Before Game 1 of the Western Conference Finals on Monday, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander accepted his second consecutive MVP award. Victor Wembanyama was forced to watch. And he took that personally. Then Wemby made SGA and all his teammates watch him stake his claim to being the best player in the world.
Wembanyama thoroughly dominated the proceedings with 41 points and 24 rebounds, making him the youngest player in postseason history to put up those numbers. Yes, the game went to double overtime. No, that doesn’t make his stat line any less impressive. Wemby was hyper-efficient, going 14 for 25 from the floor and 12 of 13 from the free-throw line. His shot diet led him to feast on OKC in the paint for much of the evening — until overtime, when he casually walked into a logo 3-pointer to tie the game. Because sure, why not?
It was a generational performance that might be remembered as the moment Wembanyama took over the league. OKC threw everything they could at the guy. Isaiah Hartenstein. Jalen Williams. Lu Dort. Even Alex Caruso took a turn trying to slow him down in a move reminiscent of what Mark Daigneault tried last postseason with Caruso on Nikola Jokić. None of it worked. But of all the matchups that did not work, Chet Holmgren was first among them. Wemby victimized the whole Thunder team, but he seemed to take particular glee in punking Holmgren. His hatred of Holmgren is so obvious that the broadcast did an in-game montage of Wemby clapping with delight whenever Holmgren missed a free throw during their regular-season meetings. Just look how thrilled he was to dunk on Chet and put the game away late in the second overtime.
There was a time when these two guys were billed as rivals, but the days of Holmgren getting the better of Wembanyama in the U19 World Cup are long gone. Maybe that was the origin story for Wemby’s pure dislike of Holmgren. Whatever the motivation, the Spurs center has separated himself from his Thunder foe. Holmgren was runner-up behind Wemby three seasons ago in the Rookie of the Year race, and he was runner-up behind Wemby for Defensive Player of the Year this season. But saying he came in second to Wemby in anything doesn’t properly contextualize the Oklahoma City-to-San Antonio-sized talent gap between the two these days. Provided he clears the 65-game threshold, Wembanyama will be the favorite to win MVP next season and he’ll have a stranglehold on DPOY for the foreseeable future. And Holmgren will be…the second or third best option on his own team, depending on the night — or worse than that if the night happens to feature a game against the Spurs.
Holmgren getting so badly outclassed by his nemesis isn’t great news for OKC’s hopes of defending their title. The Thunder have lost five of their six games against San Antonio. It was easy enough for OKC defenders to hand-wave the regular-season results — until the underlying reasons were reinforced in Game 1. The Thunder have only lost eight games in their building between the regular season and postseason, but three have come courtesy of the Spurs. Getting to a second straight finals, let alone winning it, will require all of them to crack what has so far been an unbreakable San Antonio code. That includes Holmgren.
Recent history suggests it won’t be easy. In four regular-season games against San Antonio, Holmgren averaged 10.5 points on 38.7% shooting — well below his career numbers. He was somehow even worse in Game 1. Single-game plus-minus is frequently a misinterpreted stat that can lie to you. In Holmgren’s case, his minus-7 in 41 minutes was not only a good snapshot but also charitable. He took seven shots all night and made two field goals. In a double overtime game. That’s hard to do, and it should be impossible for someone of his caliber. And in addition to getting dominated by Wemby, he got literally pushed around by the considerably smaller Dylan Harper.
You almost have to entertain going into witness protection after that. At times, it looked like Holmgren knew that he was utterly ineffective and, worse still, powerless to do anything about it. The broadcast caught him sulking and seething on the bench. His best (only?) play of the game came late in regulation when he blocked Wemby to force overtime.
Credit to Holmgren in that moment, but it was ultimately too little, too late, and it did nothing to alter the eventual outcome. Social media had all sorts of jokes about Holmgren’s lackluster performance, and former NBA big man Boogie Cousins even called him out for “(tucking) his tail.” That’s probably a little harsh, but that’s how it goes when you no-show in a huge game while the guy you were once, but are no longer, measured against puts in an all-time performance.
After Game 1, Dort — who also did not cover himself in glory in the series opener — was asked about Wemby getting the better of Chet. Like a good teammate, he tried to cover for his guy. Dort said all the expected things about how they know what Holmgren is capable of and called him a competitor. He said they expect Holmgren to be better going forward and added that “we all know he’s going to bounce back.” Dort even sounded like he believed it. That makes one person, at least.
