OKLAHOMA CITY — The MVP looked like the MVP again, and the Western Conference finals are knotted up.
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander bounced back from a subpar series opener to score 30 points, Alex Caruso added 17 off the bench and the Oklahoma City Thunder beat the San Antonio Spurs 122-113 on Wednesday night in Game 2.
Chet Holmgren scored 13 points and reserves Jared McCain and Cason Wallace each had 12 for Oklahoma City. The Thunder finished with a 57-25 edge in bench scoring, plus a 27-10 edge in points off turnovers.
Stephon Castle scored 25 points for the Spurs, who got 22 points from Devin Vassell and a 21-point, 17-rebound, six-assist, four-block night from Victor Wembanyama.
Game 3 is Friday in San Antonio.
“The guys brought it tonight. Knowing what it would have meant if we lost this one, we brought the energy from the jump,” Gilgeous-Alexander said.
Isaiah Hartenstein — who barely played in Game 1 — had 10 points and 13 rebounds for the Thunder, who improved to 14-5 after a loss this season — and beat the Spurs for just the second time in seven meetings.
The win was not without cost for the Thunder, who lost guard Jalen Williams — who had already missed six games in these playoffs with a left hamstring strain — in the first half with a recurrence of the hamstring issue. The Thunder said it was tightness, but even that would figure to put his availability for Friday into doubt.
And the Spurs got banged up as well. Already without All-Star guard De’Aaron Fox because of ankle soreness, San Antonio lost his replacement in the starting lineup — Dylan Harper — to a right leg injury after he took a couple of awkward falls in the third quarter.
San Antonio was down by 11 at the half and trailed by eight going into the fourth quarter, then got within 99-97 off a corner 3-pointer by Harrison Barnes with 9:06 left.
The next 2 1/2 minutes saved the Thunder. An 11-0 run by the defending champions — including a banked-in 3-pointer by Jared McCain midway through the burst — pushed OKC’s lead to 13.
But the Spurs were far from done. Wembanyama scored down low to make it 118-113 with 1:25 remaining, but Gilgeous-Alexander got one last basket to settle things down and send the series to San Antonio tied.
[Notigroup Newsroom in collaboration with other media outlets, with information from the following sources]
