'Just Special' | Wembanyama, Spurs React to Western Conference Finals Matchup With Thunder

MINNEAPOLIS -- Before his maiden playoff voyage, Spurs superstar Victor Wembanyama said he was excited to play meaningful games again.

On Friday night in Minnesota, the 22-year-old Frenchman played the most meaningful game of his NBA career as the Spurs eviscerated the Timberwolves in Game 6 to clinch a date with the defending-champion Oklahoma City Thunder in the Western Conference Finals.

"It's great. My mind is excited, my body is tired after this game," Wembanyama said. "Just the words, 'Conference Finals,' it's crazy, something I heard my whole life, and now being in it is just special. It's hopefully many more Conference Finals to come."

“Just the words, ‘Conference Finals,’ it's crazy, something I heard my whole life, and now being in it is just special. It's hopefully many more conference finals to come.”

-Victor Wembanyama after the most meaningful game of his NBA career pic.twitter.com/AcgvKRVTJF
— Silver & Black Coffee Hour (@SlvrBlkCoffeeHr) May 16, 2026

This young San Antonio team now has eight wins down, eight wins to go in pursuit of the ultimate goal of winning a championship. Each of their last 11 games has built on the stakes of the one before, stakes that were entirely theoretical to this group until now. Going on the road and closing out a hungry Timberwolves team that had been to the Conference Finals in back-to-back years is no small feat.

"It shows that we already gained a little bit of experience from our short playoff time, I feel like we put ourselves in the best conditions," Wembanyama said.

"I mean, I feel pretty experienced... these past two series I think just helped me kind of find my groove." said rookie Dylan Harper, who played beyond his years all season and is breaking out in the playoffs. "I feel kind of comfortable and confident out there, but I think we'll be walking into on Monday. I think that's a different animal."

They didn't know what they didn't know, and now they know so much more than they did one month ago. They also know that their toughest test stands directly in front of them, in the form of the reigning champs who are led by the reigning MVP.

"The nature of the playoffs makes it that we're going to play against better and better teams, and there was already a leap between the first and second round, and it's going to be probably an even bigger leap between second and third," Wembanyama said. "But we got good guidance, we got an good coaching staff, the best, actually, so we can trust them."

"They're the defending champs," Spurs coach Mitch Johnson said of the Thunder. "They haven't lost a game in the playoffs, so we'll have to be at our best to make it competitive."

Johnson had his young guys pressing on defense and pushing the pace in transition even as the score became farcical on Friday night in Minneapolis. His year-long emphasis on relentlessness is a huge part of why this team with very little in the way of playoff experience has made it to the third round.

"There was a time late in January when we talked about how everybody in October wants to play fast, and we start off the year pushing the envelope in that regard, and it felt like at a time in January it fell off, and that's when the season starts to get to you, whether it's physically, emotionally, or mentally, and we made a concerted effort at the end of that month to kind of ramp that back up," Johnson said.

"I think we've done a really good job, and we continue to commit to doing the things that we need to do, whether that's fitness, whether that's playing up guys, or whatever it may be, but we're not going to sacrifice that," he said.

Perhaps not coincidentally, the last time the Spurs lost two games in a row was on the road in the middle of January against the Timberwolves and then the Thunder. Since then they're 30-4 in the regular season and 8-3 in the playoffs.

That's a spectacular run of success for any team, let alone a team that fell into the lottery last season and is built around a collection of very talented but very young players. But they don't care how young they are, or how few playoff games they've appeared in, or how tough the opponent is. They care about their teammates, their principles, and winning the next game and the next possession.

"I understand the general expectations of what we were supposed to do in October aren't necessarily aligned with where we're at right now," Johnson said when asked about this team being ahead of schedule. "I would guess by general consensus, then ahead of that schedule, but we never talked about what we were going to be or what we were going to do. We just knew that we had a lot of potential, and we were going to try to be the best team we can be."

"Those guys in that locker room have given themselves to the team and each other, and it's been pretty fun when you see a group of guys that are willing to give themselves to the team, the process, regardless of what that means for themselves," Johnson said.

"Harrison Barnes tonight didn't play til the fourth quarter, had monster plays again. I know the score was what it was, but you need every single possession, you need every single thing you can in this league at this moment during the playoffs," he said. "That's one thing we've learned in the 11 games that we've played, and when we have guys doing that, it's a powerful thing."

The Spurs went 4-1 this season against the Thunder, the only team with a winning record against the defending champions, and that would be more than enough of a reason to be confident. The real reason to be even more confident is how this team is playing, and the why behind it that Johnson laid out.

"Confident, but we need to keep the right confidence level," Wembanyama said. "Right now, I'm not even thinking about it, I'm just thinking about recovering. I'm thinking about getting this press conference over with. We're gonna see about it in the next couple days, but really, it's gonna be the same as usual. Prepare, take care of your body, scout, watch the film, practice."

"You can take a bit from it, but the playoffs is a different story obviously," De'Aaron Fox said. "Even with this team that we just played against, I would say the regular-season games were much different than they were in the playoffs. schematically you can look at it and say we want to do this the same, or these things differently, but we'll get there tomorrow."

"Ajay Mitchell's playing well Shai's been Shai, that team is... I mean they haven't lost a game in the playoffs, so, just try to stop the momentum," Fox said. "We know who they are, we know what they do."

"I think it's gonna be a hard-fought series, very physical, two teams with high aspirations," Stephon Castle said. "They're they're playing really well right now. We're playing really well right now. I mean we're in each other's way of going to the Finals, so I think it'll be a good series."

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