{"id":1954258,"date":"2026-05-25T11:30:17","date_gmt":"2026-05-25T08:30:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1954258"},"modified":"2026-05-25T11:30:17","modified_gmt":"2026-05-25T08:30:17","slug":"victor-wembanyama-is-ahead-of-schedule-and-the-thunder-are-playing-with-fire-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1954258","title":{"rendered":"Victor Wembanyama is ahead of schedule \u2014 and the Thunder are playing with fire again"},"content":{"rendered":"
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SAN ANTONIO \u2014 This backbreaker wasn\u2019t as audacious as the last.<\/p>\n

Unlike Game 1 of the Western Conference finals, when Victor Wembanyama\u2019s 32-footer to force a double overtime was the product of flow state and downright arrogance, his half-court 3-pointer at the end of the first half of Game 4 was born out of desperation and evolution. His San Antonio Spurs had seen how the Oklahoma City Thunder don\u2019t wobble when you hit hard first, with that 15-0 lead in Friday\u2019s Game 3 vanishing like Thunder big man Chet Holmgren in this series. Now here they were again on Sunday night, with a lead that was as large as 15 in the first quarter having shrunk to single digits.<\/p>\n

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So Wembanyama dribbled around the back-to-back MVP, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, pulled up on the far side of the Spurs\u2019 logo on the Frost Bank Center floor and let it fly. Jared McCain was close by, but only mustered a half-hearted contest because he clearly had no fear of the shot actually falling. Cason Wallace had a front-row seat, too. But when the ball found its way to the fabric, pushing the Spurs\u2019 lead to 12 at the break en route to the 103-82 blowout<\/a> to come, it was as if Wembanyama had broken the glass on the nearest defibrillator and shocked life back into his team, which would have been unofficially done if the Thunder had taken the 3-1 series lead. Instead, Oklahoma City blew this chance to put Wembanyama and his Spurs back in their (second) place, and the balance of power in the NBA is up for grabs again.<\/p>\n

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Time will tell if the Thunder look back on this night with the deepest of regret.<\/p>\n

As we saw around this time a year ago, OKC tends to let dangerous opponents stick around longer than most objective observers might have predicted. The fact that the Thunder allowed the Denver Nuggets to take them to seven games in the second round last year was stunning at the time, considering the Nuggets finished the regular season with 18 fewer wins than the Thunder while enduring all sorts of organizational turmoil<\/a>. Ditto for the finals against the Indiana Pacers, who also finished 18 games behind the Thunder but looked poised to pull off the upset in Game 7, only to see Tyrese Haliburton go down with his right Achilles tendon tear in the first quarter.<\/p>\n

The respective ownership groups and top decision-makers of both teams took those performances as signs of hope that their teams were within striking distance of the top dog and made key offseason moves with the belief that Oklahoma City was, believe it or not, gettable. And while that premise was proved false in relation to those matchups, it still serves as a cautionary tale of sorts when it comes to this latest development. These Spurs, and Wembanyama more than all the rest, are not to be trifled with.<\/p>\n

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Lest anyone forgets, San Antonio pushed OKC for the NBA\u2019s best record all the way until the end of the regular season and landed just two games shy of the defending champs. What\u2019s more, they have now beaten the Thunder six times in nine tries this season (including the NBA Cup semifinal in December). That sort of sample size is more than enough to infuse the young upstarts with extreme confidence, perhaps countering the massive gap in playoff experience that was supposed to be the Spurs\u2019 undoing.<\/p>\n

Yet just two days after Wembanyama looked and sounded like a rising star on the ropes, questioning himself in his news conference after the Game 3 loss<\/a> while explaining why he needed to be a better teammate, he turned in another one of those performances that should shake the rest of the league to its core. Starting with the Thunder.<\/p>\n

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He had 33 points (11-of-22 shooting overall; 3 of 7 from 3), eight rebounds, five assists, three blocks and two steals. But it wasn\u2019t the stat line that spoke loudest. It was the way in which he went at the Thunder\u2019s frontcourt \u2014 mostly Isaiah Hartenstein, with a smattering of ill-fated Holmgren assignments mixed in \u2014 that made you wonder if these Spurs might pull this upset off after all.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe truth is that we had never been in this kind of situation before,\u201d Wembanyama said. \u201cIt was our first deficit in a playoff series, and we just responded. But it was nothing amazing. It wasn\u2019t magic. We just did what we needed to do. The series is far from over. We got six more wins before we can rest.\u201d<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the funny part: Wembanyama clearly forgot that the Spurs dropped the series opener to the Minnesota Timberwolves in the second round, which is clearly a sign that he was never truly worried about that particular foe. And if you\u2019re the Thunder \u2014 from general manager Sam Presti to coach Mark Daigneault on down \u2014 it\u2019s that last part of his messaging that should inspire some sense of concern.<\/p>\n

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What You Should Read Next<\/div>\n
\n \"The<\/p>\n
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\n The Spurs find out who they are, with help from courtside nuns and Coach Pop\n <\/div>\n
\n After getting chewed out for their Game 3 performance, Wemby and the Spurs bounced back in a big way to beat the Thunder on Sunday.\n <\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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For Wembanyama to casually state that San Antonio plans to win six more times is to be reminded that he has one goal in mind. This isn\u2019t about the Thunder, per se, as much as it is the obstacle they represent. And now, with four games in the books and Oklahoma City\u2019s most pivotal players putting up unimpressive performances for so much of this series, it sets the stage for a fantastic finish.<\/p>\n

To wit\u2026<\/p>\n

\u2022 Gilgeous-Alexander hasn\u2019t been his elite-level self in this series (regular-season averages in parentheses): 24.8 points (31.1) on 39.2 percent shooting overall (55.3 percent), 26.7 percent from 3 (38.6 percent), to go with 10 assists (6.6), 3.3 rebounds (4.3), two steals (1.4), one block (0.8), 2.8 turnovers (2.2) and a minus-4.3 individual net rating (plus-16.3).<\/p>\n

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\u2022 Holmgren, whose main goal should be to convince Presti not to call the Milwaukee Bucks about a Giannis Antetokounmpo trade when this season ends, has been even worse (regular-season averages in parentheses): 11.3 points (17.1), six rebounds (8.9), 0.8 blocks (1.9) and an individual net rating of 0.1 (16.1).<\/p>\n

The Thunder have also only had All-Star swingman Jalen Williams for a total of 45 minutes in this series (Games 1 and 2) because of his lingering hamstring injury. Ajay Mitchell, the second-year guard who showed out in Williams\u2019 absence during the first two rounds, was a no-show against San Antonio before missing Game 4 with a right soleus (calf) injury. There\u2019s this, too: The Spurs defense that trailed only the Thunder and Detroit Pistons in the regular season, and which has been the best among the 16 playoff teams this postseason, held OKC to its lowest point total and field-goal percentage (33) of the season.<\/p>\n

All of which feeds the Wembanyama fire.<\/p>\n

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What You Should Read Next<\/div>\n
\n \"My<\/p>\n
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\n My season inside Wemby\u2019s world: An up-close look at the many dimensions of Victor Wembanyama\n <\/div>\n
\n I covered Victor Wembanyama all season. Here’s what I learned that the rest of the sports world is now discovering.\n <\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

<\/a><\/p><\/div>\n

The 22-year-old clearly wants to be the best player on the planet right now, to unseat Gilgeous-Alexander and his Thunder while staking his claim to global hoops supremacy before he can even rent a car. It won\u2019t be easy to pull off, what with two of the final three games of the series coming in the Paycom Center, where the Thunder are 39-8 in the regular season and playoffs.<\/p>\n

But as Game 4 reminded us, it\u2019s not wise for any Wembanyama foe to play with this French fire. He\u2019s coming for the throne, whether that coronation comes now or down the line, and now finds himself with a chance to do this deed far earlier than anyone expected.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SAN ANTONIO \u2014 This backbreaker wasn\u2019t as audacious as the last. Unlike Game 1 of the Western Conference finals, when Victor Wembanyama\u2019s 32-footer to force a double overtime was the product of flow state and downright arrogance, his half-court 3-pointer at the end of the first half of Game 4 was born out of desperation […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[226,241],"class_list":["post-1954258","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-crawlmanager","tag-nytimes-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1954258","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1954258"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1954258\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1954258"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1954258"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1954258"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}