NBA TODAY | It's not basketball, Thunder dirty play Wemby - Windy: Spurs will revenge at San Antonio

Added: 2026-05-25

[00:00:00]in this playoff.

[00:00:01]>> Game two of the West Finals underway.

[00:00:04]Alexander works the space. Gets going early. SBA a couple of field goals.

[00:00:09]>> Let's cast.

[00:00:12]Oh my goodness.

[00:00:15]We are trading punches.

[00:00:17]>> They will not go away. Alexander around castle. NBA is so direct right now.

[00:00:25]Alexander the attacks back.

[00:00:28]Everybody calm down. The MVP is here.

[00:00:35]>> We got a good one. We haven't had a West Finals that's tied at one game a piece in eight years. It was the Warriors and Rockets. Yeah, they were all kned up at one. That was back in >> says calm down. Sort of epic series. The Warriors won that one in seven games.

[00:00:50]So, if we can get seven games of Spurs Thunder, all all of us would sign up for that, right? Absolutely. I would think so. Right. So, let's just take a look here how we got here. The Spurs successfully slowed down SGAA. They threw double teams at him in game one.

[00:01:02]Of course, he responded with 30 points on 50% shooting the next timeout. He passed Russell Westbrook for the second most 30point games in playoff franchise history. And WBY, he's dominated so far.

[00:01:13]He's the first player to average 30 points, 20 rebounds over a twoame span in the conference finals since Kareem did it in 1974. But three key players, they are questionable for tonight's game three. Thunders Jaylen Williams hamstring soreness and then a pair of Spurs guards Dylan Harper he's dealing with adductor soreness. Dear Fox is dealing with an ankle sprain. So we now welcome in our friends Ben McMahon, Tim McMahon and Michael Cightight both joining us from the Frostbank Center in San Antonio. So let's start with the reigning champs here. What is the latest Tim on Jaylen Williams?

[00:01:47]>> Howdy Milik. As you said, he's listed as questionable despite the fact that this is the same hamstring that he strained in the second game of the first round of the playoffs. He missed six games after that. Now, they are calling this tightness, not a strain, but I'll be honest with you, I talked to a lot of people around the league and I can't find anybody who wouldn't be surprised if Jayen Williams is able to turn around tonight and and play in this game that if he's not able to play, look, they are accustomed to playing without him unfortunately this year. there 45 and 10 without him though, including 6 and0 in the playoffs. It does impact their lineup flexibility. Uh but one thing they did in the uh in game two as a response is they went bigger. They stuck with Isaiah Hartinstein. They had him as the primary defender instead of rotating wings including Jaylen Williams on Victor Winmenyama. And look, he didn't shut him down, but the paint points dropped from 26 to 10. The free throw attempts dropped from 13 to three. And so, you know, this team is built to play a lot of different ways with or without Jaylen Williams.

[00:02:45]>> Yeah. And certainly they were successful for much of this regular season. That's the OKC side of these injuries. On the Spurs side, Michael, they're dealing with some as well. So, we've got De'arren Fox and Dylan Harper. Both of them are questionable here. What's the plan for them?

[00:03:00]>> Well, let's start with De'Aran Fox. I did see him in shoot around this morning. He participated, but he's officially listed as questionable. You have to realize that he hurt that ankle originally in game four of the Western Conference semis and he played games five and six and it just got progressively worse so they had to hold him out the first two games. He'll go through his normal pregame warm-up and they'll make a decision based off that.

[00:03:21]And then Dylan Harper, same situation.

[00:03:23]He's got that adductor, but he will go through his pregame warm-ups and they'll make a decision closer to tip off. Now, I can say that Dylan is going to be one of the first guys out for pregame warm-ups, so we should know pretty soon here. And Dylan is really important for the Spurs obviously because they've been outscored in bench scoring 107 to 41 throughout this series. So Harper is big for the unit for sure.

[00:03:45]>> Yeah, absolutely. He's going to be huge and obviously you want to at least have one of those two guys to be able to go to help with their ball handling responsibility as well. I'm seeing the shirts behind both of you. This is the first home game for San Antonio this series. Michael, what kind of atmosphere are you expecting tonight?

[00:04:03]Well, Malikica, you got to understand this team has not hosted a conference final here in this building since 2017.

[00:04:09]So, it's going to be wild. You know, obviously you got the Fiesta themed shirts, but if you are a motorist driving around town, don't get mad when people honk at you because in San Antonio that is tradition when the San Antonio Spurs are rolling. Now, they're going to have that fan section, the Jackals that Victor Whipyama hand selected. He he put them all through auditions one by one, chose every one of them. He even helps them with their chance. He goes to their practices and everything. So, they'll have that thing rolling tonight with a lot of chance.

[00:04:36]Matter of fact, the Jackals even made a couple of friendship bracelets that they gave to me to to give to, you know, Tim McMahon. Give him one, but I didn't give it to him because he he ain't got no friends.

[00:04:49]>> I was going to say friendship bracelets for Tim McMahon. Appreciate you, Michael C. Right. We'll take one for Perk instead. Enjoy tonight's game. Uh, why is tonight's game so pivotal though, guys? Game three, the winner of the best of seven series tied at one. They go on to win the series 73% of the time.

[00:05:04]Friendship bracelets are not. So, this series, it's already gotten very physical. Here's Julian Champeni on how the Spurs plan to help Victor tonight.

[00:05:13]>> Hit back. Honestly, hit back. The guys hit him. They they pull him. They they they grab his jersey. They're grabbing his arm when he's jumping. Um, you know, obviously that's not that's not uh that's not basketball. That's just a physicality thing, you know, whoever, you know, that's up to the the refs to deal with, not not us. But I think uh as a team, how we can help them, we take them back, honestly, and truly do the same do the same things that they're doing to us to them. I'm kind of match the level of physicality and then just see how that goes.

[00:05:44]>> We are going to hit back, perk. What do you want to see from the Spurs tonight?

[00:05:50]>> We focus so much on offense that we forget that defense win you championships. Yeah, >> defense win you championships. The Spurs are trying to win a championship. They have a legit chance at winning a championship. And there's only one player in the basketball world in the NBA that could dominate and still look like the best player in the world on defense, and that's Wimby. We highlighted how Isel Hardenstein made it tough on him offensively, but we also highlighted yesterday on this show about the the per Gat screen, right?

[00:06:26]>> I want to see Wimby have one of those performances defensively where I'm like, what the hell did I just watch? Like one of those ones where it's like you have you're m you're making it so tough that it's like, man, OKC can't score. Because when he's that when he's having that type of impact, all of a sudden we start we start to see that lead go from two points to 10 points to 15 points to 20 points. The offense is going to come.

[00:06:52]He's too gifted. He has too much to offer. Defensively, I want him to have that impact where we look at the television tonight and say that's the best player in the world solely off of the defensive end.

[00:07:02]>> Without a doubt. I have to second that.

[00:07:04]But it can't be him trying to make plays the way he did in game two and not they're just not going to let it happen.

[00:07:09]Wimby, what you gonna have to do is when you do feel that forearm, how are you gonna swim and get up out of there? It's coming. It's gonna hurt. It's gonna bruise.

[00:07:19]Don't flinch. For real though, don't flinch. Take that on. You see this? You looking back looking at him. You know who doing that. You know what's going on. You can't let it distract you. It got to be let me dislodge. Get him up off me. I have to get to the action. Cuz that's what they need. They need that second line. They need you to make sure that you making it a preventative effort to say, "Hey, we not attacking in there.

[00:07:41]I don't want none of that." That's what they was doing game one. Game two, they like, "Oh, you got him at bait. Let me get to my pull-up. Let me get to my They was shooting floaters. I ain't seen a regular floater around Wimby in so long." But they kept him out of action.

[00:07:53]So Wimby, if you could take on that challenge, if you could make sure that they don't put any holes in your game, you could go from rebounds to running to setting the ball screen. You can't mosey up there. You got to sprint, get through that contact, set an actual ball screen.

[00:08:06]>> If there's one player that I'm not worried about is Victor Wyama. Like I expect him to have wilt numbers. He's a modern day Wilt. He's going to get 20 and 30. But the other issue that they have as a team and one person in particular, Stefon Castle is the turnovers. They got to find ways to limit turnover. He is the key. We don't know if Darren Fox is going to play. We don't know if Dylan Harper's going to play. A lot of the onus is on you. If you take care of the ball, y'all win the game. They're averaging 21 turnovers a game as a team and he's averaging 10 himself. So half of him if he just turns like half is less or just a four like only two or three a game you're okay you're in great shave it down >> they're asking a ton and and not to make excuses but they're asking a ton of castle because on one hand you're handling the ball you're you have the ball handling responsibilities and on the other hand you're guarding Shay Gildis Alexander that is a ton to put on Stefan Castle >> and I'll answer for you Stefan Castle you want the assignment >> he want it yeah it's a whole lot of responsibility here you go here it go you want it here it They got to help him out. They wor about we're helping Victor. They got to help Castle out. I find these reports of these guys being questionable.

[00:09:08]>> Questionable. I just don't think that you have to find other guys to Deon. So, >> Victor going to be doing more of the >> Kevin Johnson. No, I think you got to have your >> That's what I said. Kevin, too.

[00:09:18]>> They got to find just a few possessions of time because the the Thunder are trying every second. They're trying to take the ball from you. It's exhausting.

[00:09:26]You got to give him a little bit of a release.

[00:09:27]>> So, if you're Shay quickly to hit on the other side of this, what do you want to see from him? Well, I think Shay has really done a great job in game two of navigating the double teams. There's more coming. They've double teamed him 53 times in two games. You know, there's another 20 or 30 coming tonight. He did a good job of not accepting them, finding space. He does that again tonight. Get his efficiency back up.

[00:09:45]>> Going to be all right.

[00:09:46]>> He got to get out in transition again. I thought a lot of his buckets he was getting out in transition and he was able to get to his spots. But that means they got to stay true to their identity, right? We talk about Stefan Castle not turning the ball over, but OKC is great at forcing turnover. Like, we're going to turn you over. It ain't We ain't making you We ain't letting you make the decision. We're making the decision for you.

[00:10:09]>> The biggest thing OKC do when they switch, they don't switch because they trying to get off of whatever they match up. They switch to steal. They switch to get a an advantage. They like, "No, we switching to jump on your right hand. We are switching. We are trapping right here to get the ball out of your hands right now. It's aggressive.

[00:10:27]>> They've done that so successfully, especially with Steph Castle these first two games. Let's stick with this game.

[00:10:31]It's time for Heat Check. It's brought to you by DraftKings Sportsbook.