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did not disappoint tonight between the Thunder and the Spurs. The Thunder went on to win 127 to 114. And while you would expect a big game out of SGA, the reigning two-time back-to-back MVP, it was also some surprising names in that Thunder mix. Alex Caruso with 22 points, Jared McCain with 20 points, and Chad Holgrren shown up with 16. So, a group effort from the Thunder. Time to welcome in CBS Sports NBA analysts John Gonzalez and Noah Bono. And no AJ Mitchell, no Jaylen Williams for the Thunder, but no problem in game five. Who went on to win that game, the Thunder? What was the biggest difference
in the way that you think they played tonight? John, I'll start with you. Yeah, SGA got to the line. I mean, he wasn't super efficient. He had some turnovers, but it was a better performance for him in just being aggressive and knowing that if he can get a foul call and if he can get to the line, he's automatic when he gets there. Shot 17 free throws tonight. Made 16, ends up with 32 points. I thought that was big. And then Mark Dagnel also juggling his lineup a little bit because uh in game three his bench was huge and then in game four it wasn't. And so he decided, okay, no AJ Mitchell, no Jaylen Williams. Starts Jared McCain tonight, which I thought was really interesting and gutsy because this is a
guy who has not started many games in his entire career. Only came to the Thunder at the trade deadline. Had a good game three off the bench, but off the bench is different than being inserted into a starting lineup. So Quesan Wallace goes back to the bench. And in the first half, it looked like it was a mistake. Jared McCain only had two points at the half and then he goes nuts in the second half. Ends up with 20 points. So that was a huge boost because they needed some offense. Hartinstein was excellent tonight. Chad Homegrren, welcome to the series. This wasn't a great game by Chad Homegrren standards, but a double. Still only took nine shots, but this is one of those situations where he was basically useless and invisible in the beginning
of the series. So the Oklahoma City Thunder are happy to get anything out of him, and this was more. So all around it was a really nice bounceback effort by the Thunder, but again led by SGA just being aggressive early and often. The second scoring punch that John touched on with Jared McCain getting rolling and then Alex Cruso having 22 points off the bench is so crucial uh for any team in the postseason and the Thunder really lacked that obviously in game uh four and then tonight it just was Jared McCain getting rolling in the second half and Shay to me outside of games two and three seems like he's really struggled with a lot of the coverages that they've thrown his way to
turn the ball over another six times. He did get 17 free throws. That's incredible. Um, Victor Wemanyama also got to the line a ton, 12 of 12. The biggest thing in this game to me that stood out was how far away Victor Wemanyama was catching the basketball. I thought Jamal Crawford and Reggie Miller did a great job consistently hammering the point of why is he catching the ball so far away. I made a tally in the second half of how many times he touched it in the half court uh above the three-point line. And total he had 13 touches within actions uh in the second half. Nine of those 13 touches he caught beyond the free throw line. Think about how much extra work he was required to do when catching the ball that far out
to then try to make a play down low. Only three of those nine catches resulted in points above the free throw line. Two made baskets and the other one he got to the free throw line. It just it's not a winning recipe. You're playing exactly into the hand of the Oklahoma City Thunder defensively when you make it that difficult on yourself as the San Antonio Spurs to get your best player of the ball so far away from the basket. I just thought it was just malpractice. I mean, cuz when we saw what We WBY was able to do in game one and game four when they just hammer the ball into him in the post and when you run away from it like they did tonight and in game two and game three, this is the result. I mean, you just answered my
question on why you thought Wem maybe struggled this game, but I do want to talk about the Thunder because John, you talked about this a little earlier briefly. We were talking pregame, you wanted SGA to have a bigger presence. You wanted Chad Holgrim to not be invisible. How did they both show up differently that affected this outcome in game five? Yeah, I mean SGA just getting to the line and Noah is right like he has been sort of sloppy with the ball and part of that we should give some credit to the Spurs making sure that you know those big wings and guards who have uh
harassed him. That's part of it, right? But SGA previously was sort of passive looking to score the ball and it almost doesn't matter if he makes it from the field like if he takes a shot and he makes it or doesn't make it as long as he's getting fouled and getting to the line because once he gets to the line he's absolutely automatic. I mean, that's what he does best. It drives some people nuts. Some people call it foul baiting. Uh, I think that it's a skill set. It's something that some players, like we've seen James Harden do that in the past. SGA has essentially perfected it. A two-time MVP knowing that he can get to the line whenever he wants to is huge for them. And then Chad Homegrren, I mean, this
was sort of a mixed bag. Chad Homegrren uh game, we are grading this on a curve here because early in the game, I don't know if you guys clocked this, but Kell Johnson put a shoulder into him and then dunked on him. I'm like, what are you doing? You're so much bigger, Chad Homegrren. You should be you were the runner-up defensive player of the year and you're letting Kelvin Johnson, who's like a half foot shorter than you, just body you. And then WBY blocked him as well. But he also had a dunk on WBY and I thought, okay, well that's good. He's being aggressive, but still only nine shots for him tonight. I mean, again, once again, Jared McCain took significantly more shots. They got they're getting away with it here.
They're up in the series, but I still want to see more from Chad Holgrid. Uh on the other side, for sure, what Noah was saying about WBY makes no sense in we saw it in game uh three and then in game five where he's catching the ball so far out and in game four he wasn't doing that right. They got aggressive with him going into the paint. That's what I want to see from Chad Hongren and that we've only seen intermittently from WBY where you know tonight again he's not catching the ball down low, not as many lobs. It makes very little sense. His offense should be inside out. Start inside and then move outside. He was 0 for five from three tonight. And I'm not I don't get it either.
It's interesting too because when you think about what Jared McCain did in the second half, that's when Chad Homegrren sort of started to drop off and we saw less production from he was big in the first quarter, little bit in the second quarter. Jared McCain was not. So it's almost like this flip-flop. They oscillate between the two of who's going to be that second scoring punch. Meanwhile, Alex Caruso still flirting with being, you know, this lethal role player. um after only having one shot attempt in game four, he really stepped it up again tonight. But it's almost like those two can't coexist and
both play well at the same time. The offense just doesn't work that way where John's saying get it inside outside. Chad can get it inside and pass it outside to a shooter like McCain or the offense is just flirting out on the perimeter where McCain's coming off these dribble handoffs and these pitches and these flips and he's able to light it up. He's such a good mid-range player. That's what got him rolling and then he pulled it out and knocked down a couple three-pointers. And that was the difference because those guys played better than a De'Arren Fox who four minutes into the third quarter was one for nine from the floor. And I'm writing down in my notes, please sub De'Arren
Fox out. The moment he got taken out of the game, the Spurs went on a 14-2 run over the next 2 and 1/2 minutes. And it was an eight-point game. Granted, it didn't end up meaning anything, but he was so bad. And I hate to be that brutally honest, but he just provided so little offensively and defensively because he's clearly hobbled. Yeah. Did he make a couple pull-up jump shots five feet away from the rim later in the game that some of them were could have been big shots if the Spurs could have gotten over the hump? But ultimately, I thought he was more of a deterrent in this game to the Spurs offense and what they were trying to do. It put more of a load on Stefon Castle. He's clearly hurt. So,
it's hard to say, "Oh, he's bad just because he's bad." No, he's clearly dealing with something. And I think when you look at a guy like McCain and then a guy like Darren Fox and you're seeing the impact that the two of them are having, such a drop off on the Spurs side verse what the Thunder were able to get from McCain in the second half. So Noah, you kind of mentioned Caruso 22 points off the bench. Four of the five starters on the Thunder had 12 or more points. Was this more of what the Thunder was doing right or what the Spurs were not doing correct? I think it's a mixed bag. I think the biggest thing is that the Thunder are obviously the more experienced team and that's what tonight was. It was
experience. It was championship pedigree. We don't care that we don't have our second best player, an allNBA guy in Jaylen Williams or our third best on ball creator and AJ Mitchell. We don't care. The Spurs shot themselves in the foot a number of times. Careless passes, errant personal fouls offensively, defensively, just throwing the ball into no man's land. I thought the young guards did. Turnovers won't show this, but Stefon Castle and Dylan Harper specifically, I thought were really careless with the ball and sloppy with their dribble in moments where, you know, there was one play where Darren Fox actually scored, but Dylan Harper threw the ball ahead to him. And I thought the ball already went out of
bounds, but Darren Fox is so fast he was able to chase it down. There was just a lot of moments like that where OKC was so calm and composed in what they wanted to do. They were not getting sped up. And on the San Antonio side, it was like, "Hey guys, this is not a pickup game at Rucker Park. This is the Western Conference Finals and I just think they were too loose with the basketball and then the Wemby piece just being so far away from the rim. That is exactly what San Antonio wants. That's that is a chef's kiss every time the Thunder seem standing at the three-point line or setting a ball screen and not rolling hard to the basket to try to be a lob threat. The Thunder are going, "Hey,
WBY, thanks for doing the work for us." And I think when you add all that up and the Thunder having the pedigree they have as a championship team, I regret picking the Spurs and thinking they were ready for this moment. They very clearly were not and the Thunder showed their true colors as the team, you know, looking to go back to back. It's been a little bit of a weird series, right? because we had game one where both of them were just like trading haymakers and they go to double overtime. But since then they've almost kind of like taken turns on who's going to be good in a given night. And that kind of happens sometimes, right? I mean, look, Oklahoma City had a terrible game for could not shoot at all. Their
bench from game three was incredible. Game four, they just fall apart. The whole team looks awful. The Spurs run them out of the gym. And then they go to Oklahoma City and they reverse roles where all of a sudden, okay, SGA remembers that he's a two-time MVP and he's getting to the line. Chad Homegrren finally has, you know, a good game. We'll do air quotes because your mileage may vary on that. But Hardenstein shows up as Noah mentioned, Alex Caruso flirting with one being one of the best role players in the world. Jared McCain, who went 1 for 10 in game four, comes out and scores 20 points as a starter.
Guy barely plays uh as a starter in his entire career, starts in game five of the Western Conference Final. So, all those guys get going. And then, conversely, the Spurs just didn't answer the bell and weren't ready to play on the road. Sometimes it's hard, right? It's hard to play at Oklahoma City and it's hard to play in San Antonio. And we'll see what whether or not the defending champs pick it up and have a better effort in game six than they had in game four. But uh some of it is self-inflicted for sure for the Spurs because for all the me reasons we mentioned with WBY catching the ball too far from the basket, Fox being hobbled, them just having a really off shooting
night. They shot 29% from deep, that's not going to get it done. Sometimes these things happen. I'll be really interested to see though what version of these two teams we get in game six because now Oklahoma City has a little bit of cushion here and the Spurs don't. They got to win the next two or they're going home. Yeah, this is going to be interesting. I know we just finished game five, but when the series is tied to two, whoever wins game five then goes on to have an 82% chance of winning the series. So, do you feel confident that the Thunder will go on to win the series despite the injuries that they have, John?
Yeah, I picked Oklahoma City in seven. I said before the game tonight that I wasn't going to change that they thought that uh that the Thunder would answer the bell tonight and play better. They absolutely did that. But I'm not counting the Spurs out. I still think it's going seven because they're going back to San Antonio. There's going to be that pressure on them and they're still obviously trying to, you know, figure out how to win in the postseason. But with that home crowd, I would expect that they'll make the adjustments and that WBY will get more touches in the paint earlier. We'll see what happens with Fox because he's still hobbled. Uh but I would expect that
whole supporting cast from Deon Vel who didn't have a good shooting night uh up and down the roster that none of them shot the ball well. I think they'll be much better in the same way that I thought that the Thunder would be better going back to Oklahoma City tonight. So Spurs in game six, sticking with Oklahoma City in seven. We'll see how it unfolds. Well, my pick for the Spurs to win in six is officially dead meat. So I'm allowed to change my overall pick. I don't see the Thunder losing this series, especially how tonight went. I do agree with John. I think this thing
is going seven because I think the Spurs have done a really good job adjusting every single time they've lost and then bouncing back and giving a better effort. And I think that we're going to see one of those apex Victor Webbyama performances. I don't know if it'll be enough to get them over the hump in a game seven because they are the defending champs, but I do think that just watching tonight reminded me that even though the Thunder are a little depleted on the injury side, they still are the champs. You got to go through them. And the Spurs are showing their youth at multiple moments in this series and I think that the Thunder are going to be able to take advantage of that and still win the series.
No, I like how you're just making the rules work for you as we go. I appreciate the time both Noah and John. He's getting new information. That's all. Exactly. We're just suggesting. Well, an epic game six on Thursday, I'm sure, is in store for us. Thank you both for the time. And again, we talked about this earlier. Thunder in playoff games following a loss. They're pretty good. If you look here, 9-0 following a loss the past two seasons. Points per game over 120 and that points per game differential 15. Not too bad over 15. So, I don't know. The Thunder following a loss.
Tough crowd to beat.
