Thunder Beat Spurs to Reach N.B.A. Finals OKLAHOMA CITY - If this was the last stand of the San Antonio Spurs, it was a valiant one, befitting a team from the city of the Alamo. But across as tense and furious a game as we have seen this N.B.A. playoff season, the Spurs" aging legs failed to match the intensity of their resolve. They wilted in the second half on Wednesday night and were eliminated from the Western Conference finals by the younger and more athletic Thunder, 107-99, in Game 6. The Thunder, led by Kevin Durant's 34 points, 13 rebounds and 5 assists, advanced to their first N.B.A. finals since moving to Oklahoma City in 2008. The franchise, originating in Seattle as the SuperSonics in 1967, won a championship in 1979. "All I can think of is how this incredible group of young men has unified this city and this state as never before," said Clay Bennett, the Thunder's owner. For the four-time champion Spurs, defeat in the conference finals was bitter after they compiled the league's best regular-season record; won 20 in a row, including the first 10 games of the playoffs; and took the first two games of this series at home. They led the Thunder by 18 points in the first half but scored only 36 in the second half, when the Thunder clamped down on the penetration of Tony Parker, who led the Spurs with 29 points. Tim Duncan had 25 and 14 rebounds for San Antonio. "In many ways we overachieved this season," Spurs Coach Gregg Popovich said. I couldn't be more satisfied with their effort. Russell Westbrook had 25 points for the Thunder, and the old pro Derek Fisher, acquired late in the season, hit two clutch jumpers in the fourth quarter and finished with 9 points. That concluded the Thunder's recovery from a 2-0 deficit in the series. "Our guys stuck together - that's what families do," Coach Scott Brooks said. The game began with a simple but familiar interrogative, borrowed from another kind of festive occasion: why is this night different from all other nights? For the Thunder, the chance to close out the series that would carry them to the biggest stage presented a challenge unlike any they had faced collectively. "Well, we never thought that we were supposed to wait our turn," Durant said, to the question of whether the Thunder were ready to book a place in the finals. We always wanted to go and take everything. But until the ball was tossed up, they could not possibly know how they would respond to the magnitude of the night. Would their minds race ahead of their bodies, forcing the bodies to keep up and try to do unnatural things? Brooks said he had never allowed the Thunder to use their youth as an excuse, a means of rationalizing defeat with the understanding that there would be many more chances to come. He insisted that this game had been approached like any other, with the caveat that the Thunder were "an excitable group" under any conditions. "When we were struggling four years ago, we were excited about playing every night," Brooks said. But I don't see any more excitement than they had starting the playoffs. It was a rainy, windswept night outside Chesapeake Energy Arena. Inside, the Thunder emerged from the tunnel to the familiar white-shirted crowd, standing and already hoarse from the chant of "O-K-C." In the air was anticipation, the sense of imminent celebration - until, Brooks's denials notwithstanding, his team presented 12 minutes of hard evidence that the enormity of the night was as palpable as Parker was elusive. Answering the charge that his mediocre play cost the Spurs Game 5, Parker did as he pleased. He met surprisingly little resistance from Thabo Sefolosha and the Thunder's interior defense on the way to an eye-opening 17-point, 5-assist quarter that culminated with a 34-20 Spurs lead. San Antonio shot 60.9 percent, including 4 of 6 from behind the 3-point line. Although the Thunder began knocking down shots in the second quarter, San Antonio was executing in classic Duncan-era style, with Parker proving again that his penetration is what triggers the beautiful ball movement that compensates for the Spurs" fair-to-middling athleticism. They wound up with a 63-48 halftime lead, shooting 54.5 percent, as Parker bettered his entire Game 5 output with 21 points and 10 assists. Never shy, Stephen Jackson took four 3-point shots and hit them all. Underscoring the difference in the teams" approaches was the Spurs" lead in assists, 15-6. But nobody knew better than Popovich that it was not going to be that easy. All those years in the playoffs told him it could not be. Popovich has always said that to get comfortable with a big lead in the first half is to live in denial. When Durant opened the third quarter with a driving layup, encountering no resistance, the surge that Popovich knew was coming was on. The Thunder defense stiffened, Parker was contained, and Durant and Westbrook took turns pulling up from short and long range. The third-quarter buzzer sounded with the Spurs barely holding on to the lead (81-80), to their season and perhaps to the perception of them as championship contenders in the new age of the Thunder.