12:20
As Oklahoma City gets the victory, 122 to 113. And this was a much better night for the Thunder. They shot 36% from the field. How about Chet Holmgren? He added 13 points. Cason Wallace off the bench with 12 points and four rebounds. Alex Caruso, we know what he's capable of, 17 points and five dimes and Cason had 25 points, but he had nine turnovers. OKC had nine turnovers as a team, people. And Victor, he did his thing, too, but Spurs, too many self-inflicted wounds, in my opinion. Time now to welcome in TBS Sports NBA analyst John Gonzalez and NBA champion and former NBA Coach of the Year Avery Johnson. And y'all, the Spurs shot
better from the field, better from three, and out-rebounded OKC in this game. And yet, the Thunder pull off the electric victory. How did they regain their willpower and confidence to tie the series at one, John? Yeah, I mean, Oklahoma City played better all the way around, right? SGA was much better to start this game one. He had a slow start. Tonight, he came to play from the opening jump. And then they lose Jaylen Williams, and what what we talked about pregame was the supporting cast had to be better, right? And Chet Holmgren was marginally better. We'll put him to the side. Everybody else, though, was significantly better.
Isaiah Hartenstein was fantastic tonight. Goes for a double-double. He was physical with Wemby. Wemby still did Wemby stuff. His line was ridiculous, but maybe not by game one Wemby standards, but for any other normal human, Wemby still had a fantastic game. But the rest of the supporting cast, you mentioned Alex Caruso. He was great again. That's two good games for him. AJ Mitchell gave him a little something. He leaves late in the fourth quarter. Here comes Jared McCain. Can we talk about Jared McCain for a second, the guy that the Sixers supposedly sold high on in game two of the Western Conference Finals that the defending champions absolutely had to have? Jared McCain took the second most shots behind only SGA.
That's the depth that the Thunder are known for. It's the reason why they were the one seed. It's the reason why they won tonight. That's why they were so good. Just because they can throw so many different guys at you. We haven't even gotten to Lou Dort and Cason Wallace playing fantastic defense. So, in a night when Oklahoma City absolutely could not afford to lose a second straight game at home to start this series. They all answered the bell. Really good effort from the Thunder tonight. In business, we always talk about if you're selling a product, what makes the product really good, or your procedure, or your process. But, really ultimately it's all about the people.
And the people and the team for the Spurs, they turn the ball over too much. When you have 21 turnovers, it doesn't matter whether you call horns up, horn side, fist chest, you've given Oklahoma City 21 turnovers. That's 21 times you didn't have a chance to shoot a free throw, to get an offensive rebound, to get a shot at the basket. So, it's self-inflicted wounds by the Spurs. Castles has got now he's got what? 19, 20 turnovers in two games. Normally, he wouldn't have that amount in a 10-game stretch. So, ball security is going to be very important. Also, when you look at the OKC Thunder, 57 points off the bench.
That's a big number. 57 points. So, the Spurs what when they're losing De'Aaron Fox, he's not in the lineup, obviously. Harper went out. He didn't play his normal minutes. That's that's a major deficit for the Spurs. So, we'll see if we can get both of those guys back for game three. Yeah, head coach Mitch Johnson said he had no update on Dylan Harper after he left the game in the third quarter. Uh let's go back to Stephon Castle though, coach, because 20 turnovers in two games. And I know part of it is because De'Aaron Fox is out, right? And now Dylan Harper. So, how do you fix that problem? Do you Do
you feel like it's something that can be solved? Because that's something that has plagued him throughout his career, right? Turning the ball over at a high clip. We know how great he is defensively, getting to the rim, but careless with the ball, that's something that could really come back to bite him. I'm telling him those 10 times that he's thinking about passing the ball, shoot the ball seven of those 10. You don't even have to We know he You're unselfish. You're two-time in uh champion in college. We You're great, but shoot the basketball because you got Victor Wembanyama. If you miss the shot, maybe he'll get the offensive rebound.
Hartenstein was terrific on the offensive glass for OKC tonight. So, in those situations, you don't have to be unselfish. He was trying to make plays that weren't there. Trying to throw his teammates open. He's You're not an NFL quarterback. Just shoot the basketball. If he could do those things, simplify the game. The rest of his game is pretty good. He's scoring the ball at a high level, but uh add, you know, five, six, seven more field goal attempts to your game rather than trying to make those unnecessary plays, which the byproduct of that is he's turning the ball over. Yeah, a little bit of a mixed bag from him tonight, right? Because uh Avery's right. I mean, he was efficient shooting the ball overall from the floor, 10 of
17. But then, he didn't shoot the ball well from deep. And then, those nine turnovers were killer. But then, you know, he has that monster dunk, uh and everybody's excited about it. So, he was kind of all over the place tonight. But the turnovers really are the key. 20 turnovers through the first two games are killer. In the first uh game, game one, the Spurs had 23 turnovers that led to 28 points for Oklahoma City, and still it didn't end up hurting them in terms of them winning the game. They had to go to double overtime to do it, but they overcame it. Tonight, it was just too much. 21 turnovers leading to 27 points. And we all know that's what Oklahoma City loves to do. Over the last
2 years, they're the best team in the NBA at turning you over and generating offense out of those turnovers. So, the Spurs know that's something that they need to control, but that's easier said than done because no Fox, so that takes a ball handler away from them. Again, he was out again with an ankle injury. And then Dylan Harper, who was fantastic in game one, the injury bug bites him, too. He leaves in the third quarter, doesn't come back with a hamstring strain. We'll see whether or not he can go for game three. But, they're asking Stephon Castle to do so much, and he's been fantastic overall in his career and especially in this season. He has really taken a step
forward. He gives them so much energy. He gives them a lot at the defensive end. He's athletic. He can score the ball as Avery said. But, the turnovers were killer tonight, and he absolutely has to get that under control as the series goes back for game three in San Antonio. Otherwise, you're just really setting up Oklahoma City and playing into their hands. That's how they like to play basketball. So, that's the something that the Spurs have to look at for the next game for sure. And there's no guarantee, right, that they're going to have De'Aaron Harper or De'Aaron Fox.
I thought there was a chance that De'Aaron Fox wasn't going to play in this game, too. Of course, he sat out for the second straight game. For OKC, Jalen Williams, he goes out right after halftime or during halftime, I should say, doesn't come back for the second half. When you think about the players on the court right now and who OKC doesn't have compared to who San Antonio doesn't have, coach, who is going to impact who's going to be impacted more if we don't see those three players in Dylan Harper, right? And we talk about, you know, my man Jalen Williams, and then also De'Aaron Fox.
I think it's De'Aaron Fox is going to impact it because when you look at Dylan Harper, he played what, 47 minutes Mhm. in that double overtime game. That was a little bit more than what he normally plays. And when now if you're talking he's got a strained hamstring, that could be very problematic. So, the Spurs, whatever they have to do, rub something on De'Aaron Fox's ankles or whatever, they got to call my wife, Nurse Cassandra. We got to do something to get him on the floor because my wife and I will be in attendance for game three in San Antonio at Frost Bank Center. So, we would love to see De'Aaron Fox in uniform, especially if Dylan Harper has to miss the next game.
Yeah, you got to get your wife out there, Avery. Maybe a Mr. Miyagi situation. Something's got to happen, but I'm 100% in agreement with Avery that the Spurs will be more impacted here because you're taking away two of the three, two of the three depending on if Fox and Dylan Harper can't go, two of their three ball handlers. And we saw what happened tonight, right? Again, it's Stephon Castle show, and he's fantastic, but you're asking him to do so much. You're asking him to do so much that at one point Mitch Johnson dusted off Jordan McLaughlin, and some people who might be casual NBA fans might be asking, "Who?" And that's exactly right. He barely played for the Spurs this season, but they needed him to come out there.
Harrison Barnes had sort of fallen out of the rotation. He had to come back into the rotation. Devin Vassell had more playmaking duties, and that's just asking guys to do stuff that they're not normally asked to do. Whereas, Jalen Williams, that is a huge bummer for Oklahoma City. And by the way, all these injuries are bumpers for all of us. I would love to just turn off the injuries, but the Oklahoma City Thunder are better set up to withstand not having Jalen Williams, a player of his caliber, an all-NBA and all-defense player uh in the NBA than basically any team, right? Because they're so incredibly deep. And by the way, they Jalen Williams missed 55 games overall this season, and Oklahoma City still finished with the number one seed
and are in the Western Conference Finals, and that's a credit to their depth. So, they're better suited to withstand the loss of a guy like that than the Spurs are, especially with the ball handling and turnover issues. And as we look ahead, But for the Spurs, Yeah. mission accomplished. Okay, you get a split on the road, you know, against the defending world champions. It whether it came in game one or game two, they're going back to San Antonio landing the jet, and it's 1-1. So, you have home-court advantage. You've taken that away from OKC. The Spurs have one of the best home courts in all of sports.
Those fans are going to be on fire. So, the place is the roof is going to come off the building on Friday night. So, what is going to be the key, coach, then for San Antonio to get a win to go up 2-1 outside of the obvious issue with the turnovers? They can't do that, right, against the defending champs. They got to do a better job on Alex Caruso. You know, my son played with Alex Caruso at Texas A&M of doing his freshman season. So, we had a real up-close and a front-row seat to watch Alex as he matriculated and grew doing his college career. And then I ended up coaching against him when I was coaching at Alabama. So, they got to do a much better job. I don't think Wembanyama is a good matchup to
defend Alex Caruso. So, you got to find a better matchup for him because he's he didn't have 30 points in this game, but man, he was really highly efficient and effective, and he was the another leader at giving a spark off the bench for Oklahoma City. Yeah, I think just to add on to that, you know, game one, the Spurs dominated the points in the paint. A lot of that had to do with Wembanyama's shot diet because he was killing them down low. In game two, Oklahoma City actually ended up winning the points in the paint. So, I'd like to see the Spurs get back to that. And then what we were talking about in game one where they lose Fox and they elevate Dylan Harper into that starting lineup just about those guards
really harassing SGA. They weren't as good or as effective at it tonight. Now, that's a tall order, right? Cuz he's the back-to-back MVP. He's good for a reason. It's hard to slow him down in consecutive games. But whether or not they have Dylan Harper back, we'd like to see Castle and Vassell and Champagnie make life a little bit more difficult for SGA. Again, tough to do, but he was just super efficient tonight. And they were actually kind of lucky the Spurs were that he didn't shoot as many free throws as he probably could have because he once he gets there, he's absolutely automatic. But, points in the paint and trying to slow him down, at least make it difficult for him. Be a little bit
more physical with SGA going back for game three. The Thunder get the victory 122 to 113 to tie the series up at one. John Gonzalez, Avery Johnson, always appreciate the inside, brothers. So, game three is Friday in San Antonio. And Coach Avery Johnson, as he mentioned, will be there for the match up. Then Sunday, it's game four. Game five will be Tuesday, 8:30 Eastern, back in OKC.
