Wemby and Shai 1 on 1 - Western Conference Finals
Love it when superstars play each other straight up
Ik it just may be me reading into it. But sometimes I thought Shai hunted Wemby on these
Idk about in the conference finals, but on a random Tuesday Shai will definitely iso against the opposing teams best defender once or twice to see what’s up.
I mean, every player is a resource that is being consumed in various ways as the game goes on. If Shai takes on Wemby like this and scores, he’s reducing Wemby’s stamina and morale.
Depends on their mindset. If someone scores on me. Ill try harder to stop them next time.
If the defender keeps trying harder and harder, that can be used to your advantage with fakes and misdirection, making them overcommit, etc. Wemby does have a tendency to jump on pump fakes a lot for instance.
It’s not about effort, it’s about stamina. Same reason teams pick up Brunson full court. The more you can make the best player on the other teams work, the better.
What about when they score on you a 2nd time? And a 3rd time?
How you feeling then? Then imagine knowing million of people are watching you get cooked.
Next play.
Regardless if the guy is making the shot or not, am I doing my job and making it tough for him? Then I can sleep at night.
Depends if your goal is to get better or not. You either give up or keep learning and improving.
You already got in your head because of Shai. The moment you wanna try to stop him next, he got you.
You would want to switch onto him, but then he’ll try to escape you and you’d be left frustrated.
He definitely did later in the series but he was avoiding him like a plague whenever he got in the paint.
He did. Bbq
OKC played scared of Wemby. I don’t think they will do that again.
The Knicks gave him healthy respect, but they didn’t treat the paint like it was lava like the thunder did.
The thunder ran out of slashers
It’s really just Jdub. OG was the difference for the Knicks
Or Ajay. Thunder were up 2-1 when he was still healthy. They just needed either one of them
Ajay never really had a great game vs the Spurs all season
Yes but McCain being the only one left to playmake against your physical defenders aside from Shai is brutal.
The lack of a 4 for the spurs was a huge issue for them
I think if both teams see each other next season it will be another competitive 7 game series. I cant wait too see what the spurs do this year.
Honestly I feel like it was just Chet even with Jdub out
But yeah jdub and Chet playing average? Would have been 4-1 or 4-2 OKC
KAT pulling Wemby outside the paint helped. Chet definitely played scared though.
KAT pulled him out. Brunson was decisive driving on him. OGs cuts were precise.
Eh, KAT refused to shoot 3s so they just sagged off kat after game 2
Scared is an understatement. Man was petrified
Okc doesnt have good offensive players healthy its the shai show. Knicks have multiple weapons and scorers
Healthy they’re fine, but without Jdub or Ajay it’s Shai + transition after turnovers and that’s it
Chet needs to lock in
The problem with Chet against Wemby is that Wemby not only takes away all of his physical advantages he has over other players and even has him beat in everything. Taller, more mobile, faster and on top Wemby is also more stronger. He would have to completely alter the way he plays against Wemby and I’m not sure he is able to.
He would’ve changed the series at least slightly if his jumpshot didn’t take 3 seconds
Whats up with that? Chip cant fix that?
Chip is currently on a different team and didn’t really improve anyone’s jumpshot whilst here
Chip’s gone, and it’s something that developed since he joined the league.
waaait when and why did he leave??
He’s an assistant at the rockets now, as of this summer
Exactly.
A lot of people don’t even have a frame of reference for how you play the game as a tall, agile guy.
You have a simple answer to any defender. I’m shooting over you or I’m getting around you. And if they’re tall and agile too, we’ll battle. But if they’re both taller, more mobile, and stronger, nothing you try is going to work efficiently and the additional energy you have to draw from to meet their level of force exhausts you so quickly.
Wemby just wears Chet out quickly and Chet knows it’s not the right play to go to him. It’s not fear, it’s knowing he doesn’t have a counter.
People seem to not understand that last part. I agree, it’s not so much that he’s scared imo, he just knows there was nothing he could do with his current skillset
Shit reminds me of a game I played in highschool, where a guy was killing me all night.
They call a timeout down by one with 10 seconds left. And I tell everyone they’re going to my guy, I can’t stop him, our best defender can stop him and we need to put him on my guy. But everybody told me to believe in myself and stop talking like that.
Then my guy got the ball, turned a screen and immediately knocked down a 3 before I could fight over the screen.
Sometimes a guy has your number, and being aware of that doesn’t make you weak, it means you’re not stupid.
It’s true that Wemby is just better Chet, but Chet could have at least gave it more fight to keep Wemby honest and work towards exhausting him. Wemby is better than Chet in every aspect, but that doesn’t mean stop shooting open shots and stop being aggressive. That is the part everyone is calling him out for.
outside of the speed gap, is simply understanding how to shoot over someone taller than you, which he just doesnt have any semblance of in his game. Hartenstein has it, SGA displayed it in this game, and Brunson used it in the finals. Chet just doesn’t have any of it, slow jumper, can’t modify arc on jumper just means hes a fake 3 point threat vs Wemby. same with his entire midrange game.
So okc has to hide chet from wemby, and the flaws with his shooting meant it didn’t even really matter, he was just the occasional dunker spot or backdoor cut, and maybe some defense(but not on wemby).
Well he should play more relived now since they essentially drafted Chet 2.0 to guard Wemby.
There were periods where the Knicks would drive and then either pass or dribble it out if Wemby was anywhere near the paint, but I think at a certain point, they saw that that wasn’t working and shifted to something like “he’s gonna get his blocks regardless so just keep attacking him”
You spelled Chet wrong.
For real, they are going to need to. Idk how straightforward it is to break out of that mindset though. I think it might be age.. you see the vets on other teams just go after Wemby, even Caruso did
The Knicks played 8 games in like 3 weeks
The Thunder were missing Ajay (calf) Jdub (hamstring) Chet (soft) and still went to 7 despite shai having a messed up shooting elbow
I saw multiple possessions where Wemby didnt really commit to defense vs NYK. Like from OKC series he thought “They wouldnt drive into me anyways”
Knicks did a better job of having lineups where Wemby had to guard out to the 3 point line.
Wemby’s defense was still really impactful vs the Knicks, don’t let a few highlights fool you. The Knicks didn’t solve Wemby defense, the Knicks only had a 108.9 offense rating in the finals. Their playoff offensive rating was 120.4. The Knicks regular season offensive rating was 119.8. A 108.9 offensive rating in the regular season would have been 29th in the league, just 0.06 batter than the Nets leage worst 108.84 offensive rating. The Knicks won because they absolutely shut the Spurs offense down.
Wemby and the team are all doing crazy off season workouts . They will be better.
This series was so entertaining i hope we get a rematch next season
yall said it was an awful round to watch what changed?
The crazy thing about this sub is everyone treats everybody else like a monolith.
I mean the Thunder being unwatchable was absolutely a monolithic opinion here lol
They were abyssmal to watch, except game 7 Shai when he finally stopped flopping. How fun was that game? When no one could stop SGA while he’s playing like a regular ass nba player. He was like that the first 2 years he got mvp votes
Most of the people here’s gripe with OKC is almost all of their players flop. We hate watching intentional freethrow shoot out.
Even in the offseason you guys spend so much energy bitching, it’s wild
Wow dude thanks for taking the time to explain that. I had no idea. No one’s ever explained it before.
It was fun watching the villain lose, simple as that
I enjoyed watching the Spurs lose to the knicks so you’re right
Yeah Knicks winning was a lot of fun
Very true. Seeing the Knicks stomp in the Finals was quite a pleasure
Yeah but you guys all started hating Jokic at some point because he’s white.
Bait used to be believable
People can change.
I used to be a piece of shit. Slicked back hair, white bathing suit, sloppy steaks, white couch… You would have not liked me back then.
Is this a pasta?
I think you should leave
Well that’s just rude
Who’s yall?
Bad man lost
Spurs won so in hindsight it was enjoyable
OKC lost
Hopefully the Thunder are healthy
We say this every year lol, it’s OKC culture to go into the post season injured.
I love seeing that Shai step back its so nice
Cp in his veins
just drop the full arm pushoff and 100%
It’s an offensive foul every time. He gets space because he cheats the rules and gets away with it.
No you need to learn the rules about what you’re actually allowed to do with your off arm
Clearing space with your arm or elbow is an offensive foul every time. The chicken wing move is not legal, it’s cheating.
How is it cheating if they’re literally allowing it, even Jordan used to do it
damn u can’t even accidentally compliment shai here lol
That’s the 2 time MVP and people are out here disrespecting. it’s fucked.
When curry won his MVPs, we kissed the ground he walked on.
Wemby was the most valuable player last year statistically. Shai got a participation trophy for his push off nonsense.
0 ball knowledge, 100 mad
I dare you to go to any league and try the shit that SGA pulls. You’ll get punched in the face
[removed]
Lmao what? That’s still an offensive foul.
Rule Definition An offensive player may not push off a legal defender in any way. Extending the arm from the elbow to the wrist against a defender’s body is illegal. Contact that causes a defender’s displacement or re-routing results in an immediate whistle. [ 1, 2, 3, 4] Common Scenarios Step-Back Jumpers: A player extends their off-arm or forearm during a sudden stop to shove the defender back before shooting.
They didn’t win but Shai showed me something fighting all the way through in this series. I think OKC will reach the mountaintop again at some point as long as he is healthy and in his prime.
They only thing stopping them his health imo
Maybe, The league adapts and gets better every year
He was terrible this series
26/3/9 on even rTS% is terrible?
His TS is inflated because of all of the floping, give me efg%
His efg% last playoffs was higher than the championship run
Says more about his championship run
Are you expecting the guy with the highest gravity in the playoffs to shoot a higher clip in the playoffs?
Yes, I am expecting that of 2-time MVP
What is floping?
now you go to flopping. Sheep ass
He was doubled the entire time and had all the ball handling responsibilities. And he still put up those numbers. You clearly didn’t watch those games.
Meanwhile Chet was afraid to dribble
Tbf Chet sucks at dribbling, I don’t want him dribbling either.
One of the most “damn he’s rattled” sequences I’ve ever seen
Chet has 4 points with like 5 minutes left in the 4th. Commentator starts saying that Chet needs to start making his presence felt.
Chet gets the ball in the corner 1v1 vs. Wemby. Commentator says “go! go!”
Chet starts to drive, slips and falls
I find it interesting each time superstars guard one another especially in the playoffs.
What a hot take
Everyone does
Shai will cook anyone 1 on 1. Stick prime Gary Payton on him and it won’t matter. The problem really was since Dub and Ajay were out, the Spurs 95% of the time had 2 people on Shai, with a 3rd guy shadowing.
Shai has leveled up his playmaking which helped push it to 7, but when 2nd year Jared McCain is your next best offensive threat, you’re just asking for too much unfortunately lol
People don’t realize Shai is still young in terms of playoff basketball. He’s only had 3 runs as the guy, and he still has a ring. Whereas Tatum, Brown, Luka and others have had like 6+ runs of experience. Shai is going to become so much more deadly in the future playoff runs
Shai is a bad man especially that game 7
Me realizing the Spurs FINALLY were showing him more normal coverages and he could cook scoring: 😃
Me realizing that meant he would quite literally be our only source of putting the ball through the basket now: 😩
He’s not cooking Payton now come on, Id he’s allowed to use 90s hand checking I think he’ll give him fits, Def won’t be efficient but he’ll get his
I think you underestimate prime glove.
Go Wolves! :)
Good on good
2 time mvp, finals mvp, champion snatched his chain
You know these two are gonna battle for years. You can tell how insane they both are by how much both fan bases fucking hates the other.
I hate the free throws I love this
Both teams are middle of pack regarding FT volumes. Maybe you just hate the nba?
def hate the nba to but the free throw merchant is boring to watch
Color me surprised
okc fan doesn’t like me talking shit about shai color me surprised
I couldnt care less. I just presented you a basic fact regarding these two teams. They are middle of the pack in the league regarding the amount of FTs they shoot. If you hate this matchup because of FTs, you basically hate most of the nba
womp womp
Love this. SGA’s footwork and choice of move to get to his shot is why he’s the MVP.
When SGA paused the flopping for a bit in the last game and started playing seriously, I actually enjoyed watching him.
Ofc he couldn’t do much by himself, especially when your second option Chet Hologram is wemby’s son, but you could see that beneath the disgusting flopping there’s actually a top tier player. I wish he’d have played the whole series like that.
Chet was only 2 because JDub and Ajay were both injured.
Chet is not the second scorer on the team.
I’m hoping his haircut is part of his “rebranding” to stop playing as a flopper first. I think the free throw merchant noise was getting to him, even if he or others claim otherwise.
Why should he stop if the refs reward it? It’s the same cycle we went through with Harden, they do it to be effective and won’t stop till the refs stop calling it.
Because its trash basketball. Surely one of the most skilled NBA players can adapt to exclude essentially spamming small offensive fouls from his game.
If he cant, then it tarnishes his legacy. No one is going to rank him very high when 6-8ppg where generated via “cheating”. The discourse is already in place, and it depends how he responds.
He’s a pro and someone who has won it all. Why would he care about what bitching casuals on Reddit and Twitter cries about lol
And sports media commentators, and podcasters, and other NBA players, and non okc fans.
It’s crazy to be lucid in 2026 and not knowing how ragebaiting works.
I’m not the biggest sga fan but turning a messed up dribble into an attack instantly is such a move
This shot was so tuff
im on vacation.. im trying to recover from the aids this sub gave me during that series
Peak basketball if Dub healthy next time around
Jesus that’s a crazy shot
Deadliest midranger today. It’s unbelievable how money those baseline jumpshots are
This is the matchup the league’s been waiting for.
Why doesn’t Wemby play defense correctly? Has nobody told him to guard with his hands up?
Wemby just straight dominated the OKC offense all series. If SGA played well more than 1 game in the series, OKC would’ve won. Feel bad for the OKC defenders and bench who played so well. Should’ve been Wemby’s MVP.
Gotta be rage bait
It’s not. The whole series was about SGA being terrible. The Spurs doubled the crap out of him in the first 2.5 games and were down 2-1 cause role players like Caruso/Hart were stepping up on the 4v3. SGA was terrible vs the double. So the Spurs started single covering SGA games 4-6 and SGA remained terrible despite only having single coverage. He made some bullshit in game 7, but SGA couldn’t get role players involved or score at a high enough clip in games 4-7 to win despite being single covered all series. He was taking bad shots and making them - what he’d done in games 1-6, just not made them. The Spurs thought they could wear him down and they did.
Murray had a better series vs the Wolves this year than SGA did vs the Spurs and that says something cause Murray is ass vs the Wolves. The Thunder defense and bench was incredible all series, but they kept getting annihilated with their starters and SGA on the floor cause SGA couldn’t get them into any solid offensive rhythm.
If you think Shai was single covered much at all that series then you didn’t watch. He has 1 primary defender but the second he moved past the 3 point line they collapsed on him every single time sending 3 dudes at him including the 7 foot defensive menace. Not sure what else you’re supposed to do there. Dudes were not hitting their shots. Chet scoring 10 as the #2, McCain 13 on 36% shooting, cason 10 on 49% isn’t bad, dort 4 on 34%, Caruso was good for most of the series, hart was fine, wiggins didn’t play and was ass when he played same with Joe, Ajay and dub didn’t play hardly, jwill 6 on 42% isn’t great. Not sure how you think the bench was incredible but maybe you have lower standards or something? Sga didn’t have a good series, but the way he was covered all post season makes that quite difficult
OK…we were all here when the national media trashed Gobert for getting beat by Doncic. Are we gonna hear nonstop calls for Wemby to be benched in key moments because SGA “played him off the court”? I mean, this shows that Wemby is a liability, right?
Jordan would have patted Wemby as we ran by him shrugging.
Okc had no answer for him but Knicks didn’t care
He is another foul merchant but he is a 2x mvp for a reason
Kobe was a foul merchant but sold a lot of overpriced crap to his loyal fans so that’s okay!
These backhanded nephew comments are why the sub is an embarrassment to basketball discourse.
Also a rapist
What’s hilarious is you don’t see the irony in your own comment…
Did you really need the /s to not get r/whoosh -ed? That first sentence reaks of sarcasm lol
I wonder how many opponents’ Achilles Wenby is going to blow over the course of his career. That sudden plant and jump back move Shai did in this clip is murder on the Achilles, and it seems like one of the only semi-reliable ways to get a shot off against the alien.
Is this the first time you’ve seen SGA play basketball? I’m not saying his Achilles is or isn’t safe, but this is how he plays every play.
lol. Yeah, Shai’s direction changes are amazing. But he’s not the only player I’ve seen rely on the hard plant-pushback jumper to get a shot off over Wemby. Not Wemby’s fault. Just an observation: Everybody who plays against Wemby is gonna be paying a tendon tax.
He does this exact same shot on every single player that guards him stop glazing wemby for this. This is a standard sga shot
this video might be relevant
Thunder didn’t play Joe or Wiggins because they were due to get traded. If they play their full roster like they did last year the series would look different
Victor keeps falling down.
He’s a big. He’s supposed to go down like that. It helps prevent bugs from injuries when coming back down like that. Do you want him to fail his arms around as well and start crying like the player he is guarding does?
“Supposed to”
Victor fanatics man. Enjoy your day
Sorry your boys got embarrassed at home or whatever. Maybe next year if your second option grows up
Bro just tripped