs history, the contributions came not only from Wembanyama, but from the team general manager Brian Wright had assembled around him.
Stephon Castle, the No. 4 pick in 2024, had 16 points and continued his series-long habit of making Gilgeous-Alexander’s existence miserable on defense. De’Aaron Fox, an All-Star guard rescued via trade with Sacramento in February 2025, added 15 points and a dose of veteran calm.
Saturday night turned into a celebration across San Antonio.
Fans flooded downtown and along N.W. Military as the Spurs punched their ticket back to the NBA Finals for the first time since 2014. https://t.co/X3NAwiv9Xa pic.twitter.com/PcbUlFdqmy
— San Antonio Express-News (@ ExpressNews) May 31, 2026
Champagnie, reclaimed off the waiver wire scrap heap after being jettisoned from Philadelphia in 2023, threw in 20 points and six 3-pointers.
Rookie Dylan Harper, the No. 2 pick last June, gave 12 points off the bench. Luke Kornet, the veteran center the Spurs signed away from Boston over the summer, logged six minutes but still managed to come up with a momentum-stopping stuff of OKC’s Isaiah Hartenstein late in the fourth quarter.
With the season in the balance, seven Spurs players scored in double figures.
Kornet, who won an NBA championship with the Celtics in 2024, said he too was a bit shocked at the steps this Spurs team managed to skip en route to the Finals.
“I think you just try to win every game,” Kornet said. “And all of a sudden you look up and you’re where you’re at.”
Then there was Keldon Johnson, the 29th overall pick in 2019, who once thought he would never look up to see such a day.
The longest-tenured member of the roster, Johnson toiled through some of the darkest days in franchise history to get to this point. There were times he wondered if the struggles would ever end, or if it would be worth it when they did.
“Just really not knowing what’s really going on and not knowing the direction,” Johnson said. “I had a lot of doubts.”
Those doubts had long vanished before Saturday, when Johnson threw in two key fourth-quarter 3-pointers to beat back the Thunder’s last gasp.
After the final horn, Johnson did his best to make sense of the surreal, to at last believe the unbelievable.
The ball caps didn’t lie. The Spurs — his Spurs — were headed to the NBA Finals.
As a celebration years in the making swirled around him, Johnson summed up the team’s improbable journey with two adjectives.
“It was tough,” he said. “But it was worth it.”
By Jeff McDonald, Staff Writer, via San Antonio Express-News