I had previously predicted that if the Thunders were able to hold one particular Spurs player to lower performance that they would be able to win all the rest of the games. It appears as though they tried shut down Victor Wembanyama as a priority so much that they forgot to actually score points of their own.
Wemby was basically a one-man-army in this thing with his 33 points. There was plenty of use of the bench and the rest of the team but all eyes were still on him. It is tough to imagine one player being so dominant that the inability to shut him down means the team is going to excel but man oh man, that is exactly what we saw in the absolute masterclass that San Antonio put on with their 103-82 win over Oklahoma City
It's not like OKC is making any mistakes here. They are all over Wembanyama like white on rice, but the dude is just so good that he manages to get through no matter how many people they put on him. The above picture is kind of a humorous example of 'how the hell do you prevent this?"
As I have mentioned many times before, this new breed of center has completely changed the game in the NBA. Gone are the days of the slow beefcake centers like Shaq who would simply muscle their way to 2 pointer after 2 pointer by sheer menace and the fact that he weighs 100 lbs more than anyone else on the court. Now we are dealing with very tall, very fast, centers that are also capable of pulling off shots at range. You may remember how Shaq was pretty famous for not being able to make any shot outside of the paint and would regularly miss free-throws. That is not at all the case with Victor Wembanyama.
I want you to keep in mind that this "little guy" Devin Vassell is probably bigger than anyone you have ever met at 6 foot 5 and 200 pounds of absolute speed. Vassell is one of the guys on the team that must be perfectly ok with the team centering around one guy because he, Fox, and Castle will normally put in around 10 points each but their primary focus seems to be opening lanes for Wemby... and guess what? it fucking works.
I had said in the previous 2 games that it appeared as though the Thunder had figured out a way of shutting the big man down and for a lot of game 4 it seemed like they were doing exactly that. They may have been focusing on it too much though because it started to look like OKC just forgot that in order to win any game you also have to make some of your own shots. Their shooting percentages were just awful especially from 3-point range where they went and abysmal 6-33. If that seems terrible their regular 2-point percentage was pretty awful as well going 30-91. It's tough to win a game when you are missing this many shots.
17 turnover on the part of the Thunder certainly didn't help.
The formula for victory against the Spurs seems to be to somehow hold Victor to 25 points and force him to use his teammates who don't seem to have the scoring proficiency that he does. But at the same time you have to materfully somehow manage to pull down some offense at the same time and that is tough against a team like San Antonio, a team that has some of the best "D" of any team in the past 5 years.
Over on the other side in the East the semi-final is still a snooze fest and it appears as though the Cavaliers have already given up. The Knicks went up by 10 in the first quarter and from that point forward the Cavaliers almost seemed like they are just cruising and no longer care if they lose. Maybe that is the right attitude to have seeing as how no team has ever come back from 3-0 in the NBA tournament. In fact, there have only been 4 instances where the team that was down 3 games even forced a game 7 and in all of those instances that team still lost. The most recent was when the Miami heat put my Celtics out of their misery in 2023.
If you were only going to watch a couple of games this entire NBA season, the next 2 or 3 games in the Western Conference Finals are going to be the most heated and competitive games that are going to happen in this tournament as the San Antonio Spurs were never given much a chance by the bookies and pundits and they have a bone to pick and want to prove the world wrong. Can they pull it off? Well I'm at the point that I kind of want them to seeing as how legacy teams that always win annoy me in a general sense.
The next game takes place in Oklahoma City on the 26th and despite really showing up OKC in game 4 the bookies are still favoring the Thunder by 6 points. I guess that home court advantage is really a factor.