Shai Gilgeous-Alexander

OKLAHOMA CITY — He’s the best player on the best team. And the voters say he’s the best player in the league, too.

Again.

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander of the reigning NBA champion Oklahoma City Thunder won the NBA’s Most Valuable Player on Sunday for the second consecutive year. He became the 18th player to win at least two MVP awards and the 14th to win them in back-to-back fashion.

“Who he is has never changed,” Thunder coach Mark Daigneault said. “I think he’s touched up the edges on his game and on his leadership and on his perspective, just like anybody else that’s coming of age.”

The win for Gilgeous-Alexander, who is Canadian, marks the eighth consecutive time that the NBA’s MVP was born outside the U.S. The run started with Milwaukee’s Giannis Antetokounmpo (born in Greece, of Nigerian descent) in 2019 and 2020, then Denver’s Nikola Jokic (Serbia) in 2021 and 2022, Philadelphia’s Joel Embiid (born in Cameroon but has since become a U.S. citizen) in 2023 and Jokic again in 2024.

And in 2025 and 2026, SGA is the MVP.

“Shai’s so good at creating separation when he’s able to play 1-on-1,” Los Angeles Lakers coach JJ Redick said. “He’s just really hard to stop, for any defender.”

Jokic was second and San Antonio’s star French center Victor Wembanyama placed third.

Gilgeous-Alexander got 83 of a possible 100 first-place votes. Jokic received 10 and Wembanyama got five. Luka Doncic of the Los Angeles Lakers was fourth in the voting and Cade Cunningham of the Detroit Pistons was fifth.

Cunningham got two first-place votes — the first by a U.S.-born player since 2021.

Jaylen Brown of the Boston Celtics was sixth.

Thunder vs. Spurs

This is not a one-of-a-kind matchup in the Western Conference finals. And it’s not the NBA Finals, either.

It may just seem that way.

In one corner, Gilgeous-Alexander and the defending champion Thunder, winners of 64 games this season. In the other corner, Wembanyama and the San Antonio Spurs, winners of 62 games this season — and four against the Thunder. That’s the West finals matchup, with Game 1 tonight in Oklahoma City.

“Just the words — ‘conference finals’ — is crazy,” Wembanyama said. “It’s something I heard my whole life and now being in it is just special.”

This is only the seventh time in NBA history that a playoff series features two teams that won 62 games (or had an equivalent winning percentage of .756 or better, when taking into account the years without an 82-game schedule). It’s the first since Chicago vs. Utah in the 1998 NBA Finals.

“It’s fitting because both teams earned their way here,” Daigneault said Sunday. “I mean, that’s how it works. You’ve got to win four games to advance and then you’ve got to win four games again — and if you do that, you’re in the Western Conference finals.”

Cavs oust Pistons

DETROIT — Donovan Mitchell scored 26 points, Jarrett Allen and Sam Merrill each added 23 and the Cleveland Cavaliers beat the Detroit Pistons 125-94 on Sunday night in Game 7 to advance to the Eastern Conference finals.

The fourth-seeded Cavaliers ousted the East’s top seed and will face the third-seeded New York Knicks. Game 1 of that series tips off Tuesday in New York.

Evan Mobley had 21 points and 12 rebounds for the Cavaliers, who advanced to the conference finals for the first time since 2018.