UPDATE: Oklahoma City Thunder guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander sustained an abdominal strain and will be sidelined until after the All-Star break, per ESPN’s Shams Charania. Chet Holmgren (back), Isaiah Hartenstein (eye), Lu Dort (knee), Ajay Mitchell (abdominal), Alex Caruso (injury management), and Ousmane Dieng (not with team) have also been ruled out.
For the fifth and final time this regular season, the two best teams in the Western Conference — who will probably remain the two best teams in the Western Conference for the foreseeable future — will face off. Despite trailing by six games in the overall standings, the San Antonio Spurs took each of the first three games against the Oklahoma City Thunder before losing the fourth.
The Spurs will host the Thunder at Frost Bank Center at 9:30 p.m. ET in each team’s final game before tomorrow’s trade deadline. Neither team is expected to be particularly active at the deadline, so these rosters will probably look similar in the Western Conference Finals if each team makes it that far.
San Antonio should have a fully healthy rotation, though guards Stephon Castle (adductor) and Dylan Harper (ankle) are questionable. Oklahoma City hasn’t released its injury report yet since it played last night, but it’s likely that sixth man Ajay Mitchell (hip) and All-Star forward Jalen Williams (hamstring) will continue to be out.
Despite their injuries, the Thunder are 2.5-point favorites on DraftKings Sportsbook (-125 on the Moneyline), with the point total set to 222.5. The Spurs are +105 on the Moneyline. Below, I’ll break down the fifth installment of the NBA’s most intriguing budding rivalry.
Oklahoma City Thunder at San Antonio Spurs preview, prediction
Oklahoma City has been strangely inconsistent over the last couple of weeks, stunningly losing an NBA Finals rematch against the woeful Indiana Pacers and then losing again two nights later to the Toronto Raptors, but it has since bounced back with a pair of solid wins against the Denver Nuggets and Orlando Magic. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander’s 20-point game streak nearly came to an end last night, as a combination of poor shooting and a lopsided scoreline limited him to exactly that number. Regardless, the Thunder’s priority at this point in the season is health, and they’re surely overjoyed that Isaiah Hartenstein and Alex Caruso, both of whom have been in and out of the lineup for much of the season, are back.
The Spurs have been up-and-down lately, too. Over its last six games, San Antonio has alternated wins and losses, and it’s not coincidental that Victor Wembanyama has alternated good games with bad ones in that span. In particular, Wembanyama has struggled with his jumper, connecting on just six of his last 34 three-point attempts. Still, this month has been a critical development period for the Spurs, with Wembanyama learning to handle some of the most physical defense he’s ever faced and Stephon Castle staying aggressive despite an inconsistent offensive stretch. San Antonio has been under more of a spotlight than most young teams, giving them playoff-intensity experience long before the postseason begins.
Thunder at Spurs pick, best bet
Modern, position-less basketball is hardly ever defined by player vs. player matchups, but the chess matches between Gilgeous-Alexander and Castle and between Holmgren and Wembanyama have pivotal storylines in the teams’ first four matchups. In the aggregate, Gilgeous-Alexander’s numbers have been good, as he’s averaged 29.5 points, 4.5 rebounds, and 5.5 assists across the four matchups, and it was his 34 points and game-high four blocks that made him the best player on the floor in Oklahoma City’s sole win. But he’s shot just six-for-19 when guarded by Castle, and Castle was effective offensively when guarded by either Gilgeous-Alexander or Williams. Similarly, Wembanyama has limited Holmgren to one-for-seven shooting and blocked him twice, and he’s gotten the best of that matchup on the other end of the floor, too. San Antonio has a less talented roster, but its two most important players have risen to the challenge against the Thunder’s two most important players.
These teams play similarly, especially defensively. Each is among the league’s premier rim-protecting units, though Oklahoma City’s superior perimeter defense means it has allowed fewer shots at the rim. It is the only team allowing fewer than 60% of opponents’ restricted-area, but the Spurs (64.1%) aren’t far behind, and Wembanyama’s mere presence forces some would-be layups into less efficient midrange jumpers. Offensively, both teams are about average at getting downhill, though the Thunder have averaged slightly more points in the paint because of their superior finishing and floater-range game. That’s where Williams’ injury comes in: over the last eight games, since he went down, Oklahoma City has averaged the seventh-fewest points in the paint.
Where San Antonio could make up the edge is on the glass. This season, the Spurs have had the sixth-best rebounding percentage in the league, while the Thunder rank sixth-to-last. San Antonio also ranks in the league’s top half in second-chance points and Oklahoma City ranks fifth-to-last, though the Spurs have actually been worse than the Thunder in that category since Williams’ injury. Transition play will also be key, and there the Thunder have somewhat of an advantage: they lead the league in points off of turnovers while San Antonio is in the middle of the pack, and their steal rate has actually been slightly higher with Williams off the floor.
As might be expected of two dominant paint-protecting teams who don’t give up easy buckets in transition, three-point shooting could swing the game: in each of the teams’ previous four matchups, the team with the better three-point percentage emerged victorious. Oklahoma City is more due for luck normalization than the Spurs are, as it has limited opponents to 1.3 fewer wide-open three-point tries per game than San Antonio but allowed them to convert at a higher rate. Offensively, it has also been better at producing such looks, and by expected three-point percentage differential, Gilgeous-Alexander is the most talented shooter on either roster. Castle, who canned nine of his 16 threes in the teams’ first four matchups, has been the third-worst shooter among qualified guards in the league.
The Spurs certainly did not beat the Thunder three times earlier this season by luck alone, and by playing in a similar fashion defensively, they’ve done extremely well to boil the game down to a single variable. In a raucous Frost Bank Arena buoyed by the newfound energy of the Jackals fan section, San Antonio has built a pretty strong home-court advantage, a net swing of 4.9 points per 100 possessions in its favor. I just trust Mark Daigneault to make adjustments more than I do Mitch Johnson, and I trust even Luguentz Dort’s jumper more than Castle’s.
