Oklahoma City turned to Alex Caruso to chase Victor Wembanyama around the floor in Game 1 of the 2026 NBA playoffs Western Conference finals, and the veteran guard answered with the kind of performance that usually wins a playoff game. Instead, the Spurs left with a 122-115 victory in double overtime.
Caruso scored 31 points, the most he has had in the game, while playing a season-high 32 minutes and handling the bulk of the two overtimes. The 6-foot-5 guard was asked to bother a 7-foot-4 problem, and for long stretches he did exactly that. He made eight of 14 3-point attempts and, two minutes after entering the game, used a ball fake to get by Wembanyama and finish over his reach.
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander did not hide how much Caruso's effort meant in a loss that slipped away after so much work. “Sad it went to waste,” Gilgeous-Alexander said of the 31-point night. He added, “He played his butt off tonight.”
The matchup was the kind that can make Caruso more valuable in May than he ever is in January. Oklahoma City leaned on him because Wembanyama demanded a disruptive defender, and the Spurs were just as determined to make life hard on Gilgeous-Alexander. They crowded his paint touches and cut off driving angles, forcing the Thunder to work for nearly everything they got.
That is the split at the center of this series: Caruso gave Oklahoma City force, shots and hustle, but the Spurs still walked out with the result that matters most. Caruso said winning carries more weight in the playoffs than during the regular season, and his own line showed the difference as clearly as the final score did.
“It’s one of those things where you’re just trying to make whatever the play is and trying to win the game,” Caruso said. Game 1 showed how far that can take a player — and how little it guarantees when the game stretches into the kind of night where every possession gets magnified.
