How the Thunder Are Walling Off Wemby - The Ringer

There are many reasons the San Antonio Spurs lost Game 5 of the West finals. They made sloppy turnovers, committed silly fouls, screwed up defensive rotations, repeatedly failed to secure the glass, and missed a bunch of open 3s.  On the other side, Jared McCain became Mighty Mouse, Isaiah Hartenstein was the most determined man on the court, and an Oklahoma City Thunder offense that has been desperate to catch fire behind the arc drilled an obscene 55 percent of its non-corner 3s.  It’s easy to stare at the box score and get reductive. “ is gonna have to score more than 20 points,” lamented Spurs head coach Mitch Johnson after the final horn sounded on a 127-114 Thunder win. He isn’t wrong. San Antonio won’t win too many road playoff games when Julian Champagnie and Stephon Castle convert more buckets than one of the most dominant and versatile scorers alive.  But Wemby’s offensive struggles were indicative of a broader issue that’s plagued San Antonio for most of this series. It can’t get to, and/or finish in, the paint. Despite the Spurs’ size, speed, and athleticism, this shouldn’t be a surprise. Preventing their opponent from sniffing the lane is one of the Thunder’s most identifiable character traits. On Tuesday night, with their backs against the wall, they did it as well as they ever have.  The Spurs shot just 51.7 percent at the rim in Game 5, their second-lowest mark all season when Wembanyama played at least 25 minutes. That’s now two games in a row that we’ve seen San Antonio struggle mightily around the basket. (It finished at just 54.7 percent in Game 4’s blowout win.) This series has been a far cry from the 72.5 percent San Antonio shot at the basket in the last round, against the Minnesota Timberwolves.  The 3-point line still has a humongous say over which team will host the New York Knicks in Game 1 of the NBA Finals, but so many of those shots are left to chance compared to the higher-percentage attempts that come in the paint. Each defense is more or less willing to accept outside looks so long as they’re the direct result of a layup getting taken away; being that the Spurs employ a 7-foot-4 monster who can, in theory, dunk everything in sight, it’s jarring to see them be so inconsistent near the hoop. The Thunder are extremely physical and well-positioned, though. They rotate early, get handsy in passing lanes, and shrink the floor. It’s very unpleasant, and helps explain why Wembanyama never looked comfortable and couldn’t establish any rhythm on Tuesday night. He scored just three baskets in the restricted area not because he’d rather launch a bunch of pull-up jumpers but because OKC thrives at forcing opponents to do things they’d rather not do.  A Spurs Fumble, CarusoMania, Brunson’s Mega-Rise, and a Knicks Appreciation With Tim Legler and Brian Koppelman