Thunder 119, Spurs 98: The Day After Report

Final: Thunder (34-7) def. Spurs (27-13), 119-98

Box Score | Play-by-Play

• Maybe it was just because some shots finally fell, but OKC looked confidently themselves against the Spurs for the first time this season.
• Shai Gilgeous-Alexander scored 13 of his 34 points as the Thunder took the first-quarter lead and never fell behind again.
• And for the first time against San Antonio, the Thunder played one of their runaway third quarters to put the Spurs to bed. SGA scored 15 of those 34 in the third frame, as OKC turned a 3-point halftime lead into a commanding 19-point margin.
• OKC put the clamps on Victor Wembanyama and the Spurs, holding San Antonio to under 100 points for the first time this season.
• The starters were all defensive playmakers: three blocks for Chet Holmgren, two steals for JDub, four blocks for Shai, three steals for Cason Wallace. Temporary starter Aaron Wiggins threw in two blocks for good measure.
• Holmgren has had three or more blocks in seven of his last nine games. It’s never an easy night for Chet against Wemby, but he held his ground and helped limit the Spurs’ phenom to 17 points and seven rebounds.
• Ajay Mitchell (11 points, 6 rebounds, 4 assists, 1 steal) is also legitimate playmaker on defense. With Lu Dort sitting, Mitchell played an important hand in bottling the perimeter alongside the other Thunder demons. Only two players in the league have more steals in fewer minutes played than the Thunder’s breakout sophomore.
• Cason is the consensus long-term (hyopthetical) Dort replacement. Why not Mitchell? Daigneault has been flexing a secondary playmaker with more pop (Wiggins) into the starting lineup of late, with Mitchell as the overqualified sixth man who will inevitably become a closer. I guess I’m talking myself into him being the Manu 2.0 archetype that James Harden 1.0 felt destined to become. I shouldn't compare him to such lofty talent. He’s more of a Gary Payton/John Stockton hybrid.
• On offense, Jalen Williams was great co-leading the attack, scoring 20 points and shooting 9-for-11 near the rim. OKC had more points in the paint (56) than they average, scoring what would be a league-best rate per-minute (1.23) when Wembanyama was on the court.
• The Thunder went 11-for-30 from three and were 7-for-16 while running away with the game in the second half. Oklahoma City is 15-1 in games they make more than the league average number of threes (13+), and 18-2 in games they shoot better than league average from deep (35.8%+).
• Shai hypnotizing Julian Champagnie and Wemby with a pump fake before lobbing to Chet was one of the smoothest plays of the season.

• I love watching Shai Gilgeous-Alexander's Thunder play against Victor Wembanyama's Spurs, and not just when OKC wins. The rivalry is real, and it’s fun. Watching Luke Kornet loaf onto the court while the alien sits down just drains the excitement from the game.
• Not that I yearn for maximum Wemby minutes. OKC winning the 28 minutes he played +14 felt just right.
• It’s funny how a standard push-off becomes a potential technical foul when the—pardon my French—junk of the guy guarding you is even with your elbow. This is really nobody's fault. Wemby just creates very rare and sometimes weird dynamics on the court when he's guarding players like SGA.
• Jaylin Williams has been shooting poorly from three all season (29.7%), and was just 2-7 from the arc last night. But teams keep biting hard on his pump fake, leading to some adventures in lumbering-but-mostly-successful drives from the lovable big. This reverse layup was a big oof.

• Dean Oliver just tweeted about teams laying off Dylan Harper to great effect. So of course he went 2-for-3 against the Thunder.
• In pregame comments, Mark Daigneault acknowledged the value of matching up against a team as formidable as the Spurs. His point was well taken, but what stood out was an especially humorous display of his overly humble demeanor: “If we were fortunate enough to qualify for the playoffs…” he prefaced his comments with, these games will be extra valuable "datapoints". That’s a big if, Mark. The Thunder could lose 90% of their remaining games and still make the play-in.

One Key Takeaway: R-E-L-A-X

OKC was 8 games up before they first played the Spurs. They just lost three head-to-head games against San Antonio during their most tumultuous stretch of the last two seasons. They are up 6.5 games on San Antonio. The Spurs (or anyone else in the West) haven’t really gained ground on the ~struggling~ champs.

Expectations are sky-high for OKC, as they should be. They blew out San Antonio without two starters (Dort and Isaiah Hartenstein). They’ve played just five games all season with both JDub and iHart in the lineup, with Williams on the mend. Yet they're 34-7 with one of the best defenses of all time.

They’re defending the title. It ain’t easy, and when the Thunder don’t rain threes, it ain’t pretty. But they’re the best team in basketball, and they’re playing better than everyone else. Including the Spurs.