The Spurs defeated the Thunder, 118-91, in Game 6 of the Western Conference Finals to tie the series at 3-3 and force a Game 7.<\/p>\n
\u2022\u00a0Download the NBA App<\/a><\/p>\n SAN ANTONIO \u2013 San Antonio Spurs coach Mitch Johnson was matter-of-fact when he stated Victor Wembanyama would need to take more than 15 shots and score more than 20 points for the Spurs to win Game 6 against the Oklahoma City Thunder.<\/p>\n Wembanyama checked both of those boxes Thursday \u2013 in the first half as the Spurs established their presence in this wildly oscillating series.<\/p>\n Wembanyama is a major reason the Spurs defeated the Oklahoma City Thunder 118-91<\/a> in Game 6 Thursday and a big reason there is a Game 7 in the Western Conference Finals<\/a>.<\/p>\n The young star wasn\u2019t the only reason though. The Spurs\u2019 guards were tremendous, including Stephon Castle and Dylan Harper, San Antonio\u2019s defense pressured the Thunder into a poor offensive effort and hot 3-point shooting to start the game propelled the Spurs to the cusp of a Western Conference championship.<\/p>\n Game 7 is Saturday in Oklahoma City (8 ET, NBC\/Peacock<\/a>), and the winner gets a best-of-7 against the New York Knicks in the NBA Finals<\/a>.<\/p>\n The Thunder are the defending champions, and the Spurs are trying to get back to The Finals for the first time since winning it all in 2014.<\/p>\n \u201cI know there\u2019ll be a lot of added attention, a lot of eyes watching,\u201d Spurs coach Mitch Johnson said. \u201cIt\u2019ll be a hostile environment, but we\u2019ve been saying this for a long time. We\u2019ve had a lot of firsts. This one will be a little bit more important or higher stakes than all the others.\u201d<\/p>\n Here are four takeaways from Game 6:<\/p>\n 1. Wembanyama delivers big-time response<\/p>\n Wembanyama dominated, but maybe not quite the way it was expected. He established the tone with his outside shooting rather than his finishing skills at the rim. He made three 3-pointers in the opening quarter, including two in the first 86 seconds.<\/p>\n He finished with 28 points (12 on 4-for-9 from 3-point range), 10 rebounds, three blocks, two steals and two assists \u2013 all marked improvements over his 20-point, six-rebound effort in Game 5.<\/p>\n \u201cProbably from my perspective, it was just his will and intent on leaving his imprints on the game,\u201d Johnson said, adding, \u201cHis passion and desire for being right where he is and at the forefront of it all and to take the responsibility and the role and the burden of what he does, I don\u2019t know what else to say.<\/p>\n \u201cHe is comfortable with that regardless of the outcome and what that may look like. And I think that\u2019s maybe his biggest growth this year of not waiting for it to be perfect or necessarily to know what to do all the time but attack the moment and have the right approach and live with the results.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Victor Wembanyama puts up 28 points & 10 rebounds in a Game 6 win to keep the Spurs season alive.<\/p>\n A trend has emerged. If Wembanyama is in the neighborhood of a 30-10 double-double with a few blocks, the Spurs will win.<\/p>\n After not talking with reporters after a loss in Game 5, Wembanyama was not particularly effusive after a victory in Game 6 especially about his own performance. But he mentioned the word \u201ctrust\u201d multiple times.<\/p>\n \u201cTrusted the game, trusted the basketball gods,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n 2. 3-ball makes a difference for Spurs<\/p>\n The Spurs started the game with a three made 3-pointers, made five of their first 10 3s and were 8-for-13 from that range after Wembanyama\u2019s third triple of the quarter put the Spurs up 33-22.<\/p>\n The Spurs finished the first half 11-for-25 on 3s and outscored the Thunder 33-18 from that range in the opening two quarters. They started the third with a 3-pointer and ended up 15-for-41 on 3s.<\/p>\n The Spurs love to generate offense with the pass \u2013 Gregg Popovich\u2019s influence for sure \u2013 and they had 14 assists on their 15 3-pointers. San Antonio\u2019s ball movement found open shooters.<\/p>\n The Thunder made 10 3-pointers and shot just 25% from that distance. Oklahoma City\u2019s starters were just 3-for-18 on 3-pointers, including 1-for-9 from Lu Dort and 0-for-4 from Jaylin Williams. Alex Caruso entered the game with 18 made 3s and shooting 58.1% but was 1-for-3. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander missed his five 3-point attempts, and the Thunder were 0-for-8 on 3s in the third quarter when the Spurs pulled away.<\/p>\n \u201cThey were the aggressors, start to finish,\u201d Gilgeous-Alexander said. \u201cThey played harder than us, made more shots, were in attack mode and we were on our heels.\u201d<\/p>\n 3. Spurs shut down Gilgeous-Alexander, Thunder<\/p>\n There were moments \u2013 late in the second quarter and early in the third \u2013 where the Thunder were close enough to make a game of it. Though San Antonio led start to finish, the Thunder were down 58-53 and 65-60. It was 72-64, and the Thunder had a chance to cut into the lead. But after Isaiah Hartenstein missed a shot, the Spurs went on a 20-0 run for a 92-64 lead with 1:16 left in the third.<\/p>\n \u201cAt halftime, we felt pretty good,\u201d said Thunder coach Mark Daigneault. \u201cWe were able to get it to a manageable spot. \u2026 We had a chance to turn the game, but you have to turn the game. You can\u2019t wait for the game to turn. They obviously threw a great punch in the third.\u201d<\/p>\n During that run, the Thunder missed 13 consecutive shots.<\/p>\n \u201cAttention was on the defensive end,\u201d Castle said. \u201cI don\u2019t think scoring against him has been a problem for us. I think just our self-inflicted mistakes, like turnovers and allowing them to get offensive rebounds and easy buckets is what slows us down. When we\u2019re focused on defense and we\u2019re getting stops and being able to get out of run and get easy looks, it makes the game pretty simple for us.\u201d<\/p>\n Gilgeous-Alexander had 15 points on 33.3% shooting from the field, and in a sign that his teammates weren\u2019t making shots, he had just four assists and the Spurs outscored the Thunder by 28 points in Gilgeous-Alexander\u2019s 28 minutes.<\/p>\n Thunder forward Jalen Williams returned to the series for the first time since re-aggravating his left hamstring in Game 2. He logged 10 minutes and scored one point.<\/p>\n 4. Spurs guards thrive offensively<\/p>\n After Wembanyama, the Spurs rely on wings with size \u2013 some of whom are considered guards like the 6-foot-6 Castle, the 6-foot-5 Devin Vassell and 6-foot-5 Dylan Harper.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s what they did in Game 6:<\/p>\n Castle scored 16 points and delivered nine assists. Harper is one of five rookies in NBA history to have at least 200 points, 70 rebounds, 50 assists and 20 steals in a single postseason, joining Jayson Tatum, Manu Ginobili, Magic Johnson and Alvan Adams.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen he plays with confidence, I don\u2019t think there\u2019s anybody his age that\u2019s that good,\u201d Castle said of Harper. \u201cHe\u2019s been a big part of our team all year, so we need him. When he plays like that, we\u2019re pretty hard to beat.\u201d<\/p>\n * * *<\/p>\n Jeff Zillgitt has covered the NBA since 2008. You can email him at\u00a0jzillgitt@nba.com<\/a>, find\u00a0his archive here<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0follow him on X<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Spurs defeated the Thunder, 118-91, in Game 6 of the Western Conference Finals to tie the series…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":671730,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[355,99,293067],"class_list":["post-671729","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-nba","tag-sports","tag-spurs-thunder-game-6"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/671729","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=671729"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/671729\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/671730"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=671729"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=671729"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=671729"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nHarper had 18 points, six rebounds and four assists.
\nVassell had 12 points (4-for-7 on 3s)
\nGuard De\u2019Aaron Fox had a deceiving line in the box score: 1-for-9 from the field, 0-for-3 on 3-pointers, five points, seven assists and five rebounds but was a plus-17.<\/p>\n