Five things we learned from the OKC-San Antonio mega series
The Spurs are in the Finals. Let's take stock of a whirlwind series.
NBA Finals matchups don’t get much better than this upcoming Spurs-Knicks series — the full arrival of Victor Wembanyama and the precocious Spurs, the uber-popular Knicks, backed by the full weight of NYC.
Before that, though, we have to look back on one of the best playoff series we have seen in years in the NBA. San Antonio’s whirlwind, back-and-forth seven-gamer against the juggernaut OKC Thunder is memorable for a lot of reasons.
Here are some things we learned.
The Spurs built one of the most playoff-ready young teams in NBA history
If there is one thing that stands out to me about this Spurs team, it’s how ready their core guys all looked for the big moments. They were calm and calculated.
Consider: The most widely-known and accepted way to beat this OKC team is do not turn the ball over, at all costs. The Thunder are gambling ball-hawks and will go on frantic, fastbreak-fueled runs if you let them. But from a coach’s perspective, there is no one specific strategy to not turn the ball over. You have to execute as a collective and maintain your aggression without taking undue risks.
This is exactly what the Spurs did. In Game 7, they again limited turnovers and kept OKC out of transition. Their superpower, in addition to Wembanyama’s singular impact, is their suite of reliable playmaking guards: Stephon Castle, De’Aaron Fox, Dylan Harper. These are all high-level passers and shotmakers who are not rattled by aggressive defense, but rather prey on it.
It’s one of multiple reasons why San Antonio specifically is a very difficult matchup for the Thunder.
OKC could not overcome Jalen Williams and Ajay Mitchell going down
Apart from Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, these are the two injuries that OKC could least afford. J-Dub and Mitchell are their second and third-best on-ball playmakers and release valves. When the Thunder lost games in the regular season, they usually came when one or both was out.
OKC is flush with depth everywhere except at this spot. Jared McCain put up a valiant effort, but at the end of the day, the Thunder did not have nearly enough secondary scoring. The Spurs were able to collapse the floor on SGA. When OKC ran offense with SGA off the ball, it was often an adventure.
The Thunder nearly won the series anyway. They absolutely had their chances. But with at least one of these guys playing, it could’ve been a different outcome. It’s why OKC is likely to run back a very similar team next season.
This series will go down as Wemby’s arrival
Every game felt like a referendum on SGA’s MVP trophy and whether Wemby had surpassed him as the best player in the world. I still lean toward SGA, fresh off a dominant Game 7 performance despite the loss, keeping that title. But Wemby is getting harder and harder to deny.
When OKC exclusively guarded him with centers post-Game 1, Wemby gradually figured out that he can use his quickness and ball-handling to create shots. He rolled hard to the rim and attracted constant extra attention. His jumpers kept falling in Games 6 and 7, including 3-of-5 from three last night.
The play that OKC never figured out
San Antonio kept running this play and offshoots of it:
Castle can choose which direction to go here. This is great spacing for Wemby’s roll to the rim, because the other screener (Devin Vassell) is a grade-A shooter flaring out. McCain pulls in from the corner, and Castle makes the difficult pass to the open guy.
OKC was never going to let Wemby get dunks on this play. Instead, the Spurs would kick it out to shooters like Julian Champagnie, who kicked into gear after a bricky start to the series. He nailed 6-of-10 threes in Game 7.
Chet Holmgren crumbled
You can’t talk about this series without acknowledging Holmgren, who went a very loud 1-of-2 for four points in Game 7. He had four rebounds in 32 minutes. When OKC passed him the ball in the second half, he was more likely to fumble it in his hands than make something good happen.
The popular narrative here is that Holmgren is scared of Wemby, his longtime vicious rival and the improved version of him at everything on a basketball court. Sometimes the popular narrative has a point. Chet was out of sorts completely.
In the regular season, Holmgren made real improvements to his game coming out of last year’s playoff run, when his deliberate style and slow release limited his offensive impact. To state the obvious: those improvements did not carry over in this series, at all.
Holmgren’s core issue is that his offensive bag of tricks works very well in an empty gym or in a one-on-one context. They are methodical and coordinated. In tight playoff series like this, the game moves too fast and help defenders are too predatory. Those moves evaporate in that context.
The injuries to J-Dub and Mitchell magnified Chet’s flaws. OKC needed more than he could give them.
This should be the first of many encounters between these teams
We should get many more series like this. OKC will have to get creative to keep some key players, especially Isaiah Hartenstein, and their salary cap will only get tougher to manage. But they will be able to run back a similar core of players and set up a similar collision course next year.
I’m already ready for the 2027 rematch. In the meantime, Spurs vs. Knicks starts on Wednesday.