“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.”

Denver’s building was sent into a frenzy by an equal dose of hope and belief. Hope that a Game 7 was possible. Belief that it could stomp the Thunder, 119-107, to unlock it.