This has Thunder fans FIRED UP...

The second finals berth in franchise history has Thunder fans fired up as they just blew the Timberwolves right out the arena in a closeout Game 5. Now sitting at minus 575 odds to win their first title in franchise history, they now await their Eastern opponent. But today, we're about to go over exactly how this Thunder team dismantled the Timberwolves in Game 5 on home court to make their first NBA Final appearance since 2012. But first, I just want to say, what's up guys? This is Gabriel Ebersole here with Thunder Digest. And I just want to point out, before we get into today's video, that 68% of you guys watching are not subscribed to the channel. Thunder won 68 games this year, they just made it all the way to the finals, and they're about to bring it home. You want to stay updated with all the news, games, anything that has to do with this team, we're here to bring it to you. So make sure you subscribe and hit that bell. Without further ado, let's get into this Game 5 massacre that put the Thunder back in the NBA Finals for the first time since 2012. The last time the Thunder won their Western Conference up 3-1 was in 2016, and they folded that year. But this year was something of a redemption year to get back to the finals out of that situation, as they just dominated from the get-go, allowing 9 points in the first quarter and not looking back the rest of the game. This team flat-out dominated from the jump. Let's take a look at how they got this done to the tune of a 30-point win. The final score was 124-94 in this game, and it was ugly early. Their leading star, Anthony Edwards, was 3-for-10 in the first half and missed all 5 of his 3-point attempts, and he had the worst plus-minus on the floor to the tune of a minus-28. Ant struggled heavily, heavily, heavily in this series, which we're really going to get into how that played a big part in this game and many others, but this guy only scored over 20 points twice in the entire series. He shot 7-for-18 with 19 points to finish out this game, but a lot of that came in garbage time, to be honest with you. We take a look at what he did this series as a whole. Man, he was struggling, averaging 23 points, 7.4 rebounds, and 4.6 assists. We take a look at what Anthony Edwards did in the regular season. Talk about a guy who averaged north of 27.5 a game, a guy with 6 rebounds, 4.5 assists. He was an efficient player in the regular season, shooting 45% and around 40% from the 3-ball, but we neutralized him very effectively this series en route to the victory, and it's just really ironic when you look at how badly they got blown out, when you look back to what he said in the bubble when they were playing the Phoenix Suns. I had to bring this up. Let's take a look at this video. We out of the playoffs, but y'all, this is a disgrace, bro. Like, y'all got 30 points in the third quarter. I remember when we were playing Phoenix, they were talking so much ----, telling us we better make the playoffs. We ain't gonna make the playoffs. We out of the playoffs, but y'all, this is a disgrace, bro. Like, y'all got 30 points in the third quarter. Karma coming full circle for Anthony Edwards and the Timberwolves, who struggled heavily, heavily, heavily in the first half. They shot 12 for 39 and had 14 turnovers in the first half. Yes, that's correct. They had more turnovers than field goals, and this was for a plethora of reasons. If we look at the team, the team defense in this game was astounding. There was no passing lanes to be found for the Minnesota Timberwolves. There was pressure on their ball handlers. Julius NoHandleRandall could not put the ball on the floor to save his life tonight. Every time that hit the floor, it was getting stripped. A lot of times by Alex Caruso, a guy who I want to shout out for amazing play tonight. But let's take a look at the Big 3 and how they helped establish this. I dropped a video two days ago about how the Big 3's impact in Game 4 was terrifying the NBA, and they came through again tonight to the tune of a huge blowout victory, and we're gonna get into what each player did specifically. Let's take a look first at the reigning MVP, Shea Yildiz-Alexander, who just added another trophy to his resume and other accolades to this season specifically by winning the Irvin Magic Johnson Western Conference Finals MVP Award. We take a look at what Shea did for this series. He averaged 31.5 a game. His efficiency is a little bit down for him to 46, but for a guard, still pretty good. Five rebounds and eight assists. He's a little bit above his average in the playmaking department, which we can see when we look at his season averages. Shea averaged 33 about for the regular season, scoring dips slightly. Rebounds were at 5, so they stayed about the same. His playmaking went up from 6.4 assists to north of 8. He was a great defensive player in both this series and the regular season, just short of three stocks a game, and you know king of efficiency. He shot over 50% in the regular season to the tune of 52%, and 57.5 from the three-point line. Shea Yildiz-Alexander managed to step up to the plate and really deliver to win this MVP award and put the Thunder back in the finals for the first time since 2012, where they have the overwhelming favorites to win, regardless of who comes out of the East. It's a 3-1 series for the Pacers right now, but the Thunder are minus 5.75 to win this championship. Between dismantling the Nuggets in a hard-fought seven-game series, showing that championship grit and determination in that pivotal Game 7, especially for such a young team, and then flipping it to the Western Conference Finals and just thoroughly, thoroughly outplaying the Timberwolves in a five-game series. Game 3, I mean, we lost by 4-0. I don't really know what happened there. Can't explain it. But the series, for the rest of the way, we looked dominant. We looked amazing. Shea, in this game, he had 34-7-8. He shot 14-25. He only shot four free throws for the free-throw merchant narrative out there, if you want to disregard that. He had 20 in the first half. Shea was firing on all cylinders. This guy assisted or scored 24 of the 26 points that we had in the first quarter. He was the tone setter tonight. Came out and made sure we got the job done, and that Timberwolves had no thoughts of getting back into this series. Very, very effective play from Shea Gilgis Alexander, commending him. Next person we're looking at is Jalen Williams, who put the pedal to the metal early tonight. He had 15 points in the first half. He finished with 19. He also finished with 5 assists and 8 rebounds, shooting 50%. Jalen played a great game, and he was another person who was setting the tone early that really put the Wolves out of the game 20 minutes in. They were just playing on comeback mode, chucking threes a lot of the time, and J-Dub was a part of applying that pressure early to get the job done. We take a look at what J-Dub has done throughout this season. We're talking about a guy averaging 21.5, 5-5, and was second-team all-defensive team, third-team all-NBA. This is a guy who is blossoming into that second-star role alongside Shea. He's able to take on the role as the primary ball handler when he's off the court. He's able to play with him when he's on the court. And the 12th overall pick from three years ago is shining bright right now. But who is he shining alongside? None other than the second overall pick from the same draft, Chet Holmgren. Another great game from Chet we saw tonight. This dude had 15 points in the first half as well. He knocked down two threes. He shot over 50%, chipped in seven rebounds, three blocks for the second game in a row. Chet got it done doing what the center is supposed to do for this team. Stretch the floor, rebound the basketball, protect the paint. That's been his forte all season. That's what this team has needed, and he has delivered time and time again. And he just delivered once again at the highest level. So we're commending Chet. But not only that, but I want to mention that Chet has really stepped his game up this postseason. We take a look at his regular season averages. He was averaging 15.8 and then two assists and two blocks. Chet in the postseason has really made it regular to get double doubles, made it regular for him to score in the 20-point range. And that has played a big, big part in boosting this team's ceiling for this playoff run. I think that Chet has a shot to win maybe the finals MVP if he's able to hold down the paint the same way he has been if we play against the Pacers. Because he's a team that he can average 15 rebounds against if he stays disciplined boxing out, something that I think he's had a little bit of trouble with. But he's getting better as this has went on. I think Jokic has really sharpened him up in that area. And Diagonals called him out in that offensive rebounding area from the Nuggets series. They improved heavily on it this series. The Timberwolves finished this game with 21 turnovers. They were struggling mightily in this game. They could not get shots to fall. They shot 27% in the first half. This game was effectively over by halftime. And it sent the Thunder back to the finals. And for a team that blew that 3-1 lead, yes, it was the 73-9 Warriors. And the Timberwolves just weren't on that level. But any doubt can creep in once they take that game on the road and they're going home in Game 6. We did a phenomenal job of shutting them out with our star players, our bench players, every single piece of the puzzle. Let's take a look at the final box score. Let's bring it a little bit bigger here. And we can see great numbers in the plus-minus category, right? We see J-Dub leading the team in the plus-minus. Tied with Kaysen Wallace off of the bench. Playing 24 minutes, but if you look at the box score, not a lot of stats for Kaysen. But he was playing great minutes out there. 24 minutes to that. Tied with Alex Caruso, who I saw out there affecting the game heavily early. Caruso was getting steals off of Randall. He shoveled a free dunk to Shea. Just because. That's the vibe of this team. We were absolutely dominating them early. Caruso got the most free throws off of the team. He was getting to the rim, creating pressure. And he also got 4 steals off of the bench. When you look at this, they had 20 turnovers. We had 14 steals. These are forced errors that we're making. And we're making this team look a lot worse than they are. The Timberwolves were a solid team coming into this. But we made them struggle throughout this series. We made them struggle, and we made them struggle hard. Lou Dort, another player I want to mention. 4 for 10 from 3. He's doing his job. A lot of guys on this team are doing their job. What you see is Harden only played 17 minutes. But effective minutes at that. 4 for 5. He dropped it in 2 blocks. Getting some 5 rebounds in there. These are effective minutes by everyone across the board. This is the depth that takes the team to the finals. This is the depth that wins a team a championship. The Thunder are now in a position to do exactly that after wrapping up Game 5 in a dominant, dominant fashion. I am so excited that this team has returned to the finals for the first time since I almost started watching basketball back in 2012. And let's hope that this time, they can run it all the way for the first championship in franchise history. Game 1 is going to be coming up pretty soon after. But we've got to see who comes out of this Pacers-Knicks series, man. Who are our opponents going to be? I'm going to be watching closely tomorrow, scouting that game out. But in the meantime, Thunder got to rest up, get ready for this series, and close this season out. To become one of the greatest teams of all time, they had tied for the fifth most wins in the regular season. And if they cap that off with a championship, there's no reason they shouldn't be regarded. With the MVP, with an all-NBA player on top of that, two defensive players, I think Ludor should have been at least a defensive player of the year finalist, if not one. But nonetheless, the depth of this team, a historic team if they're able to go finish this job. They've got to go punctuate this season. We're going to see if they can do it. This has been Gabriel Ebersole with Thunder Digest, happy to break down one of the best wins in Thunder basketball history. I'll see you guys in the next one.