{"id":701908,"date":"2026-05-29T09:49:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-29T09:49:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/701908\/"},"modified":"2026-05-29T09:49:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-29T09:49:08","slug":"wembanyama-and-aggressive-spurs-see-off-thunder-to-force-game-7-nba","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/701908\/","title":{"rendered":"Wembanyama and aggressive Spurs see off Thunder to force Game 7 | NBA"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Victor Wembanyama scored 28 points and grabbed 10 rebounds, lifting the San Antonio Spurs to a 118-91 home win over the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/sport\/oklahoma-city-thunder\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" data-component=\"auto-linked-tag\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Oklahoma City Thunder<\/a> on Thursday in Game 6 of the Western Conference finals.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">The teams will play one last time in Game 7 on Saturday in Oklahoma City, with the winner advancing to face the New York Knicks in the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/sport\/nba\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" data-component=\"auto-linked-tag\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">NBA<\/a> finals.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">After the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/sport\/2026\/may\/27\/nba-playoffs-thunder-one-win-from-finals-as-wembanyama-and-spurs-go-quiet-in-game-5\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Thunder\u2019s 127-114 win in Game 5<\/a> on Tuesday, when Wembanyama had 20 points and six rebounds, Spurs coach Mitch Johnson said his team needed more from their superstar.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">It didn\u2019t take long for Wembanyama to show a difference from Game 5. He sank two three-pointers and blocked a shot in the game\u2019s first 90 seconds as San Antonio jumped in front early and never trailed.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">The Spurs led by 15 early in the second quarter, but the Thunder closed the deficit to five just before halftime before going into the break trailing by seven.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">San Antonio ratcheted up their defense late in the third and put together a 20-0 run to put the game away by the end of the quarter.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">The Thunder missed 14 consecutive shots, going nearly eight minutes between points.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Oklahoma City scored just 13 third-quarter points, their fewest in a quarter this season.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">With the game out of reach after three quarters, Oklahoma City coach Mark Daigneault sat <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/sport\/shai-gilgeous-alexander\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" data-component=\"auto-linked-tag\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Shai Gilgeous-Alexander<\/a>, Chet Holmgren and Isaiah Hartenstein in the fourth quarter.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Gilgeous-Alexander finished with a team high of just 15 points on 6-of-18 shooting. It was Gilgeous-Alexander\u2019s lowest-scoring output since he scored 14 in Game 3 of last season\u2019s Western Conference finals against the Minnesota Timberwolves.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Dylan Harper scored 18 points off the bench for San Antonio while Stephon Castle added 17 points and nine assists with just one turnover.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">While the Thunder\u2019s bench has dominated the Spurs\u2019 for much of the series, San Antonio\u2019s reserves outscored Oklahoma City\u2019s 46-38 in Game 6.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">The Spurs got going early with a barrage from beyond the arc.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">San Antonio hit eight first-quarter three-pointers, three from Wembanyama.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">The Thunder were just 1 of 6 from beyond the arc in the first.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Oklahoma City\u2019s Jalen Williams returned after missing the previous three games with a hamstring strain, but he played just 10 minutes, scoring one point. He came off the bench for the first time since 10 December 2022, during his rookie season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Victor Wembanyama scored 28 points and grabbed 10 rebounds, lifting the San Antonio Spurs to a 118-91 home&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":701909,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[64,63,726,85],"class_list":["post-701908","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-basketball","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-basketball","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/701908","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=701908"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/701908\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/701909"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=701908"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=701908"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=701908"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}