Brian Windhorst & The Hoop Collective - EMERGENCY REACTION: Wembanyama’s HUGE Statement in Instant Classic Game 1

Episode Date: May 19, 2026

Brian Windhorst is joined by ESPN's Tim Bontemps to react to the Spurs’ epic defeat of the Thunder in Game 1 of the Western Conference Finals 122-115 in 2OT. The guys break down the history of what Victor Wembanyama just did, how Shai Gilgeous-Alexander & OKC can counter and the significance of the incredible performance we just saw. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello and welcome to this special edition of the Hoop Collective podcast. We talk about the NBA specifically game one of the Western Conference Finals, which is an instant classic. Joining me from about 40 blocks uptown here in New York City is Tim Bontemps. The phrase instant classic is throwing around a lot. That was an instant classic. Game one is first time. Yeah. I was almost sad that one team had to lose because I, I just appreciated so much the effort level that was going into the game.

But it's an absolutely historic game. It'll be remembered for a long time. I don't know if it'll be the best game in the series, but the excitement is that it's only game one of the series. Victor Wimbunyama's stat line in this game, Bontems, is, you know, pretty iconic. First off, he played 49 minutes. He's never played that much in a game in his life.

I've ventured a guess. He scored 41 points, had 24 rebounds. Three block shots. But most importantly, in the second overtime of the game, and we could spend 25 minutes just detailing all of his exploits in this game, primarily clutch plays. But in the second overtime of this game, And when I thought that he's just not going to have any juice left, any gas left,

he scored nine points and had four rebounds in a block in that five minutes. When everybody else was out, totally out of juice, he found some more. And I'm trying to keep my composure right now. I'm trying to keep my composure. I'm trying, you know, I have this rule about not overreacting to a game one. so I'm trying to follow my rules. But I'm having an urge to say, I don't know how you're going to beat them four out of seven.

But I'm going to stop. Well, I mean, there's some very simple ways that the Thunder can win four games in the series. I mean, look, Victor was unbelievable. I don't think they're simple at all. Well, okay. Victor was unbelievable in the game. However, Shagos Alexander was awful most of the game.

Chad Holmgren was horrible the entire game. The Thunder repeatedly had 2-1-1 fast breaks and got no points out of them. They looked like the pistons. There were five or six times when they had what looked like wide-open layups and did not convert a basket, period. So half the time they didn't even get a shot up in them. They're one of the best fast-breaking teams off of turnovers we've ever seen. I don't think that's going to continue.

They also, in the first half of the game in particular, missed about a thousand wide open shots. Now, Alex Jerusalem hit a ton of threes in this game, and that obviously is not something that's going to carry over. But look, I would say if Victor goes for 41 and 24 for seven games in the series, yes, I think the Spurs will win the series. I would also say that the Thunder, as the game went on, came into the game, figured some things out,

and I suspect this is going to be a very long series. But, I mean, obviously, the overall headline is Victor answered the bell at every turn. And the Thunder, despite playing very badly, had this game in the bag. And no one's going to probably talk about it because they're going to focus on Victor's playing in the second overtime at Victor's three-pointer that he hit on the break. The Jaylon Williams possession with about 40 seconds ago in overtime cost us Thunder team the game. It was a horrific possession, didn't pass the ball, jacked up a horrible shot. and that set up the runout that led to the Victor shot. And if the Thunder run a good play there and get a bucket,

obviously the game's over. Even if they run the clock down and take a shot that's missed normally, the game might be over. But that possession is really going to haunt them if they end up blowing the series in the end because they had the game on their racket. They let it get away and they let Victor, you know, make an iconic play.

And I pull up three if the Spurs go on to win the series for as much as everything else happened the second overtime it's going to be that pull-up three from 30 feet to people remember. Yeah, so on that play, they get a stop. Wen Binyama throws the ball

to Steph Castle on the left wing. And Steph's like, I don't really know what to do with it. No one else is down here. Victor, why don't you take it back? And Caruso, Alex Caruso, who played one of the games of his career tonight,

had a 31-point game off the bench, hit eight threes, and had, God, he was only credited with two steals, but, geez, oh man, he had his hand on. He made 10,000 plays in the game. He was insane. But he's, you know, he's defending Victor, and, you know, he's standing outside the three-point line. And so, you know, I don't, Victor was, I thought, exhausted. I did not anticipate.

I mean, it looked like a shot that a tire guy would take, which is not a criticism. It's like, well, we're down. I got to try to tie the game. I'm just going to shoot this open shot. And Victor's obviously capable of hitting. deep threes. We've seen him hit threes plenty in his career, but I mean, he stepped right into it, he knocked it down.

And again, if the spurs go on to win this series, it very well could be because of those two plays. That very bad possession from Janlon Williams and that three from Victor Wemanniam at the other end. Well, we're not going to overreact to game one, but there was only two Victor only two. What do you

say? If you give away a game, particularly at home, that is a hard thing. They didn't give this one away. They didn't give this one away. This was a all-time. classic heavyweight battle. Yeah, it was, but they had it, they had it on their racket and they... Victor took it from him.

Victor took it from him. Okay. If Jalen Williams doesn't have a horrible possession, he doesn't get a chance to take it from him. That's the point. I understand. You don't give a guy like that a chance, and they did, and he took advantage of it. Steph Castle had to play 49 minutes of mostly point guard in this game because

Deeran Fox was a scratch with an ankle injury. He was listed as questionable coming in. maybe I missed the coverage. I thought he might be horrible. I did not expect him to miss the game. So Steph Castle had to play heavy ball handling minutes, and he had the ball just taken from him a bunch of times. He had 11 turnovers in this game.

Now, he had 11 assists, but 11 turnovers. If you have Deeran Fox, you're not going to have 11 turnovers from the point guard spot. And so, you know, there's some outlier situations. But Victor, number one, took the game from the Thunder. The Thunder did not play. You know, obviously Shea... But it was because the spurs were imposing their will on them.

Yeah. Victor was imposing their will partially, yes. Victor was impacting what they were doing all over the place. But what I loved was Victor only taking two threes. Well, that was the thing that stood out to me is from the beginning of the game. Like we've talked about, when is he at his best when he's attacking the rim? And there was no, I'm going to hold, handle the wall on the perimeter. and I'm going to do this and I'm going to do that.

It was, I'm going to go down to the paint, and I'm going to get the ball, and I'm going to either yam it through the hole, or I'm going to spin and float the ball up. Like that, I mean, he was incredible with that. Like from the beginning, there was, you could tell his intentionality and his force from the beginning of the game was, I'm going to impose myself at the rim.

I'm not going to give up an open shot for somebody at the rim, and I'm going to be a force for my team at the rim offensively. And the Thunder couldn't do anything with it. The two big lineup went away after a couple minutes. That didn't work. Again, Chad Holmgren was not very good in the game. They played no big lineups. I mean, Jalen Williams, I guess he's a big,

but they played lineups where Hartenstein and Holmgren were on the bench. Yeah. But I just- Chat was just very bad in the game. Like, the biggest adjustment for the Thunder is he and Shane both just have to be much better. He only made two baskets. He made no baskets inside the paint, none. And they were going to have to generate some offense from Chet Holmgren and A.J. Mitchell,

A.J. Mitchell returned to the bench roll and only went two of five. They need to get to jump and write some offense. But I just, Victor made repeated moves and plays, and whether it was just putbacks or whether it was lobs or whether it was the one play in overtime where he just did a spin move and, you know, threw it up off the wrong. wrong foot and ravelled it in, like, with just a power move. The thunder, I do not think are, I think the thunder were probably relatively accepting of Victor's 14 of 25. He, I think they will, they will, they, the shots that he got, I think that they'll have to live with.

I think the nine offensive rebounds is where he did so much of the damage. Yeah. And part of that is, I mean, part of us, he's the tallest guy on the court. but part of it is, you know, they played a little bit smaller. And, you know, he had small guys on him. When you have Lou Doord or Alex Caruso on him and he, they're trying to box them out, you're going to give up offensive rebounds.

And so that, but I just loved Victor's mindset going in. And, you know, he's plus 16 in this game. And Shee goes to Slexander is minus 15. At the other end, the Spurs followed up. Well, their minutes were basically, They basically were on the court every second together. So the plus minus is going to be tied to that. Right.

So basically the spurs followed up on what JJ Redick did in the last round, which was sellout to stop Shea. And they were throwing all kinds of bodies at him. And that was one of the reasons why Caruso was open so much is that they were just flying off of him. And so, you know, he did, so he goes seven of 23, obviously off his game. That said, he had several huge baskets in the fourth quarter. He did have 12 fourth quarter points, but only two points in overtime, which was that dunk that he had to put the thunder up for, which I actually, in the first overtime, which I actually thought might push them over the edge.

Yeah. So Shea's obviously not going to go seven of 23. but, you know, and he had 12 assists in the game. He was a willing passer. But the game play on the way it's set up here, they are going to need more consistency. They did hit 17 threes, but they didn't get much consistency from the other supporting offensive players.

Jaylon Williams had 26, but 11 of 25. And as you mentioned, he had a couple of possessions. I mean, they got a lot of wide open shots, and they didn't hit them. And Shea, the first three quarters of the game was totally out of sorts. They, you know, he never got in a rhythm. He got in a rhythm finally in the fourth quarter. But then, even then, he took a couple of hero shots.

AJ Mitchell took a pull-up three hero shot on a fast break. Like, the Thunder just, the Thunder gave away at least 10 points in this game in fast break situations where they usually are devastating and just absolutely obliterate teams. So, like I said, I mean, I know they lost a home game, but I think there's going to be a very long series still. And I think there's a lot of things that they can improve on and do much better going forward in the series. But yeah, I mean, the Spurs, you know, they've started the youngest team ever in a conference finals game. Their guys all stepped up and played well.

Dylan Harper, I mean, it's funny. Dylan Harper had 24 points and one turnover in 47 minutes. He was the one playing point card a lot of the time. And one turnover with the thunder slapping at the ball every second, that's really strong. More Hoop Collective Podcast after this. I mean, one play that sort of summed up the game for Oklahoma City was there was a possession, I want to say it was the end of regulation,

when Dylan Harper nearly lost the ball four times. then got fouled when he just sort of wound up with the ball with half a second to go on the shot clock and got two free throws out of it. That was sort of a lot of how the game went. Like, you know, the ball kind of bounced. I felt like San Antonio's way a lot of the time. But Harper was unbelievable. And I'm not certain they're better with Deeran Fox playing minutes that Dylan Harper would normally play. Because Cass had 11 turnovers. Fox would have been, they had stretches in the fourth quarter especially where they couldn't really get into their offense

and some of it was fatigue-based. If they had had a Dearen Fox, they would have run a cleaner offense in the fourth. We'll see if Dearen Fox has a 24-11, 6-and-7 steel game in the series with one turnover. My guess is he will not have a game that good. But I'm talking about Castle with 11 turnovers.

That's fine. I'm saying I think that if you're taking away Dylan Harper minutes, which they will be, to play Deer & Fox, I am not sure that's a net positive. Well, you're taking away Steph Castle usage possesses. sessions, which I think would be helpful.

And you're taking away Dylan Harper usage. Dylan Harper's awesome. And his size really gave the, really gave the Thunder a lot of problems in this game. The 11 turnovers that Steph Castle had was life-plied for the Thunder for some of this game. I just, when push comes to,

so, I mean, they've played six times this year. You can throw one of them out because the Thunder bench their players, but they've played five times legitimately. Sure. And the Spurs are four in one. Yeah. So, and Wambayama, I just, I mean, like, the thing about it is, is that when you have a close game, the ultimate cheat code has been Jalen Williams.

I'm sorry, has been Shagullis Alexander. He, every 50-50 game, every 47-53 game, like, I don't know what percentage you would give, he noses across the line. It's why he won clutch player of the year. Victor kind of can neutralize that. Well, and that's why I go back to that possession at the end of... Well, that's why I go back to that possession at the end of regulation or at the end of the first overtime because Shea had done that. He had that dunk.

He got them ahead. They had the game in the bag. And Jalen Williams took the ball. She didn't touch it. He jacked up an awful shot that I don't even think hit the rim. And he gave Victor a chance to get back in the game. And that, again, in a series like this, that possession, that 20 seconds back and forth,

very well in 10, 12, 14 days, we could look back and if the spurs advance, that right there might be the difference. And that's where the margins in this series are that small. Like you can't have possessions like that in that spot. You just can't. Perhaps, but perhaps Victor finds another way to get it to a second number of time. I mean, okay, sure, yes, your discovery is amazing.

The point is he is an amazing player and you can't give him that opportunity. and the Thunder had found a way back ahead in the game. I just, I think for all the other amazing things that happened, that back and forth is not going to be remembered enough because they gave Victor an opening and he jammed it through. And he was like, I'm not going to be denied. And if they had one good possession there,

they win this game and everything feels different. Victor had this insane game. The Thunder were awful for most of the game. and yet they still get away to win at home, right? I actually, I don't think the Thunder were awful. They obviously played below their standard, but the, I mean, their best two players, their best two players played well below average games. And they, I mean, they were awful in, I mean, they got a lot of points in transition,

but they, they repeatedly screwed up two-on-one breaks and stuff they always did. And I'm not arguing that the Spurs are winning 4-0. What I'm arguing is, I don't know how you, I'm starting to just decide. I don't know how you beat him four out of seven. That's what I'm... Well, yes, giving away a game you had in the bag certainly makes it harder,

which is all the point I'm trying to make and we're like... All right, well, a couple of things here. Some stats from Jackson. Wemba Yama is a first player with 35 points and 20 rebounds on a conference finals game since Barclay in 93.

Pretty good. Not first conference finals game. Any conference finals game. Okay? He is 22 years old. He passed. Last is Lou Al-Sinder is the youngest player ever with 40 and 20 in a playoff game. Yep.

40 and 20. I mean, it was so long ago that Kareem was still Luel Cinder. Wenbinyama, and here's, again, this goes back to my point about the four out of seven, okay? And, you know, and you've been a big believer in Harper ever since he was at Rutgers. I'm not saying that you were the only one. I'm just saying that you were an advocate of Harper before he was the number two. For sure. But Wembeyanama, Castle, and Harper are the first trio of teammates, 22 or younger, each to have a double double in a playoff game in NBA history.

That right there is, by the way, Castle has a triple double, by the way. Yeah, like I said on yesterday's pot, I mean, this thing might be a rat. If these guys win the series, it's probably a rat for a while if they're healthy. Like, well. Because they're, you know, I mean, the Thunder are awesome and they're going to keep coming back. But like, these three guys are just going to get better. And especially Dylan Harper and Victor Womenyama are just going to keep getting better. And again, there's not enough talk about, there won't be enough talk tomorrow about Dylan Harper's game either.

Last thing I want to say is I thought the game was well coached on both sides. I thought both coaches made good strategic moves. I thought both coaches had good ATO plays. Like, for example, the play that Mitch Johnson drew up at the end of, was it the first overtime or regulation? Yeah, the first overtime against Steph Castle, the, the curl around to the rim. I actually think the thunder left a lot on the table that way too. I mean, Mark Dagnold went with his starting lineup,

which I would have said beforehand was the right thing to do, the one he's had all year with Isaiah Hart and Stein. He bailed on it two minutes in because it was a disaster and couldn't work. I don't think he'll go back to that in game two. Having Alice Caruso and Jalen Williams out at the start of the second overtime, I understood why he did it in the moment, but that didn't work either. got the thunder off on the wrong foot in the period. They never really got back together after that.

He had some regular season. Well, Jaylor Williams said he played in a month. I mean, at some point. I understand, but I mean, Lou Dort was ineffective in the game, and he had them out there in the second overtime for a minute and a half, and they got down four and never got back in the game. So, like, I understand they're in a compromised position, but, you know, Aaron Wiggins played some in the game.

Like, the Thunder felt like they kind of treated like a regular season game in the first half. And I thought it was a wild coach game. I liked, you know, Mitch Johnson went to zone in the second overtime. They confused. Oh, there was a ton of strategic stuff. I mean, Johnson was great. I mean,

they dialed up all kinds of stuff. They won a game on the road with Deerun Fox not playing with a rookie point guard having 24, 11, 6, and 7. And the guy who, you know, I remember sitting watching the draft lottery three years ago. And Adrian Wojornowski said, by the third year in the league, this guy might be the best offensive defensive player in the league. And Adrian is not a guy who is prone to a lot of hyperbole.

And I remember looking at Alonzo morning, who was sitting down the bar for me at the Ritz in Boston, was like, whoa, that was a statement. And that might be where he's at. I remember Woj said it multiple times. I think it was like, you know, he didn't just get lost in the moment. He said it multiple times. Yeah, he did.

But I remember sitting there watching the draft lottery and him saying that and being like, wow, like, that's aggressive. And here we are. The guys in his third year in the league. He's in the conference finals. He had 41 and 24, was the best player on the court with the MVP. And we talked about the David Robinson-Akeem thing. And this was the David Robinson-Akeem thing,

at least played out in one game. They handed out the trophy before the game. And Victor was the dominant force in the game and got a win on OECC's home court. But I don't think it was out of spite. I think Hakeem. Hakeem had already, you know, Hakeem was the reigning MVP and reigning, uh, finals MVP and the reigning champ. This was with just as much spite. It was with just as much spite. Victor Mnayama has as, an ego as big as his wingspan. It's part of why he's going to maybe be, it wasn't like he took 15 shots in the first quarter and wanted to score. He came out with an intent to dominate.

And that's what he did. And I just think that he's going to come on with an intent to dominate for the He is, but that didn't, that, trust me. The Spurs were very happy that that ceremony was happening yesterday and today, and he stepped up and had an all-time epic game in response. I know who the MVP of Game 1 was. That's right. That one is settled. All right.

Thank you for joining us for this emergency pod. Thank you to Jackson and Rafa, for putting it together very late. We'll be back with you with a podcast. Comes out on Wednesday morning following game one of Cavs v. Nix, which has a lot to live up to over here in the Eastern Conference. Thank you for listening and watching, and we'll talk to you later this week. Goodbye, friends.

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