Oklahoma City Found the One Spot Wembanyama Hates, and San Antonio Walked Him There Anyway

Oklahoma City Found the One Spot Wembanyama Hates, and San Antonio Walked Him There Anyway

Victor Wembanyama scored 26 points in Game 3 on Friday. He's averaging historic numbers for this series. The Spurs still lost at home 123-108, because Oklahoma City has been pushing Wembanyama away from the paint, where his biggest offensive advantage lies.

Thunder big man Isaiah Hartenstein has had a lot to do with this. Mark Daigneault's decision to deploy Hartenstein in Game 2 has, for the moment, completely swung the series. The CBS Sports breakdown makes the split hard to ignore: the Spurs are +21 with Wembanyama on the floor in this series and -38 when he sits. That's an enormous gap the rest of the roster isn't closing.

Wemby's dominant Game 1 is propping his series numbers up. The 26 points he scored Friday weren't nearly as impactful as that raw number would usually indicate. If San Antonio is going to climb out of a 2-1 hole, Wembanyama needs to operate in the paint early — not late, as was the case on Friday.

Gobble's Take: The Thunder found the adjustment, Hartenstein is executing it, and the Spurs haven't answered yet.

Sources: CBS Sports · Yahoo Sports

The Thunder Bench Outscored San Antonio's Reserves

Oklahoma City's bench outscored San Antonio's reserves by a wide margin in Game 3. Not counting the five points Kelly Olynyk and Mason Plumlee put up in garbage time, the quartet of Dylan Harper, Keldon Johnson, Luke Kornet, and Carter Bryant scored just 18 points in a combined 52 minutes on the floor.

Keldon Johnson, the newly crowned Sixth Man of the Year, scored one basket and a pair of free throws and finished with a -23 plus/minus. By comparison, four Thunder bench players scored in double figures, led by Jared McCain's 24 points and Jaylin Williams' 18.

The Spurs' starters, all of whom played 30 or more minutes, looked gassed by the end of the game — just as they did at the end of Game 1.

Gobble's Take: San Antonio's reserves managed just 18 points in 52 minutes, and the starters paid for it late.

Sources: Yahoo Sports · CBS Sports

Cleveland Says the Process Was Right. The Scoreboard Says Otherwise.

At Madison Square Garden, a Nike billboard featuring Jalen Brunson reads "TOO MUCH TO PROCESS." Originally conceived as a dig at Joel Embiid, it now functions as a taunt toward the Cleveland Cavaliers, who trail 2-0 in the Eastern Conference Finals.

In Game 2, Cleveland shot 9-for-35 from three — including 2-for-12 on "open" shots and 6-for-19 on "wide open" shots — in a 109-93 loss. After the game, coach Kenny Atkinson, Evan Mobley, Donovan Mitchell, and Jarrett Allen all pointed to the same theme: the process was right, the shots just didn't fall. Atkinson noted that in Game 1, the Knicks "were in the first percentile of shot quality" by the team's internal data. He also acknowledged Cleveland must "get our bigs at the rim more, get more free throws, probably attack downhill more in transition."

Gobble's Take: Cleveland's players and coach are aligned on trusting their process. Down 0-2, belief alone won't be enough.

Source: CBS Sports

Caitlin Clark Learned About Her Technical Like the Rest of Us: Mid-Chaos, On Camera

Caitlin Clark got hit with a technical foul during a heated altercation, and the most honest moment of the whole sequence was what came after: she found out about it in real time and said, flatly, "Fines coming my way." That's not damage control. That's a player who knows exactly what her presence costs and decided the moment was worth it anyway.

That matters because Clark's games are no longer just games — they are events with paper trails. Every shoulder check, every stare-down, every extra word gets replayed like courtroom footage, and the fine is part of the story before the box score is. Bleacher Report caught the reaction on camera, which is exactly why it travels: you don't need the backstory to feel the temperature of it.

The bigger truth is that Clark has become one of the few players in the WNBA whose emotions are themselves a storyline. The league doesn't just want her points or her highlights. It also has to live with the volatility that comes attached to both.

Gobble's Take: Every emotional night now comes with a side of paperwork — and Clark knew it before the whistle stopped echoing.

Source: Bleacher Report

Amen Thompson Just Spent a Season Answering a Question Houston Has Asked for Years

The Houston Rockets have been running the same experiment since Mike D'Antoni moved James Harden from the two to the one: can a non-point guard be the point guard? Fred VanVleet was the most undeniable answer they ever had — until he got hurt for the year. So the question opened back up, and this time Amen Thompson stepped into it.

The counting stats improved across the board: 18.3 points, 7.8 rebounds, and 5.3 assists per game, up from 14.1, 8.3, and 3.8 the prior season. But the deeper numbers told a more complicated story. Thompson's Box Plus/Minus dropped from 4.1 to 2.6. His steals and blocks declined — partly because Dillon Brooks leaving meant Thompson had to guard the other team's best player more often, and partly because the added offensive responsibility seemed to dull his relentless defensive instincts. His 23.1% assist ratio ranked 44th in the NBA: fine for a wing, light for a starting point guard. His Points Per Possession as a pick-and-roll ball-handler landed in the 61st percentile. These are numbers that look better if you think of Thompson as a tertiary ball-handler with Defensive Player of the Year upside — and considerably weaker if he's supposed to be running your offense.

That's not a failure — it's a warning label with a bright future attached. The Rockets probably found a cornerstone. They still may need someone else to start the play.

Gobble's Take: Amen looks like a star — just maybe not the one who calls the play, which means Houston's point-guard question is still open for business next summer.

Source: Yahoo Sports

In Case You Missed It

Yesterday's top stories:

• Josh Hart Cited Jay Wright After His Viral Analytics Quote During a Knicks 2-0 Series Lead
• Every Contender Just Started Re-Pricing Giannis — Because of Wembanyama
• LeBron Just Said His Decision Could Drag Into August — And Every Front Office Heard That
• Thunder vs. Spurs Is Starting to Look Less Like a Matchup and More Like the Next Decade
• The Fever Got a League Warning — Because Caitlin Clark's Injury Report Is Now a Public Event