OKLAHOMA CITY — Chet Holmgren stood tall, one hand in the air, feet off the ground — tall and helpless to what was about to come.Victor Wembanyama didn’t pause. And why would he stop? Wembanyama is tall like Holmgren, only taller. He’s a defensive cheat code like Holmgren, only scarier. He’s skilled with the basketball like Holmgren, only smoother.No, this was the Spurs star, long and lean like a limousine, entering the intersection after the light turned yellow, foot on the gas, fearless of the consequences. He attacked like a player insulted by any comparisons to the obstacle between him and the rim.In what might be the play of the Western Conference finals, Wembanyama simply stretched his arms over Holmgren’s reach and delivered a two-handed facial that illustrated everything that had and would play out in the first playoff series between these versions of these teams.Later, Chet Holmgren sat down on a bench in the middle of Oklahoma City’s locker room. The room was nearly silent, Holmgren’s voice rising just above a whisper as he tried to make sense of what had just happened.The Spurs eliminated the NBA’s defending champions 111-103 Saturday night. Since the beginning of the 2024-25 NBA season — a 19-month span — no team had been better than the Thunder.Now, they’ve got a team to chase.“They’re a unique team in terms of personnel, what their personnel does,” Holmgren said softly. “I don’t think there’s another team that has the same kind of play style.”There is — it’s the Thunder. But the Spurs didn’t just match that style; they exceeded it, and they did it faster than anyone might’ve expected. The Thunder can look down the bench and see Jalen Williams and Ajay Mitchell, two offensive weapons they could’ve desperately used, and wonder if things would’ve been different had they been healthy. But they can also look at Wembanyama and the trouble he caused Holmgren and the Thunder all season.In four regular-season games against the Spurs, Holmgren made only 38.7 percent of his shots. He scored just 42 combined points. In the Thunder’s loss to the Spurs in the In-Season Tournament, he fared slightly better, with 17 points and seven rebounds, but it wasn’t as good as Wembanyama’s 22 points and nine rebounds (in only 21 minutes).In this series, the matchup wasn’t close.Eight points, 13 points, 14 points, 10 points, 16 points, 10 points, and, in Game 7, four points. Nearly all of them were forgettable. They don’t tell the entire story — the game is more than putting the ball in the basket — and the Thunder’s willingness to sacrifice self for team is part of what got them one win away from another trip to the NBA Finals.But in this series, with Williams and Mitchell out, those numbers weren’t enough, and they definitely weren’t good enough for a third-team All-NBA player.“That’s not all on him,” Thunder coach Mark Daigneault said. “I actually thought he played his minutes pretty well. You know, I thought that run at the end of the second quarter that got us back going and cut into the (lead), I mean, he was a huge part of that in ways that may not be in the box score visibly.”He’s not wrong. Holmgren was highly impactful in that stretch. He jumped with more force to disrupt a Wembanyama layup, he fought for multiple offensive rebounds and he drew a foul on an aggressive cut to the rim. That stretch did help the Thunder back into the game.The problem — it was only a stretch.Instead of hitting the gas when he saw Wembanyama, Holmgren kept hitting the brakes. Wembanyama’s power as a deterrent has turned away penetrating guards throughout his three NBA seasons. But this was him turning away a fun-house mirror doppelganger time after time, helping take away one of the things that make the Thunder so special.It feels like a problem Oklahoma City is going to have to solve this summer, starting with Holmgren.“There’s no running from improvement,” Holmgren said. “I always look at it as no matter what — good, bad, win, loss, whatever it might be — you have to continue to improve. So, that’s the mindset.”The bar that the Thunder set has now been raised. And while the Thunder, with key roster decisions coming on Lu Dort, Isaiah Hartenstein and more, will look different, it’s a smart bet that the Thunder and the Spurs will be fighting with each other again.“I think in the summertime, you just try to get better, and then you use the 82 games to figure out the bar and what needs to be done, especially in the NBA,” Shai Gilgeous-Alexander said. “Things happen in the summertime — like trades, free agency, new additions … the NBA this year looks completely different than it did the year we won. …But they’ll probably be somewhere in that mix, for sure, next season as well.”The two teams played 12 times this season — the Spurs won eight. For that to flip, Holmgren needs to address what looks like some kind of block — even if the Thunder think otherwise.“There’s nothing that needs to be solved,” Alex Caruso said defiantly. “We could have won the game tonight, and we would have been asking them maybe the same thing. I don’t think there’s this huge narrative of like, this is a bugaboo. … We should have played better and won the game and been in the NBA Finals.“They’re a good team, they’re young. We’re a good team, we’re young. Both will probably be around for a while, so we gotta get better and try to win next time.”The Thunder’s confidence, of which there was plenty, certainly needs to be punctured. The crowd, which earlier in the game had gleefully chanted “Move, b—” along to the Ludacris song, left in silence while the Spurs celebrated, having shoved them out of the top tier in the West.“It’s more than just one guy out there,” Gilgeous-Alexander said of Wembanyama. “They’re a really good basketball team.”And as of Saturday, they’re better than the Thunder. And for that to change, it’ll need to start with the player the Spurs ran through most.