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Michael C. Wright, ESPN staff writer
OKLAHOMA CITY – Chet Holmgren led a suffocating Oklahoma City Thunder defensive effort in their 105-93 victory over the San Antonio Spurs on Wednesday. But immediately afterwards the 22-year-old found himself playing down his budding rivalry with Spurs godmother Victor Wembanyama.
Asked about the spectacle of the match with Wembanyama, who unanimously won the NBA Rookie of the Year last season, Holmgren, the runner-up, attributed it all to promotion.
“Because the NBA is a business and the league is built around players playing basketball,” Holmgren said. “It’s about getting people to come and watch the games. That’s one of the ways they do that: by promoting the players. I just see it as a form of advertising. It doesn’t change our mission. We try to win the basketball games. The NBA will handle the business around it.”
Holmgren certainly took care of business on the court, although he only faced the Spurs star a few times, going 2-for-3 while Wembanyama defended for seven points.
Holmgren, meanwhile, limited San Antonio’s shooters to 10 points on 4-for-17 from the floor and 0-for-7 from deep as the primary defender.
The Thunder finished with 18 steals, nine in each half, for the second most in a game since the team arrived in Oklahoma City for the 2008-09 season. Six players (Holmgren, Jalen Williams, Cason Wallace, Alex Caruso, Ousmane Dieng, Ajay Mitchell) have recorded multiple steals, which is the most in a single outing since the franchise moved.
As a team, the Thunder scored 27 points off 22 Spurs turnovers.
“We won defensively tonight,” Holmgren said. “Offensively it wasn’t perfect. I feel like we were very solid defensively almost the entire game.”
Holmgren opened the night with a block on Wembanyama and a steal on Jeremy Sochan on San Antonio’s first possession. Holmgren finished as the game’s second leading scorer with 19 points, 5 rebounds and 2 assists to go with 2 steals and 2 blocks.
When Holmgren contested shots as a primary or help defender, San Antonio shot 2-for-12 from the floor. He was the main defender for only two Wembanyama shots, both misses.
Wembanyama has struggled through his first four games, shooting 22-for-54 from the field with 15 total goals.
Dressed in a white Nike sweatsuit, Wembanyama strapped on his size 20.5 shoes and sat down to reflect on a night in which he recorded career lows in points (6) and field goals (1). He shook his head when asked if he was getting the shots he wanted every night.
“I’m not getting easy shots,” Wembanyama said. “I have to be much better in preparing. Of course my shot feels good. Physically I feel good. But I have to be much better in preparing and creating the conditions to be able to make those easy shots.”
After the game, Popovich apologized to the media gathered at Paycom Center for taking so long for his post-game press conference to begin. The coach said he had to address the team first. Popovich did not answer questions.
“That’s a very good defensive team,” he said. “They’re a playoff team that will most likely go very deep into the playoffs. They’re a better team than us. But that doesn’t matter. We’re trying to get to their level.”
Wembanyama addressed Popovich’s claim that San Antonio is losing focus in games, saying the team may be “feeling a little bit lost,” adding that “sometimes we become a little less solid. I think that’s more of a problem than involvement.”
He also talked about all the extra attention that comes with facing Holmgren. Both players often try to divert the fuss from the individual match to draw attention to the teams.
Is it tiring?
“It’s not that,” Wembanyama said, “because I don’t have a social network right now. I don’t follow that at all. So I don’t feel that. But every time I go against a good player, position, it’s a different kind of challenge, because it’s not the case with every team. Not every team has an offensive-minded big.
