“It’s do or die,” Shai Gilgeous-Alexander said after OKC’s loss at Denver in Game 6. “It’s what you live for, what you work your whole life for. Either your dream continues or your dream ends, so you leave it all out there on the floor and live with the results.”

The Oklahoma City Thunder, the top seed in the Western Conference, are one win away from punching their ticket to the conference finals of the 2025 NBA playoffs. But the Denver Nuggets will not go quietly and will try to hold court in Denver for Game 6 on Thursday night.

The Nuggets used a late third-quarter flurry of baskets to mount a double-digit comeback and never looked back in the fourth.