OKC Thunder vs. San Antonio Spurs Live NBA Updates, Scores and Highlights

The last two MVP awards have gone to Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. If this game was any indication, he just might mess around and push for a third.

He was simply unstoppable—against a defense typically equipped to stop scorers of all sizes and styles. Whenever Oklahoma City needed a bucket, he delivered it. It was incredible to watch and even more incredible for being the expectation at this point.

The Spurs are a good offensive team. Like, a really good offensive team. They were third in efficiency last season, and just about everyone involved in that number is still on their way up.

But they did not look like a good—or even functional—offensive team here. And so much of that had to do with Oklahoma City's swarming, relentless, disruptive defense. The Thunder held the Spurs to 39 percent shooting overall and 27 percent from three and turned over their guard-heavy starting group 11 times.

FINAL Score: Thunder 116, Spurs 104

The Thunder basically have 30 points in the bag just by putting Shai Gilgeous-Alexander on the court. But they don't always know where to turn for secondary scoring, especially with Jalen Williams still not looking like his co-star self.

Tonight, though, Jared McCain eased that concern. With ease. How's this for a line: 20 points in 22 minutes on 7-of-9 shooting and 6-of-8 from three? He's a game-high plus-20 on the night, too. Just real insurmountable-X-Factor stuff.

Even folks who know nothing about that metric can appreciate that a 50-point difference is enormous.

San Antonio hasn't really come close to climbing out of the hole it dug during a disastrous second quarter, but it has done a lot of things it surely wanted to coming into this contest.

The Spurs are on the right side of many of the statistical matchups, but being minus-15 from three-point land may just seal their fate.

Score: Thunder 102, Spurs 94 | 5:06 remaining in the fourth quarter

The Thunder aren't at all guaranteed victory tonight, but they seem sure to come out of this contest feeling great about their new-look roster.

Not to keep hammering this point, but they made cuts to this core for strictly financial reasons this summer, and they look like they haven't missed a beat. They are handling a really good team and appearing as loaded as ever. Sam Presti really is a mastermind.

Score: Thunder 95, Spurs 86 | 8:41 remaining in the fourth quarter

It took Victor Wembanyama nearly three full quarters to tally his first field goal of the season. While the Spurs surely wanted a lot of those misses to fall, at least his first make somehow felt worth the wait. That's just a finish that might be exclusively available to him.

And not for nothing, but De'Aaron Fox has looked pretty zippy off the bounce. San Antonio is losing the bench battle by a wide margin, but things are almost dead-even with the starters now.

If Victor Wembanyama goes berserk as a shot-blocker in the fourth quarter, he might make a run at a triple-double. He is already at 10 points and eight rebounds, and he's halfway to double-digits with five blocks.

But he hasn't made a field goal tonight. And he has attempted 12 of them. Credit OKC's defense and all that, but this game could be awfully interesting if his busy night included even a couple of buckets.

Score: Thunder 90, Spurs 78 | 31.3 seconds remaining in the third quarter

Death, taxes and 20-point games for Shai Gilgeous-Alexander—that about runs the gamut for life's certainties. Godspeed for anyone tasked with trying to stop a scorer who can do stuff like this.

If you didn't have your ticket already, you can no longer afford it.

This kind of sequence feels like the exact reason why the Thunder snatched up Aday Mara with this year's No. 12 pick. No one is answer for Victor Wembanyama, but if anyone ever was, it'd probably be someone with dimensions like this.

Make that field goals for all 11 Thunder players to see the floor after the first career field goal for 7'3" rookie Aday Mara.

San Antonio looked plenty wobbly heading into the half, but the tide has semi-turned in the second half.

The Spurs have scored enough to hang around, and a good amount of that scoring has come from Stephen Castle, who is finally punishing the Thunder for leaving him unattended.

...they can be a nightmare.

What was a nightmarish first half for the home team has given way to a dream-like start to this second half. The Spurs are hitting, the Thunder are not and we suddenly have a 10-point contest on our hands.

Score: Thunder 68, Spurs 58 | 8:22 remaining in the third quarter

The Thunder have routinely dared the Spurs to beat them from distance. Just like a lot of teams will this season.

So far, that dare is paying out like a lottery jackpot with San Antonio shooting just 5-of-20 from range. It's been the kind of bricklaying that makes you wonder whether this three-guard look can stick given the lack of spacing, but when this lineup has gotten chances to run, it has looked dynamic with those opportunities.

The Thunder do realize they traded away three rotation regulars this offseason, right? And that they didn't add a single established player to help replace them?

All OKC players who saw action in the first half—all 11 of them—scored and posted postive plus/minus marks. And the Thunder didn't even call upon rookie first-rounder Bennett Stirtz, who spent this preseason showcasing his presumed plug-and-play skills.

Oklahoma City clearly carried a purpose into this contest. It can't get anything close to the ultimate revenge at this point of the calendar, but the Thunder needed to know they could hang with a Spurs team that topped them eight times in 12 tries last season.

They have totally bottled up Victor Wembanyama (0-of-7 from the field), but they have effectively short-circuited all of San Antonio's offense—while shooting 52 percent from the field and 71 percent from three. This has been surgical.

While the Thunder's depth might be the talking point of this half—especially in light of the roster changes this summer—they do such a great job of maximizing those numbers while letting Shai Gilgeous-Alexander have full control of the spotlight.

He looks great (16 points, four assists, two blocks, plus-11 in 17 minutes), and his team is following his lead.

Score: Thunder 65, Spurs 44 | Halftime

The Thunder looked like they found a bargain when they made a discounted deal for Jared McCain ahead of last season's trade deadline. Eight odd months later, the sharpshooter still seems like a big steal.

His 11 points are the second-most in this game, and he has tallied them on 4-of-5 shooting and a 3-of-4 showing from deep.

May losses can't be avenged in October, but this has to feel a bit therapeutic for the Thunder. They are running the Spurs out of their own building.

It's 25-12 Oklahoma City this quarter, and that's only because San Antonio has finally made a couple of shots. The Thunder have gone 11 deep into their rotation, and all 11 are on the scoreboard.

Score: Thunder 59, Spurs 40 | 1:38 remaining in the second quarter

Oh yeah, Oklahoma City's mobile 7-footer is a pretty awesome interior defender, too. The Thunder have a whole lot going right, and Chet Holmgren's assertiveness is definitely a part of it.

It's been a disastrous night for the Spurs' offense, but Wemby blocks are always silly. Who else helps off of a corner shooter and swats a 7-footer's turnaround?

San Antonio's offense has been stuck in the mud so far in the second, so it'll need its defense to keep things relatively within reach. With a 7'4" obstalce in the middle, that's definitely doable.

To wit: In the time it took to write this, Wembayama added his second swat of the season. And now his third. Sheesh.

Score: Thunder 46, Spurs 33 | 6:27 remaining in the second quarter

So, there's some alliteration at play with a Flagrant Foul for Fox, and then there a bunch of technical fouls on folks with W surnames. Three technical fouls on three Williams teammates seems like once-in-a-lifetime stuff.

Emotions are flaring. Nothing beyond a lot of pushing and shoving, but by NBA fight standards (especially on Opening Night), this is getting feisty.

The Spurs are obviously working through some things offensively, but this Thunder defense is only adding to the difficulty. Through a quarter and change, San Antonio is shooting below 35 percent from the field and 25 percent from three.

Score: Thunder 37, Spurs 28 | 9:21 remaining in the second quarter

The Spurs didn't have the most convincing close to the quarter, but they hit a few shots late to keep things from getting out of hand. Reigning Sixth Man of the Year Keldon Johnson was right in the thick of that fight, cramming a timely triple, a couple of steals, an assist and a rebound into his six minutes.

...it's usually curtains.

Look, they've won 57-plus games in three straight seasons, so they're pretty much always awesome. But if they ever seem vulnerable (or at least mortal), it's usually tied to errant shooting.

Thanks to the spark-plug subs Jared McCain and Alex Caruso, that hasn't been an issue at all tonight.

Was the three-guard look the ideal situation to showcase Dylan Harper? Probably not, but it highlighted San Antonio's general desire to slice a bigger piece of the offensive pie for its star sophomore.

He has been the Spurs' primary playmaker so far with three of their five assists and none of their two turnovers.

OKC's first pull from its bench unit features first-round rookie Aday Mara—all 7'3", 260 pounds of him. He had a good preseason. If he's a player, the Thunder gain another hope for containing the oft-uncontainable Victor Wembanyama.

Score: Thunder 23, Spurs 15 | 3:50 remaining in the first quarter

San Antonio's half-court offense looks all kinds of clunky. It's mostly been a rhythm-less brickfest to start.

The open court is a different story, though. The Spurs look downright dynamic when they can run, which they should be looking to do at any and every opportunity.

OKC's prized big man basically no-showed in that conference finals matchup, but he's doing what he can to make his presence felt. Volume might trump efficiency, since he needs to be involved more than anything.

Score: Spurs 8, Thunder 8 | 7:42 remaining in the first quarter

With the Philadelphia 76ers and New York Knicks locked into a nail-biter, you might need an extra press or two of your remote to find the start of this one.

Let's clear up all the confusion, folks: Spurs fans do, in fact, see Victor Wembanyama as an MVP. Unless, of course, they were just being overly welcoming to visitor Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, who has claimed the last two MVP honors.

For a lot of reasons, it made sense for the Thunder to use Cason Wallace to fill the starting spot vacated by Lu Dort. I can think of 139 million reasons, actually.

This should let Wallace dig in defensively, though, and allow Ajay Mitchell to pilot the second team's offense. It probably allows each player the best chance to do what they do best.

The Spurs had committed to this look a while ago, but it's still fun to see. There are ways things could go wonky, but there are also ways things could go really, really right.

After a dozen head-to-head bouts last season, the Thunder might know the Spurs better than anyone. What they don't know, though, is how San Antonio's adoption of the new three-guard lineup is going to go.

One big thing to monitor tonight will be the new things each club brings to this rivalry. San Antonio's changes could be more obvious, but Oklahoma City will have tweaks of its own after moving on from rotation regulars Lu Dort, Aaron Wiggins and Isaiah Joe this offseason.

It's all business for the supersized superstar, as it should be. Last season saw Victor Wembanyama's transformation from up-and-comer to here-right-now-er. It was his age-22 campaign, he didn't even average 30 minutes and he was still Defensive Player of the Year, an All-NBA first-teamer, an MVP finalist and the key catalyst of a 62-win conference champion.

The bar doesn't have much room to raise from here, but the typical aging curve suggests he could be years away from maximizing out his potential. Scary stuff, for all non-San Antonio residents, at least.

Things feel a little different for the Thunder than they did this time last year. After all, they aren't coming in as the defending champs but rather coming off of a conference finals loss. And there aren't as many familiar faces since they had to make some financially-driven subtractions to this squad.

Things certainly don't look different, though. The Thunder embrace the pregame-fashion show dynamic like no one else, and they certainly showed up and showed out tonight.

There were certainly safer ways for San Antonio to play this season than leaning into its triple-playmaker starting lineup. The Spurs clearly think the reward justifies their risk—that or they just like the idea of their best players all sharing the floor—but they also know this might not click right away.

If the Fox-Castle-Harper trio lays a bunch of bricks tonight or seemingly takes every other step onto one another's toes, there could be some wild takes firing out before the night is finished. Good on Spurs skipper Mitch Johnson, then, to try to get in front of any second-guessing, even if his advice will assuredly go unheeded.

Last season's Western Conference finals was incredible for a lot of reasons. The ages of these respective rosters might have been the biggest.

Oklahoma City's core is either locked into its prime or still ascending toward it. San Antonio's key contributors aren't even getting that discount insurance companies sometimes throw at 25-year-olds. These teams don't just run the West right now, they might rule it for a while.

The fact they all seem to embrace this budding rivalry only adds to its intrigue. Get that popcorn in arm's reach, folks!