Hands Up If You Also Can’t Wait for the Spurs-Thunder Game 7!!!

There is a game seven coming in the Western Conference finals, and the show could barely contain itself. Food tastes better, one host joked, and you stretch without pulling your back at 35, all because the Thunder lost. San Antonio handled business at home in game six, a 118-91 blowout that forced a winner-take-all finale.

It also vindicated a Hall of Famer. Chris Webber had come on earlier in the week and flatly predicted the Spurs would blow Oklahoma City out in game six and push the series to seven, a take the room had scoffed at after San Antonio looked lifeless in game five. He was right, which prompted a quick, affectionate aside that Webber is a Sacramento guy being praised by a Laker fan.

The performance backed it up. Victor Wembanyama, told he could not settle for 15 shots, put up 21, hit 10 of them, and buried four big threes at the right moments. The real X-factor, though, came off the bench in Dylan Harper, who dropped 18 points on six-of-nine shooting with a plus-19, the kind of supporting effort that flips a game. San Antonio's three-point percentage climbed from 29 to 37, they made five more threes than the Thunder, and they doubled Oklahoma City at the free-throw line.

That last number fueled the running worry of the segment: officiating. Five of the six games have gone slack in the fourth quarter, and the crew kept circling the free-throw disparity, the Spurs shooting 12 in San Antonio while Oklahoma City shot 38 in game five at home. The fear is a game seven in Oklahoma City where the Thunder live at the line and everyone spends Monday complaining about it. TJ did note that game six felt like the referees were letting them play, and the hope is for more of the same: 48 minutes, no ticky-tack whistles, a winner crowned cleanly.

The flopping debate inevitably surfaced, with the group wondering aloud whatever happened to the old $5,000 fine, a question they planned to put to Ramona Shelburne. SGA took the brunt of it, complete with a theory that he learned the art from Chris Paul during their one season together in Oklahoma City, since compilations of SGA's Clippers rookie year show him taking far harder hits without ever hitting the floor.

For all the griping, the affection for Wembanyama was total. The crew marveled at his sheer size, the tarp-sized shirt he wore in, and the terrifying thought of him adding Giannis-level muscle. Asked what game seven means to him, Wembanyama said the first thing is listening to the experienced voices around him.

As for who wins, the prediction landed on the benches. Whichever reserve unit steps up, like Harper did, decides it, a lesson the Lakers learned the hard way when Oklahoma City's bench, featuring former Laker Alex Caruso, buried them. That stung a Laker fan all over again, but the anticipation won out. Game one was great, game seven could be too, and a good sandwich, as the show put it, sometimes comes down to the bread.