SAN ANTONIO — Stephon Castle knows what to expect from the Oklahoma City Thunder. After facing them 12 times last season, there aren't many surprises left.
"It's going to be physical," Castle said ahead of the San Antonio Spurs' regular season opener Tuesday night. "They're going to play fast, as they always do. They're a good team.
He continued: "(If we) trust what we do for the whole 48 (minutes), I think we'll be fine."
The Spurs and Thunder have become familiar foes, developing one of the NBA's newest rivalries through a dozen meetings last season, including a seven-game Western Conference Finals in May. Now, they're set to begin another chapter with both teams looking to establish themselves atop the Western Conference in 2026-27.
Ahead of Tuesday's matchup, Spurs On SI spoke with Thunder On SI beat reporter and Locked On Thunder host Rylan Stiles for the first installment of a season-long, Q&A series examining San Antonio's opponents from the perspective of those who cover them.
Here's everything Stiles had to say ahead of Tuesday's regular season opener:
Q. These two teams played each other 12 times last season.
I don’t think anybody doubts it’s a real NBA rivalry at this point, but on the topic of familiarity — what is something you think the Thunder can take from facing the Spurs as many times as it did last season? Are there any players it may feel extra prepared for, or strategies that worked last season that may continue to work?
STILES: I think the biggest thing for Oklahoma City will be realizing from the 12 game sample size of last year how difficult it is to go up against that San Antonio defense. It sounds simple, but it’s true. The Thunder offense can typically rely on tough shot making and an emphasis on playmaking to earn them high-quality shots against nearly any other defense.
I think through 12 games it clear, a high-quality shot against the Spurs looks different than any other matchups. You have to take tightly contested triples, you have to at least try to attack the rim despite Wembanyama’s presence. The Thunder spent 12 games searching for the perfect shot offensively that never came.
Q. Who is the breakout Thunder player to watch this season, and could you see them making an increased impact as soon as Game 1 of the regular season?
STILES: Aside from Jalen Williams and Ajay Mitchell's health — those, to me, don’t fit the description of a breakout — the only real candidate on this roster is rookie Aday Mara.
Now, hold on, don’t roll your eyes just yet. No, I don’t believe Mara is a Wembanyama stopper. I don’t believe anyone on the face of the earth is a “Wemby stopper” — despite some of the praises Karl-Anthony Towns and to a lesser extent Isaiah Hartenstein got last year. — but the Spurs superstar falls into the “best-in-the-world” tier.
Defending Wembanyama, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Nikola Jokić isn’t about shutting them down. It’s about making life as difficult as possible and at best forcing them into situations you can “live with.” The thought process behind seeing Mara defend Wembanyama is built in the hope that this 7-foot-3, 255-pound center can keep Wembanyama away from the rim.
Conceding the fact that the Spurs MVP candidate will make a killing on the outside, it is better than just letting him have the easy stuff inside. At least if Mara can truly keep Wembanyama away from the cup and (make him) settle for open triples or long mid-range jumpers, there’s a chance that, by pure shot variants, the attempts just rim out on any given night.
While the push back might be: Mara is a rookie, can you really toss him into this high-pressured situation? The answer is simple. Mark Daigneault loves collecting data points and only has three chances to get any new information about this matchup in the regular season.
February’s second meeting between these two squads is a long ways away, a lot can happens, this is a chance this scribe believes the Thunder will take starting night one. Wembanyama’s jump shot success will determine how effective it looks.
Q. Which area of the roster do you think the Thunder improved most over the offseason? What do you think was its biggest loss, setback or downgrade?
STILES: The biggest loss of this offseason, as (the Thunder) traded away Lu Dort, Aaron Wiggins and Isaiah Joe, is by far Dort. The latter two, while fun stories and scrappy players, didn’t and don’t influence the Thunder’s title chances.
Dort’s not only hit big time shots in his NBA career — including in the team’s 2025 run to its first NBA championship — but he single-handedly made the lack of wings on this team palatable defensively with his ability to scale up defensively to guard bigger bodies.
How much can teams expose that now? Eventually, during the course of a full 82 game season where you have to assume Alex Caruso remains bubble-wrapped as he has the past two regular season campaigns, where the Thunder got a lot better is opening up the path to play offensively slanted lineups more often with multiple ball handlers on the court at all times.
If Daigneault wishes to design the rotation that way, it can lead to some petty high highs for this team on that end of the floor. The biggest thing to watch for is the PACE Oklahoma City plays with. Ranking 16th a year ago, that has to improve and it has the tools to make it so.
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