OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) \u2014 Victor Wembanyama fouled Jalen Williams on a shot attempt in the opening minutes of Game 2 of the Western Conference finals on Wednesday night.<\/p>\n
Except, no, he really didn’t.<\/p>\n
Yes, Wembanyama made contact with Williams. Yes, it looked like a foul. Yes, it was called that way \u2014 at first. Upon review, it was determined that Thunder center Isaiah Hartenstein actually shoved Wembanyama into his teammate and caused the foul himself.<\/p>\n
That’s how physical the Thunder were with Wembanyama in Game 2. They grabbed, pushed, nudged, anything and everything they could muster against the 7-foot-4 French star who still finished with 21 points, 17 rebounds, six assists and four blocked shots.<\/p>\n
But the Thunder won 122-113, tying the series at a game apiece.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt’s all in the scouting,\u201d Wembanyama said. “I have to trust the scouting. We have to trust it and do our work early. It’s straight effort. … Doesn’t mean it’s easy. We have to work through it.”<\/p>\n
He knew what was coming, and so did the Thunder. Oklahoma City coach Mark Daigneault told Hartenstein on Tuesday that he would have a bigger role in Game 2.<\/p>\n
\u201cI’m just kind of one of those players that brings physicality to the game,\u201d said Hartenstein, who got only 12 minutes in Game 1 and then assumed a key role in Game 2 \u2014 with 10 points and 13 rebounds. \u201cI think that’s just kind of what we needed.\u201d<\/p>\n
Stopping Wembanyama isn’t going to happen. He’s too good. The Thunder playbook in Game 2 \u2014 and going forward \u2014 will be about making life as difficult as possible for him, hoping to prevent outbursts like the 41-point, 24-rebound gem that Wembanyama put together in San Antonio’s Game 1 win.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery good player, they have to feel the defense,” Thunder guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander said. \u201cIt’s tough. He\u2019s very different to scout. You’ve got to try to mix things up, you’ve got try different things. And that\u2019s just what we did. Coach tried something in the first game, didn\u2019t like it, tried something else. That\u2019s what it\u2019s about.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wembanyama’s debut in the conference finals is off to an elite start. He has got 62 points and 41 rebounds through the first two games; the last player with 60 points and 40 rebounds in the first two games of the conference finals was Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in 1974 \u2014 with 69 points and 40 rebounds for Milwaukee against Chicago.<\/p>\n
But the MVP finalist and Defensive Player of the Year wasn’t in the mood to hear stats. He wanted a 2-0 lead, and settling for a 1-1 tie going home for Game 3 wasn’t cause for celebration. The Spurs rallied from 13 down in the fourth to make it interesting, but couldn’t finish the comeback.<\/p>\n
He was asked what the toughest part of Game 2 was.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would say it’s spending so much energy on catching back up … then letting it go away,\u201d Wembanyama said.<\/p>\n
That, to him, was the biggest hit of all.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) \u2014 Victor Wembanyama fouled Jalen Williams on a shot attempt in the opening minutes of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":302564,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[11245,10135,90343,93408,23681,202,196,88116,42094,61343,942,82,84,83,41611,109808,509],"class_list":["post-302563","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-antonio","tag-isaiah-hartenstein","tag-jalen-williams","tag-kareem-abdul-jabbar","tag-mark-daigneault","tag-package-100024-ap-online","tag-package-100502-member-choice-sports-option","tag-product-30599-ap-sports-news-s-wire-only","tag-product-32001-ap-online-basketball-news","tag-product-32562-ap-online-other-sports-news","tag-product-40807-ap-oklahoma-sports-only","tag-product-40815-ap-texas-sports-only","tag-san-antonio","tag-san-antonio-headlines","tag-san-antonio-news","tag-shai-gilgeous-alexander","tag-spurs-victor-wembanyama-nba-playoffs","tag-victor-wembanyama"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302563","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=302563"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302563\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/302564"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=302563"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=302563"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=302563"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}