Victor Wembanyama and Chet Holmgren play for groups that occupy two very completely different locations within the Western Convention standings. The San Antonio Spurs are going to be within the working for a second-consecutive No. 1 total choose. The Oklahoma City Thunder are a recreation behind the Minnesota Timberwolves for the highest seed within the convention, and Holmgren teammate Shai Gilgeous-Alexander would possibly win MVP. Wembanyama’s rookie season as a person participant has been higher than Holmgren’s, however the playoff-bound Thunder had throttled the Spurs in two earlier conferences.
On Thursday night time, the Spurs received their twelfth recreation of the season with a 132-118 victory over the Thunder. An enormous cause for the shock win was the 2 groups inverting 3-point taking pictures potential for an evening. The Spurs are the worst workforce within the league from behind the arc and shot almost 49 p.c from lengthy vary on Thursday. At nearly 40 p.c, the Thunder have transformed from the 3-point line at a greater price than any workforce within the NBA this season. They made lower than 30 p.c of their threes within the loss, although.
By way of three quarters, the Thunder shot simply as poorly as they did within the fourth quarter, however they managed to enter the ultimate 12 minutes down solely two factors. Wembanyama performed each minute within the fourth and made a number of huge performs whereas main his workforce to their first win in additional than two weeks. He scored eight factors and stuffed out the stat sheet with three rebounds, three assists and two blocks within the quarter.
What made Wembanyama so efficient within the fourth quarter is that he was stringing huge performs collectively on either side of the ground. When the Spurs have been up three with simply over 4 minutes to play, he recorded an help on a Tre Jones 3-pointer, defended Gilgeous-Alexander on a play that I believed ought to have been a block in real-time, after which got here down the court docket and hit a 3.
Shortly after that sequence, Wembanyama hit one other shot from behind the arc and picked up Holmgren on the high of the important thing. As exhausting as the enormous in Thunder blue tried, he couldn’t shake the enormous in white. Wembanyama stuffed Holmgren’s midrange try.
This battle between the 2 favorites for Rookie of the 12 months was so thrilling that Contained in the NBA led with that non-nationally televised recreation versus the late recreation aired on TNT. The recap the present bumped was an NBA Finals rematch between the Miami Heat and Denver Nuggets that was determined within the remaining minutes.
Wembanyama completed the night time with 28 factors, 13 rebounds, seven assists, two steals and 5 blocks on 52.9/71.4./71.4 taking pictures splits. Holmgren was not half-stepping with 23 factors, seven rebounds and 5 assists, however he made just one three and tried no free throws. The night time belonged to the younger man from France.
Wembanyama has most likely misplaced extra basketball video games this season than he has in his complete life, however he has powered by means of all of these defeats this season, and has at all times stepped as much as the problem towards Holmgren. For the entire struggles he has handled in his first NBA season, dominating the participant that he’s most in comparison with have to be an ideal feeling.
The Spurs entrance workplace has a number of work forward of them in the event that they need to be nearly as good because the Thunder. And so they had higher get to work rapidly if they need Wembanyama to play greater than half of his profession in south Texas. This high draft choose has been nice all season, and put the exclamation level on along with his first win over a rival by making game-winning performs towards him.
