Thunder Open Season With 116-104 Win Over Spurs in West Finals Rematch

The Oklahoma City Thunder opened the NBA season with a 116-104 win over the San Antonio Spurs on Tuesday night at Frost Bank Center, the nightcap of a national-television tripleheader that doubled as a rematch of last season's Western Conference finals. The Thunder broke the game open with a 31-16 second quarter, then held on through a San Antonio rally in the third before closing it out in the fourth.

The matchup, which NBC and Peacock billed as the marquee game of opening night, was the teams' first meeting since San Antonio eliminated Oklahoma City in Game 7 of the West finals in May. According to the league's official game log, the Thunder outscored the Spurs 34-31-28-23 by quarter, while San Antonio went 28-16-36-24; the Spurs' 36-point third quarter cut the margin before Oklahoma City pulled away again down the stretch.

A Lopsided Finish to a Marquee Opener

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, who enters the season having won back-to-back MVP awards, led all scorers with 32 points on 36 minutes, adding six rebounds, four assists, three steals and three blocks. He got unexpected scoring help from reserve guard Jared McCain, who came off the bench for 20 points. Jalen Williams, playing in his first opener since offseason surgery on a hamstring injury that ended his playoffs prematurely in the spring, finished with 12 points and seven rebounds in just under 30 minutes.

San Antonio got 24 points from Stephon Castle and 18 from second-year guard Dylan Harper, the No. 2 pick in the 2025 draft who became the first Spurs rookie with multiple playoff double-doubles since Tim Duncan during last spring's postseason run. The Spurs' two best-known players had quieter nights. De'Aaron Fox scored 14 points with seven assists, and Victor Wembanyama, the reigning Defensive Player of the Year, finished with 12 points, 13 rebounds and six blocked shots, a defensive total that nonetheless did not stop Oklahoma City from shooting better than 48 percent for the game, according to a box score compiled after the final buzzer. San Antonio was outrebounded 47-45 and committed 21 turnovers to the Thunder's 24 assists. Oklahoma City also got contributions deep into its bench, with Alex Caruso scoring nine points and Jaylin Williams adding five in a reserve unit that outscored San Antonio's for long stretches of the second half.

Revenge for a Seven-Game Classic

The game carried weight beyond a single regular-season result. Both franchises won at least 60 games a year ago — Oklahoma City finished with the NBA's best record for a second straight season at 64-18, while San Antonio went 62-20, its best mark since the mid-2010s. Their conference finals series went the distance, with the Spurs winning Game 7 on the road, 111-103, to reach the franchise's first NBA Finals appearance in more than a decade. San Antonio then lost that series in five games to the New York Knicks, who claimed their first championship since 1973 behind Finals MVP Jalen Brunson.

The two teams were widely expected to anchor the top of the Western Conference again this season, a point the league's own preseason coverage made in the days before the opener, and an Associated Press preview framed the rematch as one of the night's headline events. A separate advance piece distributed to local television stations and picked up by San Antonio's ABC affiliate had labeled the game "Game 8," a nod to the teams' unfinished business from the spring.

Roster Turnover Already Paying Dividends

Oklahoma City spent the offseason reshaping a roster that had fallen one round short of the Finals. General manager Sam Presti traded longtime wing defender Luguentz Dort to Atlanta in a three-team deal in July, a move the organization described as financially motivated given luxury-tax considerations, and let reserves Isaiah Joe and Aaron Wiggins depart as well. The Thunder used the draft to add Michigan center Aday Mara and Iowa guard Bennett Stirtz, both of whom saw brief bench minutes Tuesday, and continued to lean on McCain, acquired from Philadelphia at February's trade deadline for a package including a first-round pick, as a floor-spacing shooting guard. McCain's rookie season in Philadelphia had been cut short by a torn ligament in his shooting thumb, and Tuesday's 20-point game was an early sign the midseason addition can be a weapon off Oklahoma City's bench.

For San Antonio, the opener was the first test of a core — Wembanyama, Fox, Castle and Harper — that reached the Finals for the first time in twelve years only to come up short against New York. The Spurs did not make major roster changes this offseason, choosing instead to run back the group that got them there, a decision that will be measured against results like Tuesday's loss as the season unfolds. The arena itself, renamed Frost Bank Center in 2023 after two decades as the AT&T Center, hosted its first game of the new season with the Game 7 rematch as the backdrop.

Both Teams Already Moving On

Neither team has much time to dwell on the opener. The Thunder play their home opener Thursday night against the Denver Nuggets at Paycom Center, a nationally televised game of their own. The Spurs, meanwhile, head to Austin for a Friday night game against the Houston Rockets at Moody Center, the first installment of the team's annual "I-35 Series" of home games played away from San Antonio.

A single October result will not determine whether either team returns to the conference finals over an 82-game season. But for a league that spent the summer anticipating a rematch between two 60-win teams from a year ago, Tuesday's result offered an early data point: Oklahoma City's reshuffled roster looked no worse for the changes, and San Antonio's young core will have most of the season to show the opener was an aberration rather than a trend.