Skip to main content
Inside The Spurs

'Delicate Balance': How SGA Broke Down the Spurs' Defense, and the Adjustments They Can Make

The Spurs have done a good job of limiting MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander as a scorer, but the film shows how he's getting his Thunder teammates involved with too many open 3's.
Tom Petrini|
May 22, 2026; San Antonio, Texas, USA; Oklahoma City Thunder guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (2) shoots the ball past San Antonio Spurs guard Devin Vassell (24) in the second half during game three of the western conference finals for the 2026 NBA playoffs at Frost Bank Center. Mandatory Credit: Scott Wachter-Imagn Images
May 22, 2026; San Antonio, Texas, USA; Oklahoma City Thunder guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (2) shoots the ball past San Antonio Spurs guard Devin Vassell (24) in the second half during game three of the western conference finals for the 2026 NBA playoffs at Frost Bank Center. Mandatory Credit: Scott Wachter-Imagn Images | Scott Wachter-Imagn Images

In this story:

San Antonio SpursOklahoma City Thunder

SAN ANTONIO -- Shai Gilgeous-Alexander's ability to break down the defense on a basketball court is almost unparalleled across recorded history.

That's the reason he's won two MVP awards in a row, and the reason the Thunder are back in the driver's seat as they rumble toward repeating as NBA champions. The upstart Spurs stand in their way, and if San Antonio is to topple this dynasty in the making, they need to throw everything they can at SGA.

It's hard to pay too much attention to a player that talented and utterly gamebreaking, but the Spurs might have done just that in Game 3. While they sold out to slow his scoring as much as possible and did a solid job, it opened up opportunities for his teammates.

"I think that's probably the rock and the hard place you live between that takes up the most sleep at night," Spurs coach Mitch Johnson said. "You want to take this away, and then that hurts you, and then you want to take that away, so you can get caught chasing the tail a little bit. He's a great player. He had some assists last night, and some of them probably you need to just execute and do better to take that away. It is that delicate balance of how do you adjust and change looks and counter things, and what can you just do better, do right."

San Antonio's defense features a collection of fiesty, switchable, strong, quick defenders dancing on a string in front of Victor Wembanyama. The roster construction and the concepts they typically carry out are make the Spurs better equipped than anyone to contain the slipperiest playmaker in the world.

They've done it multiple times this year, both in the regular season and already for stretches in this Western Conference Finals, which feels like the first of many beautiful chess matches between these two incredible groups of players.

Much is made of SGA's propensity for drawing penalties, but Johnson didn't cry foul after the Game 3 that saw him shoot 12 free throws. Instead he brought it back to his own team's execution, which he felt got a little bit overzealous at times.

"Probably half of them were from undisciplined," Johnson said. " First off the floor, he got us out of position, took advantage of it... I know a few of them were pretty good defense, it felt like up until that point, and it's tough because he gets to spots and he makes tough shots, but you got to keep fighting that urge to try to do more and stay with it. He's 6-17 (from the floor), which means whether he missed some shots, we made them tough, or a little combination of both, but those 12 free throws helped out a lot, I can remember at least a few on my head right now that were undisciplined on our end."

SGA's talent level, his shotmaking ability, his playmaking vision, his fluid speed and control all place a tremendous amount of strain on the discipline of any defense. The Spurs can be proud of holding him to 35% shooting from the field, but their focus on him has opened up the game for everyone else on OKC.

Gilgeous-Alexander got his MVP trophy before Game 1, and at halftime he had four points as the Spurs threw their array of wing stoppers at him, sometimes two at a time. He played 51 minutes and finished with 24 points on 7-23 shooting from the floor and 8-9 from the stripe in the double-overtime Thunder loss.

"I think we've done a good job so far," said Spurs guard Stephon Castle, who has spent a lot of time with the primary assignment on Shai. "Watching obviously a couple things we could do better, but the way we've been helping each other and selling out, to know where we've got to be in rotations, and wanting to get him off the ball, and I think we've done a great job of that so far."

As impressive as it was for the Spurs to limit Shai as a scorer, it almost backfired. SGA became a distributor and dished a dozen dimes, and Alex Caruso morphed into prime Klay Thompson and hit 8-14 from 3-point land.

Lots of those shots were wide open, because the game plan entailed Wembanyama sagging way off of the Thunder's 'least threatening' shooter to deter any drives and cuts to the rim.

"They made a lot of shots, a lot of them that we wanted them to shoot," Castle said after watching the film of Game 3. "Some of the shots they made were from guys that we wanted them to take those shots, and you know, they made them."

65% of Oklahoma City's 119 3-point attempts through the first three games were classified as wide-open by the NBA's shot tracking data, and they've hit 49.4% of them.

No matter how good a defense is, there will always be tradeoffs and decisions about what kind of shot attempts you're willing to live with as a group. Through the first three games, it appears that the Spurs are willing to live with some of the other guys taking open 3s if it means forcing the ball out of the MVP's hands. It almost killed them in Game 1, and in Game 3 they got slaughtered by it.

How Shai Beat the Spurs' Defense in Game 3

At first, it looked like San Antonio might run away with Game 3. They were clamping up, blocking shots, forcing misses and turnovers that got the Spurs running and gunning to a 15-0 lead.

In the first quarter, SGA missed all three of his shot attempts. He attacked Castle and Wembanyama in pick and roll twice, missing at the rim over Wemby and getting stuffed by Castle on a pull-up jumper. He tried to pull-up over Devin Vassell who contested at his fingertips, and Shai didn't get the call he was looking for as the shot missed badly.

The play that broke the dry spell for OKC serves as a solid example of how the Thunder attacked San Antonio's focused aggression on SGA. The MVP drove on the left side of the court and got guided into a trap near the corner between De'Aaron Fox and Julian Champagnie. Even if he got past them Wemby stood sentry at the rim, a good distance from Thunder big man Isaiah Hartenstein.

Shai passed to Lu Dort who was already forming up into a shot, and when Stephon Castle bit on the fake he took two dribbles forward to occupy Wemby and passed to Hartenstein at the elbow for a floater.

The Thunder have so many dangerous options on offense, especially Shai but also well beyond Shai, that getting Hartenstein to attempt a 15-footer over Wemby's fingertips is an undeniable win for the defense. But the shot came down with dew drops on it and splashed through the net as the start of a 30-point swing.

The moment that Victor Wembanyama went to the bench, SGA got both feet in the paint for the first time all game. He jumped with four players close enough to touch him, and zipped it out to Cason Wallace on the wing for a triple over a late contest by Devin Vassell. On the next possession he got just inside the free throw line again, drew a double, fell to the ground, and found an open Alex Caruso for a three that rattled home past the outstretched hand of Stephon Castle.

Another Gilgeous-Alexander drive scrambled the defense and got backup big man Jaylin Williams an open fly-by 3 that he drilled over Keldon Johnson. The next play Caruso screened for Shai 40 feet from the basket with Luke Kornet backpedaling in a drop. Keldon came over to help Kornet, and that left Williams open from the same exact spot for another semi-contested catch-and-shoot look.

To start the second quarter, Shai drove past Castle and snaked in front of him to the top of the paint once more. He occupied Fox who helped off a shooter, and also Wemby who helped off the weak-side corner, and also rookie Carter Bryant who helped a little too far off of Chet Holmgren at the top of the arc. SGA got it to Chet, who knocked it down over the contest that came just a beat too late.

On the next play, the Thunder flattened the floor and let Gilgeous-Alexander isolate on the rookie. Bryant is a quick, sturdy, innately gifted defender, and he stayed in front of the MVP, but SGA stepped back to deliver his first points of the game and put the Thunder in front.

When he tried it again over Bryant a few plays later it missed by a mile, but even Shai's misses became productive plays for OKC. The Spurs built a wall of three defenders in front of him with Wemby behind them, so he stepped back for 3. The shot missed everything, but because the Spurs were working out of a soft quadruple team it became an easy offensive rebound for the Thunder.

Julian Champagnie chased Shai over a screen as he drove middle, and Castle stepped up to deter the drive. As soon as the help came from a pass away, Gilgeous-Alexander made the pass. Wembanyama was caught sagging off the weak-side corner, and Williams drilled his third triple of the first half over Wemby's Kornet Kontest.

Lu Dort set a crushing screen near half court to bump Castle off of Shai, who then blew past Dort's man Champagnie. Wembanyama flashed across the paint from the weak side, Bryant collapsed in, and the banged-up De'Aaron Fox was on the back line watching as Wallace cut up from the dunker spot and SGA found him with a live-dribble pass around Wemby for his sixth assist.

Shai may have found an interesting way to neutralize Wembanyama as a shot blocker: make sure there's another defender between you and him. He banged bodies with Castle on a drive and put up a very difficult shot over him, but Wemby couldn't reach it and it dropped.

When Kornet came back in for a moment, SGA attacked Castle in isolation and tried to get a foul call as he went up a step inside the stripe. No whistle came, but he laid it up and in with his left as Kornet backed off to prevent a potential lob.

The Spurs tried and failed to deny him the ball at the elbow. Champagnie was closest and scrambled into position, but Shai dribbled into his body stepped on his foot, and pushed off with his forearm. Everyone else was close but not close enough as Jules went down and the shot went up.

Shai crossed half court with the Spurs in a bit of a zone, and as soon as Castle came to double Caruso cut to the open paint. He caught it and immediately sprayed it out to Williams who was too open in the corner as Champagnie got caught watching the action.

The second half began with Fox denying Gilgeous-Alexander the ball until he couldn't any longer. Hartenstein handed it off to him and Fox went over, forcing Wembanyama to step up on the perimeter. Hartenstein cut hard, and his point guard rewarded him with an easy dunk.

"Hartenstein into the basket! Took advantage of Wembanyama's defensive attention on the MVP," Mike Tirico said on the NBC broadcast.

A few plays later, Holmgren was the beneficiary as SGA drove left and summoned help defense from Wembanyama. He bounced a perfect pass under the basket. Holmgren also capitalized when Shai drove, got doubled by Wemby and settled for a baseline jumper. He missed, but he pulled Wembanyama away from the rim and nobody boxed out Chet who crashed for an easy dunk.

One of Shai's most impressive plays came about four minutes into the third quarter. He hit Castle with an in-and-out dribble to put him on the wrong side of a screen that Holmgren was just beginning to set. By his next dribble, he was already sprinting past Vassell on the switch. Champagnie helped from the strong side to no avail. Wembanyama met him in the paint and reached his arms as high into the sky as any NBA player can. He beat all four of them on the play.

On a more simple read and reaction, SGA drove against Bryant, drew a double from Wemby, and kicked it out to Jared McCain who drilled another deep 3 over another contest that came just a fraction too late because the defender gave just a bit too much space.

With Wemby off the floor, Hartenstein set a screen at the logo to pull Kornet away from the rim and Gilgeous-Alexander drove, collapsing the defense and finding a shooter on the wing. That shot didn't fall, but it was another offensive board for the Thunder and the ball found its way back to SGA for his cleanest look of the game.

The next pick and roll engaged Wembanyama, and Champagnie helped right at the free throw line and forced him to pick up the ball and send it to the open man post haste. That was Caruso, who drifted into the corner and swished a smooth leaner over a late contest.

The French Vanilla Experiment

As Mitch Johnson searched for lineup answers, he tried to go French Vanilla with Wemby and Kornet in a two-big look. They haven't played together much later in the season, and that showed in some lapses on the back line.

"We've got to rebound better, and they've done a great job of not letting us get out and play fast, so there was a little bit of a sense there that if we weren't going to play fast we could at least have an uptick in rebounding and some force around the rim" Johnson said.

"It went okay, and it's been very well documented that I love the idea of it," Johnson said. "We haven't been able to do it as much this year. Some of it was because of health, some of it's because, as all the great ideas and all the plays that work on paper when you draw them down, write them down, you want to have an identity build consistency. So it's something I think we want to continue to grow. Definitely not something we've been able to do up until this point, where you would say, 'Oh, that's a main aspect of what we want to do moving forward.'"

Champagnie cheated toward SGA just enough that when he sent the pass to McCain, the second-year star the Thunder picked up at the trade deadline got an open lane to dribble into a free-throw-line jumper over Wemby.

Vassell and Champagnie doubled him up top and he found Caruso around the elbow. Caruso flowed into a handoff to McCain, who drove baseline. Wembanyama and Kornet were both under the basket together, leaving Jaylin Williams unattended on the wing for another 3 over another late contest. Kornet would have been better off doing his signature move of blocking out the sun from a mile away, because he fouled him on the make.

A moment later, Wembanyama looked toward the bench and twirled his finger in a circle in a way that didn't look like he was calling for a challenge. A moment after that, Kornet was out of the game.

The final dagger came with 2:30 left, as Fox came to double near half court and the defense behind him made sure Shai didn't have an easy pass to an open man. He just made the hard one instead, skipping it to the opposite corner about 40 feet away to Wallace for 3.

How Will the Spurs Adjust?

The obvious adjustment that many are calling on Mitch Johnson to make involves playing more of a straight-up defense against SGA. Stick Steph Castle or Devin Vassell on him, let Wembanyama wreck the paint, and stay home on the shooters otherwise.

Gilgeous-Alexander will probably score more, even on well-contested shots, but the Spurs have deployed a similar tactic against heliocentric stars many times over the years, from Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving to top scoring guards of yesteryear.

Those guys might score 50 points or more, but you put up as good an individual fight as possible as he get his and limit the others. The hope is that at the end of the game, his team has fewer total points than the Spurs.

This might be an especially useful tactic early in the game, because SGA is going to be confident and getting his buckets regardless but the role players around him are the guys who you don't want to leave open and let them watch their shots go through the net early and get into a rhythm.

"Their percentages are high because we're not there on the catch," Fox said at shootaround on Sunday. "We're not contesting shots at a high level. I think the percentages show whenever we do the things we're supposed to do, the percentages drop."

Expect the Spurs to use that strategy a bit more, but it doesn't sound like they'll abandon the trapping entirely. In fact, they may even try to ramp up the intensity there when they do use it.

"I think just being more early in our help, and force him to pick up the ball a lot farther away from the rim," Castle said. "It kind of makes our rotations shorter, so I mean, obviously we're not gonna take our attention away from him, but having to find a work around."

While some of the tactics will likely change a bit, the other adjustment is simply to try harder and do better. If the Spurs trap earlier and rotate out of it better, that alone would close some of the openings Oklahoma City found in Game 3.

"There's a lot of things we could be sharper in, rebounding a lot of undisciplined stuff defensively," Mitch Johnson said.

"It's all in the scouting," Wembanyama said. "We have to trust the scouting and do our work early. It's straight effort."

Add us as a preferred source on Google

Loading recommendations... Please wait while we load personalized content recommendations

Published
Tom Petrini
TOM PETRINI

Tom Petrini has covered Spurs basketball for the last decade, first for Project Spurs and then for KENS 5 in San Antonio. After leaving the newsroom he co-founded the Silver and Black Coffee Hour, a weekly podcast where he catches up on Spurs news with friends Aaron Blackerby and Zach Montana. Tom lives in Austin with his partner Jess and their dogs Dottie and Guppy. His other interests include motorsports and making a nice marinara sauce.

Share on XFollow RealTomPetrini
Home/News