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Victor Wembanyama delivered a 40-20 performance as the San Antonio Spurs opened the NBA’s Conference finals with a double-overtime win at the defending champions, the Oklahoma City Thunder.<\/b><\/p>\n
The match-up between the first and second seed<\/a> in the Western Conference features Wembanyama, this season’s defensive player of the year, go up against Thunder’s Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, who has been named the NBA’s Most Valuable Player for a second straight year.<\/p>\n And the best-of-seven series got off to a thrilling start on Monday as San Antonio had the chance to win it at the end of regulation time, and then Oklahoma City in overtime, before the Spurs prevailed 122-115.<\/p>\n Wembanyama’s alley-oop dunk with 22 seconds left in the second period of overtime put the Spurs up by six and meant the France forward finished with 41 points and 24 rebounds.<\/p>\n At 22 years and 134 days old, he is the youngest player in NBA history to reach 40 points and 20 rebounds in a play-off game, and joins Wilt Chamberlain (1960) as the only players to do so on their Conference finals debut.<\/p>\n “He has a rare desire to step into every moment that’s in front of him,” Spurs coach Mitch Johnson said of the 2023 first overall draft pick.<\/p>\n “I think he has showed in his three years in a lot of different situations with a lot of different circumstances that he’s going to attack those moments. He has some rare God-given ability.”<\/p>\n San Antonio’s rookie guard Dylan Harper claimed 24 points and 11 rebounds as Thunder suffered their first loss of the play-offs having swept the Phoenix Suns and Los Angeles Lakers in the previous two rounds.<\/a><\/p>\n Alex Caruso led the top seeds with 31 points off the bench, while Jalen Williams added 26 and Gilgeous-Alexander claimed 24 points and 12 assists.<\/p>\n “We knew it was going to be a dog fight,” said Gilgeous-Alexander, who received his MVP award before the game. “We’ve just got to be better, me in particular.”<\/p>\n Game two is also in Oklahoma City on Wednesday, while the New York Knicks open the Eastern finals at home to the Cleveland Cavaliers on Tuesday.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n