Wemby's Worst Shooting Game Ever Dooms Spurs in Season Opener Against Thunder

SAN ANTONIO -- Victor Wembanyama put together the worst shooting performance in his NBA career and the Spurs stumbled out of the gate in their regular-season opener, falling to the Thunder 116-104.

The Thunder players looked like they spent all summer in a dark room dreaming of their revenge against the Spurs. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander made his opening argument for his third-consecutive MVP award and led OKC with 32 points, while Stephon Castle paced the home team with 22.

"We can't get away with the kind of mistakes we did against a good team like this," Wembanyama said, criticizing his own decisiveness. "I need to go back to playing the basketball I like. I got no reason to be hesitant. No reason to to not be myself, for me it's as simple as that. I'm good when I have fun."

Spurs coach Mitch Johnson said he understood that his team probably came out too amped up, but didn't channel that energy properly. He acknowledged that Wembanyama's 1-13 shooting would stand out, but stressed that the entire team struggled.

"It didn't feel very connected," Johnson said. "Execution wasn't very good, and I thought we competed and played hard, just didn't feel like we put our energy in the right places."

Castle agreed about the team being a little too trigger happy.

"I think that we got we got excited with shots," he said. "We were taking the first good one instead of making them work on defense and finding a better shot for ourselves."

The Spurs sputtered at almost every level of their offense and shot under 29% from the floor in the opening 24 minutes. Wembanyama missed all eight of his attempts, with Harper and Castle combining for 4-16. San Antonio looked a step or three slow defensively in the first half, giving up too many open opportunities to a Thunder team that hit a blistering 10-13 from deep.

"I thought we had pretty good ball pressure, but I thought the off-ball stuff was a mess," Johnson said. "We had some times where we were supposed to switch, we didn't switch. We did switch, we weren't supposed to switch... In this league, especially a team of that caliber, when you start chasing your tail like that, and they get you, they make you pay."

A scuffle broke out in the second quarter after De'Aaron Fox sent Chet Holmgren to the floor like a sack of potatoes with no potatoes in it. Wemby got a tech, and so did all three Williamses on the Thunder.

One of the few bright spots of the first half for San Antonio was second-year wing Carter Bryant with a feisty defensive stint against reigning two-time MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, who looked as smooth and unstoppable as ever from midrange.

The much-scrutinized three-guard lineup started the game together for the first four minutes and change, but remained split until the start of the second half with San Antonio down 21. The three guards played 12 minutes together over the course of the game and outscored the Thunder by 10 points.

Whatever Mitch Johnson said at halftime worked, because his guys came out with the right intensitay and approach. Harper drove for a pair of buckets, Fox drove for a trio of buckets, and Castle hit a trifecta of triples to fuel a 23-10 run and make it a game again. San Antonio pushed to within seven points before the Thunder pushed back.

"It was defense shooting our offense and our talented guys, guards doing what they do, it felt more natural in this moment," Wembanyama said. " Felt like offense was feeding our defense and vice versa."

Rookie Aday Mara blocked Wembanyama on an oop to keep him without a basket and dunked on the other end. Wemby returned the favor by busting up Mara's lob, and the Spurs won the challenge after it was initially called a foul. Then he intercepted a pass for him underneath.

After missing his first dozen attempts, Wembanyama finished off a lob from Fox to make it 93-80 OKC heading to the fourth.

Once again the Spurs opened the period on a run by attacking the basket, with Harper, Castle and Keldon Johnson scoring in the paint to cut the deficit to single digits.

Wembanyama took a break of over three minutes in the fourth quarter, and the Spurs held on to keep the deficit at eight. He returned to the floor with 5:06 to play, but the Thunder closed it down.

The spotlight will shine unforgivingly on Wembanyama's scoring, but the whole Spurs team has a lot to iron out.

"I thought it was a pretty well-rounded poor effort by all of us, and it's good to get the first one out the way," Johnson said. "Got a lot of tape to look at and learn from."