Wembanyama leads Spurs past Thunder to tie West finals

Victor Wembanyama delivered a dominant performance with 33 points, eight rebounds, five assists and three blocks as the San Antonio Spurs defeated the Oklahoma City Thunder 103-82 in Game 4 on Sunday night, evening the Western Conference finals series, News.Az reports, citing AP.

De'Aaron Fox contributed 12 points, 10 rebounds and five assists for San Antonio, which has avoided losing three straight games all season. Stephon Castle and Devin Vassell each scored 13 points.

“You definitely don’t want to go down 3-1 going into their house,” Vassell said. “We knew we had to respond and that’s how you respond. You get stops. You don’t try and focus on the offensive end, you get stops, you get out of transition. You guard your yard and that’s what we did.”

Game 5 will take place Tuesday in Oklahoma City before the series returns to San Antonio for Game 6 on Thursday.

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander scored 19 points on 6-of-15 shooting for the Thunder.

Wembanyama responded strongly after Oklahoma City’s 123-108 win in Game 3 on Friday. The 7-foot-4 French star admitted he needed to elevate his game to help his teammates, and San Antonio followed his lead in Game 4.

“We all have high standards and I know I have a lot of responsibilities, but I’m here for it,” Wembanyama said. “Yeah, it was better today. It wasn’t perfect. But, you know, all of us, I’m talking about the whole organization, so we’re going to have to do things that we didn’t sign up for.”

The Spurs held Oklahoma City to just 33% shooting from the field, including 6-for-33 from beyond the arc.

“I think we made a great defensive adjustment,” Vassell said. “I don’t want to say what it was. We were just able to rotate the shooters and not give them so many wide-open 3s. I feel like they had so many wide-open 3s over the past couple games and you've got to respect them, especially if they’re making them. So, we were trying to cut them out with that and just stay playing fast.”

After being outscored 76-23 in bench points during Game 3, San Antonio’s reserves answered with 30 points while limiting Oklahoma City’s bench to 34.

The Spurs also raced out to another fast start after opening Game 3 with a 15-0 run. This time, however, they maintained control throughout the contest.

“They just punched us in our face early,” Gilgeous-Alexander said. “It’s two games in a row they’ve come out the aggressor. The last game we were able to course correct. Tonight, we just didn’t do so.”

Following a block on Jared McCain near the basket, Vassell threw an alley-oop pass to Wembanyama for a dunk during a decisive 16-0 run that pushed the Spurs ahead 23-8 with 4:19 left in the first quarter.

“I feel like with who we are, we need to start games like this,” Wembanyama said, “but it really doesn’t mean anything for the way it holds. I mean, it helps for sure, but it’s a whole 'nother type of effort to be consistent rather than just hitting first.”

San Antonio assisted on all 10 of its field goals in the opening quarter.

The Spurs limited Oklahoma City to 38 first-half points, matching the Thunder’s second-lowest scoring half across the past four regular seasons and postseasons combined. Oklahoma City has gone 2-9 over the past five seasons when scoring fewer than 40 points in a half.

The Thunder franchise’s lowest playoff scoring output remains 65 points in a loss to the Memphis Grizzlies on May 3, 2014. Their previous second-lowest playoff total had been 85 points against San Antonio on May 21, 2014.

News.Az 

By Nijat Babayev