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Michael C. Wright, ESPN Staff WriterOct 31, 2024, 02:45 AM ET
- Joined ESPN in 2010
- Previously covered Bears for ESPN.com
- Played college football at West Texas A&M
OKLAHOMA CITY — Chet Holmgren led a suffocating defensive effort by the Oklahoma City Thunder in their 105-93 win Wednesday over the San Antonio Spurs. Yet in immediate aftermath, the 22-year-old found himself downplaying the budding rivalry with Spurs 7-footer Victor Wembanyama.
Asked about the spectacle of the matchup with Wembanyama, who unanimously won NBA Rookie of the Year last season, Holmgren, the runner-up, chalked it all up to promotion.
“Because the NBA is a business, and the league has been built around players playing basketball,” Holmgren said. “It’s about getting people to come and watch the games. That’s one of the ways they do it: by advertising the players. I just see it as a form of advertisement. It doesn’t change what our mission is. We’re trying to win the basketball games. The NBA is gonna handle the business around it.”
Holmgren certainly took care of business on the court, though he matched up against the Spurs star on only a few occasions, going 2-for-3 with Wembanyama defending for seven points.
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Holmgren, meanwhile, limited San Antonio’s shooters to 10 points on 4-for-17 from the floor and 0-for-7 from deep as the primary defender.
The Thunder finished with 18 steals, nine in each half, for their second most in a game since the team arrived in Oklahoma City for the 2008-09 season. Six players (Holmgren, Jalen Williams, Cason Wallace, Alex Caruso, Ousmane Dieng, Ajay Mitchell) gobbled up multiple steals, which ties for their most in one outing since the franchise moved.
As a team, the Thunder racked up 27 points off 22 Spurs turnovers.
“We won tonight on the defensive end,” Holmgren said. “It wasn’t perfect on offense. I feel like we were very solid almost throughout the whole game on the defensive end.”
Holmgren opened the night with a block on Wembanyama and a steal off Jeremy Sochan on San Antonio’s first possession. Holmgren finished as the game’s second-leading scorer with 19 points, 5 rebounds and 2 assists to go with 2 steals and 2 blocks.
When Holmgren contested shots as the primary or help defender, San Antonio shot 2-for-12 from the floor. He served as the primary defender for just two of Wembanyama’s shots, both misses.
Wembanyama has struggled over his first four games, shooting 22-for-54 from the field with 15 total turnovers.
Dressed in a white Nike sweatsuit, Wembanyama tied up his size 20.5 shoes and took a seat to reflect on a night in which he logged career lows in points (6) and field goals (1). He shook his head when asked if he was getting the shots he wanted on a nightly basis.
“I’m not getting easy shots,” Wembanyama said. “I have to be way better at preparing. Of course, my shot feels good. Physically, I feel good. But I need to be much better at preparing and getting conditions to have those easy shots.”
After the game, Popovich apologized to the media assembled at Paycom Center for taking so long to start his postgame news conference. The coach said he needed to address the team first. Popovich didn’t take questions.
“That’s a very good defensive team,” he said. “It’s a playoff team that’s very possibly going very deep into the playoffs. They’re a better team than we are. But that’s beside the point. We’re trying to get to their level.”
Wembanyama addressed Popovich’s assertion that San Antonio loses focus in games and said the team may be “feeling a little lost,” adding that “sometimes we get a little less solid. I think this is kind of the issue more than engagement.”
He also spoke on all the extra attention that comes with facing off against Holmgren. Both players often try to deflect the hoopla away from the individual matchup to focus the attention on the teams.
Is it exhausting?
“It’s not,” Wembanyama said, “because I don’t have a social network right now. I’m not following that at all. So I don’t feel that. But every time I go up against a good player at that position, it’s a different kind of challenge because it’s not the case with every team. Not every team has an offensive-minded big. So it’s always a good challenge.”
