The Oklahoma City Thunder are knocking on the door of destiny, maybe even dynasty. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander has one hand on basketball immortality.
But as one of the most riveting playoff series you will ever see goes deeper, a best-of-seven Western Conference Finals whittled down to a best of three, it’s getting more and more clear.
The window for the Thunder achieving the sustained greatness they’ve been meticulously groomed for — trade by trade, draft pick by draft pick — is already shrinking. Gilgeous-Alexander is at risk of having the window slam on his fingers. His second consecutive MVP award is at risk of sitting on a shelf without the matching hardware from a second consecutive NBA championship.
No one is to blame, really. It’s the reality of the challenge the San Antonio Spurs and one-of-a-kind 22-year-old French star Victor Wembanyama represent.
In a series that has appeared to hang in the balance almost every minute of every game — starting with the opening frames of the double-overtime Game 1 classic the Spurs won on the Thunder’s home court — the Spurs seem to have gained the upper hand. The Thunder look on the back foot.
It can change back in an instant if the Thunder can win Game 5 on Tuesday at the Paycom Center (Sportsnet, Sportsnet+, 8:30 p.m. ET / 5:30 p.m. PT) in front of passionate fans in Oklahoma City, where the faithful share in a collective prayer before the ball goes up and stand as one until the home team’s first shot drops.
But the Spurs aren’t giving a just-happy-to-be-here vibe, even if they’ve never been here before.
“It was our first deficit in a playoff series, and we just responded,” Wembanyama, who is averaging 30.3 points, 13.3 rebounds, 4.3 assists, three blocks and 1.3 steals while shooting 52.6 per cent from the floor against the NBA’s best regular-season defence and has been the best player in the series, told the media in San Antonio.
“But it was nothing amazing, it wasn't magic, we just did what we needed to do, and the series is far from over. We got six more wins before we can rest."
The youthful Spurs and Wembanyama are giving no signs of feeling their way around their first playoff run together. They’re coming for blood.
In San Antonio, the Spurs sprinted out to a 15-0 lead in the first four minutes of Game 3 — the longest unanswered scoring burst to start a game in NBA conference finals history. The Thunder were able to weather that storm and played their best basketball of the series to at least earn a split away from home. In Game 4, the Thunder scored in the opening minute, at least, but a 16-0 run Spurs run later in the first quarter gave San Antonio control of what ended up being a 103-82 blowout win.
Gilgeous-Alexander took his sunglasses off when he faced the media in San Antonio after Game 4, as if to acknowledge there’s no hiding from this: “They just punched us in our face early, just two games in a row, they've come out the aggressors,” he said. “The last game (Game 3), we were able to course correct, (in Game 4) we just didn't do so.
“Obviously, it's a little bit more challenging when you're on the road, and we know that, got to go out there and do it if we want to win games, especially against a team that good.”
Which is the problem. The Spurs might be that good. They held the Thunder to an effective field-goal percentage (which combines the value of two- and three-point field goals) of 36.3 in Game 4, the lowest in Thunder franchise playoff history.
And they held Gilgeous-Alexander to just 19 points on 40 per cent shooting. It’s become a pattern. Through four games, the Thunder star is averaging just 24.8 points per game while shooting 39.2 per cent from the floor and 26.7 per cent from two-point range.
It’s a steep drop considering his lofty stature. The Canadian national team star from Hamilton, Ont., won his second straight MVP award in part by combining scoring volume with historic efficiency, putting up 31.1 points on 55.3 per cent shooting, including 38.6 per cent from three during the regular season. Combined with his ability to draw fouls and convert at the line, Gilgeous-Alexander joined Stephen Curry as the only guards in NBA history to average 31 points or more with a true shooting percentage (capture value of threes, twos and free throws) of 66.0 or better.
But the Spurs and Wembanyama are presenting a level of challenge that even a master problem solver — “I have the answers to the test; I just need to see the questions first” was his memorable line after he hit a game-winner against Denver earlier this season — like Gilgeous-Alexander is struggling with.
Second-year Spurs guard Stephon Castle, a six-foot-six cable of energy and aggression, is going to present problems for any offensive player. He didn’t make an all-defensive team this season, but he will make many of them in the future.
“Best perimeter defence in the league,” teammate Devin Vassell said after Game 4. “He holds himself to that standard; he buys in all the time. He's ultra physical, knows how to slide his feet, has quick hands, he's just a pest the whole game. “
But Gilgeous-Alexander gets the NBA’s best defenders every game he plays and it clearly doesn’t bother him.
Where the Spurs are different is that Castle is just one of many like-minded and like-sized defensive options San Antonio can deploy, and lurking behind whoever is guarding Gilgeous-Alexander is Wembanyama, he of the eight-foot wingspan, quick feet and agile mind. If and when SGA can evade the first defender, Wembanyama is like a prison-yard fence: tall, imposing and covered in razor wire. Freedom lies on the other side, but getting there will always be very difficult.
“They have multiple guys that are tenacious, they get into the ball, and then they have Wemby behind them, and they know that they use that to their strength,” said Gilgeous-Alexander. “So, yeah, obviously a really good defence, they've been a really good defence all year, and to score on them is going to take like quick decisions, smart decisions or right decisions. You gotta be really good offensively, really sound.”
Not helping the Thunder’s cause is that their next two most important ball-handlers and playmakers — Jalen Williams and Ajay Mitchell — missed Game 4 with hamstring soreness and a calf strain, respectively.
With neither of them on the floor, the Spurs were able to focus their considerable defensive energy on Gilgeous-Alexander, but instead of trapping him as they had earlier it the series, they trusted Castle or whichever fresh-legged alternative they wanted to dial up to harass the Thunder star one-on-one until they could steer him into Wembanyama’s territory.
Meanwhile, the rest of the Spurs defenders were able to stay home on the Thunder’s supporting cast. The bench group that outscored the Spurs reserves 133-48 in Games 2 and 3 — feeding on Gilgeous-Alexander’s playmaking — was held to just 34 points in Game 4 while shooting 12-of-47 from the floor.
Chet Holmgren, who was named third-team all-NBA just before Game 4, has been invisible against Wembanyama and the Spurs, averaging just 11.3 points per game on 46.9 per cent shooting.
In the first two rounds of the playoffs, against teams that don’t have Wembanyama, Holmgren was averaging 18.6 points on 60 per cent shooting. Even his defence has turtled, with the first-team all-defence selection averaging just 0.8 blocks per game against San Antonio, or less than half of his regular-season rate.
Taken in aggregate — the holistic fury of the Spurs defence, the lack of offensive support he’s had in the face of it — Gilgeous-Alexander has an opportunity as the series shifts back to Oklahoma City: find a way.
Given the circumstances, it will be hard to find fault with Gilgeous-Alexander if the Thunder's design on repeating as champions fall short.
The Spurs are a special team, clearly on the rise. The NBA precedent that comes to mind is the Detroit Pistons in the late 1980s and early 1990s, a superb team led by Hall of Famer Isaiah Thomas that managed to win consecutive championships in 1989 and 1990 before the Chicago Bulls, led by an ascendant Michael Jordan, swept them aside in the Eastern Conference and won six titles in eight seasons.
In this analogy, the Thunder are the Pistons, Wembanyama is Jordan and the Spurs are the Bulls.
If the Thunder and Gilgeous-Alexander are going to maintain their grip in the NBA hierarchy, it’s going to take something special — maybe historic.
Wembanyama is a new kind of monster, and if Gilgeous-Alexander is going to continue on his hero’s journey, finding a way to slay him will take every weapon in his arsenal.
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