The San Antonio Spurs, sparked by superstar Victor Wembanyama, on Saturday advanced to the NBA Finals by dethroning defending champion Oklahoma City Thunder 111-103, booking a championship showdown against the New York Knicks.
The Spurs captured the best-of-seven Western Conference finals 4-3 to reach the Finals, which begin on Wednesday against the Knicks in San Antonio, Texas.
“Though we’re still hungry for one more, this feeling is, I can’t explain it, it’s so powerful,” Wembanyama said. “We want four more. We’re not done. Go Spurs go.”
Photo: AP
French 2.24m center Wembanyama scored 22 points and grabbed seven rebounds, Julian Champagnie added 20 points including six three-pointers, and Stephon Castle had 16 points for the Spurs, who led the winner-take-all contest almost the entire way.
“We had a good team, a great team,” Champagnie said. “We had to stay the course and play a good game.”
“We were passing the ball. We were playing as a team. We come out here and play together,” he added. “We never knew if we were going to get this far, but when you’ve got the greatest player in the world things happen.”
Photo: AP
That was a nod to Wembanyama, the Most Valuable Player (MVP) of the Western Conference finals and the NBA Defensive Player of the Year.
“It doesn’t mean anything for me other than the fact we are a team,” Wembanyama said of his series MVP award. “I got this for all of us and all the fans right here.”
Of his teammates, Wembanyama said: “They don’t even know how much I love them. They are just incredible. Everybody stepped up tonight.”
“Wemby” dominated in his first playoff game seven and was emotional at the finish, laughing and crying, and hugging teammates over reaching his first NBA Finals.
“Realizing that some part of the childhood dream was going to come true,” the 22-year-old Frenchman said of his reaction.
The win sets up an NBA Finals repeat of this season’s NBA Cup final, which the Knicks won with a 124-113 defeat of San Antonio in December last year in Las Vegas.
“A lot of physicality, hit first, and rebounding,” Champagnie said of the Knicks. “It will be a nice challenge for us.”
NBA MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander led Oklahoma City with 35 points.
“He was brilliant. He had a great game,” Thunder coach Mark Daigneault said. “He delivered. It was a really big time game for him.”
“That would have been one of the stories of the game if we had been able to figure out a way to win it,” he added.
Daigneault said the challenge to repeat was not among the things that led to the defeat.
“You can be proud of effort and progress and the level we played ... and we can also be really disappointed,” he said.
“Felt like we could have won the series. We were right there. There’s nobody we don’t think we can’t beat,” he said. “I thought we had enough to win, but credit San Antonio — they’re the ones who did.”
A Spurs squad with only one player that had been in a game seven before overcame a more experienced Thunder squad that won the title in a game seven last year.
“Back in October we knew we had a chance to be pretty good,” Spurs coach Mitch Johnson said. “There’s a lot being talked about, words like competitiveness, resolve, togetherness, execution — who gives a damn about the word experience?”
“They had to go out and execute and they did,” he added.
Wembanyama hit two three-pointers in a 17-9 run to start the fourth quarter that lifted the Spurs ahead 97-86 with eight minutes remaining.
“Wemby” was whistled for his fifth foul seconds later and went to the bench, boosting Thunder hopes in the dying minutes while Gilgeous-Alexander tried to rally the reigning champions only to fall short at the finish.
Greek swimmer Kristian Gkolomeev was the only athlete to “beat” a world record on Sunday at the Enhanced Games, winning the men’s 50m freestyle at the divisive competition where athletes were free to take performance-enhancing substances. His time of 20.81 seconds — which is not considered official — came in the final event of the night in Las Vegas, sparing the blushes of organizers who made claims that multiple world records would be surpassed due to a sophisticated doping regime. Gkolomeev, who was wearing a synthetic “supersuit” long banned at events such as the Olympics, outpaced Australia’s Cameron McEvoy’s 20.88 set in
VICTORY ABROAD: The team took home a fistful of medals and secured spots for the autumn’s Asian Games, scheduled for September in Nagoya Taiwan’s women’s team captured the overall title at the Asian Taekwondo Championships in Mongolia on Sunday, finishing with two golds, one silver and one bronze medal. The strong showing, led by gold medalists Wang Chieh-ling and Chang Jui-en secured the full quota of available spots for Taiwan at the Asian Games in Nagoya, Japan, in September. Wang opened Taiwan’s medal run by winning gold in the women’s under-46kg class on Thursday, the first day of competition. Liu Yu-yun later earned a silver in the under-49kg class. On the final day on Sunday, Chang won Taiwan’s second gold medal in the under-62kg event, and
The manager of the Yomiuri Giants, one of Japan’s most popular baseball teams, resigned yesterday after he was arrested for allegedly physically attacking his teenage daughter. Shinnosuke Abe allegedly grabbed the 18-year-old and forced her to the floor at their home in central Tokyo on Monday evening, reported national broadcaster NHK and Kyodo News, citing unnamed police sources. “Leaving like this really means I’m causing you a lot of trouble, and I feel truly sorry about that,” Abe told a hastily arranged news conference, his eyes red with tears. The former star catcher, who is among baseball-obsessed Japan’s most recognized sports figures,
Taiwanese tennis star Hsieh Su-wei on Wednesday advanced to the second round of the mixed doubles at the French Open, after she and German partner Mark Wallner defeated Slovenian Andreja Klepac and Briton Lloyd Glasspool in straight sets, despite temperatures exceeding 32°C in Paris, while Taiwan’s top men’s doubles player Ray Ho also reached the second round. Hsieh, who made it to the semi-finals in the mixed doubles at Roland Garros in 2024, and Wallner defeated Klepac and Glasspool 6-3, 7-5 in just more than an hour, converting three of five break points, while holding their opponents to just one conversion
RSS