Stiles Points: OKC Thunder Facing Tremendous Pressure in Game 7

Typically, the phrase Game 7 is a sweet symphony to sports fans. Unless the hometown team is taking part of it. Then, it becomes a nerve-wrecking experience with days of anticipation festering itself into anxiety.

This is the case for the Oklahoma City Thunder. A 68-win season that can be washed away with a Sunday matinee.

Oklahoma City has all the pressure on them. In a win-or-go-home game on the Paycom Center floor, this is the Thunder's best crack at eliminating a quality postseason opponent for the first time with this young core.

Sure, the Thunder are the youngest team in the NBA Playoff field, and that doesn't help its cause in closing out the battle-tested Denver Nuggets. But the reality remains that after a historic season, a second-round exit would be a bitter disappointment.

A loss? And nothing the Thunder do from May 19, 2025-May 1, 2026, will matter. Any regular season success or summer time move will be cast aside and met with mumblings of "do it in the postseason!" right, wrong, or indifferent.

A win? The Oklahoma City Thunder are in the Western Conference Finals for the first time since 2016 and get 24 hours to celebrate their biggest win with this young core. Along with the right to host the No. 6-seeded Minnesota Timberwolves on Tuesday, with an NBA Finals berth on the line.

These chances do not come around as often as you hope. A season good enough to net you a home elimination game, a healthy playoff run and a team so talented they are still viewed as the title favorite despite its inexperience.

Role players typically play better at home, the Oklahoma City Thunder have to hope that is true on Sunday. But the Thunder's supporting cast has never been stress-tested in this capacity.

The Thunder have been a resilient bunch and a trend-bucking crew all season long. They have to do it again on Sunday to dethrone a Denver Nuggets team running on fumes, with a shallow rotation in danger of getting more depleated if Aaron Gordon can't battle through a hamstring injury to be effective.

It is all out in front of Oklahoma City. One game to decide how they are talked about, covered and treated. It is a do-or-die, in more ways than one, for the Thunder. There will be nothing but age to battle back to the questions that will surround this Thunder team with a loss in Game 7, a defense that a jury of their peers wouldn't deliberate over for long.

Oklahoma City is in control. They have a game to be who they have been all season long and do it on the home hardwood.

This scribe picked the Thunder in seven, it was always going to take three losses to get to that point. There is no reason to abandon a historically great team now. OKC has to believe that too.

Song of the Day: Under Pressure by Queen