{"id":39122,"date":"2025-12-26T05:34:51","date_gmt":"2025-12-26T05:34:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/?p=39122"},"modified":"2025-12-26T05:34:51","modified_gmt":"2025-12-26T05:34:51","slug":"spurs-continue-dominance-over-thunder-with-third-win","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/?p=39122","title":{"rendered":"Spurs continue dominance over Thunder with third win"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\n<br \/><span class=\"timestamp \">Dec 25, 2025, 05:34 PM ET<\/span><\/p>\n<p>OKLAHOMA CITY &#8212; De&#8217;Aaron Fox scored a game-high 29 points to lead the San Antonio Spurs past the Oklahoma City Thunder 117-102 on Christmas Day for their third win over the defending NBA champs in two weeks.<\/p>\n<p>The Spurs also defeated the Thunder in an NBA Cup semifinal on Dec. 13 and in San Antonio on Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p>The teams will meet again Jan. 13 in Oklahoma City and Feb. 4 in San Antonio.<\/p>\n<p>Victor Wembanyama posted 19 points and 11 rebounds for the Spurs (23-7) in Thursday&#8217;s matchup, and Stephon Castle added 19 points and seven assists. San Antonio shot 53.6% from the field and held the Thunder (26-5) to 38.9% shooting.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"editorial-title\">Editor&#8217;s Picks<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><\/li>\n<li><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>1 Related<\/p>\n<p>It was San Antonio&#8217;s eighth straight win and Oklahoma City&#8217;s second home loss of the season. The Thunder entered the day at the top of the Western Conference standings, with the Spurs in second.<\/p>\n<p>The Thunder are 0-3 against the Spurs and 26-2 versus everyone else; it&#8217;s the first time that a team has had three of its first five losses in a season come against a single opponent since 1966-67, according to ESPN Research.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;This is like a playoff series,&#8221; Wembanyama said of facing the Thunder three times in a short span. &#8220;We learned a lot on the tactical side [but] I don&#8217;t want to say too much about it. Keep something for us.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Shai Gilgeous-Alexander scored 22 points for Oklahoma City, but the reigning league MVP made just 7 of 19 field goals. He scored at least 20 points for the 102nd consecutive game.<\/p>\n<p>Isaiah Hartenstein registered 13 points and 12 rebounds for the Thunder, and Chet Holmgren added 10 points and 12 rebounds.<\/p>\n<p>Oklahoma City started the season 24-1, tied for the league&#8217;s best record ever through 25 games. The Thunder are 2-4 since, including the three losses to the Spurs. It&#8217;s the first time the Thunder have dropped consecutive games by at least 15 points since 2021-22, when they won just 24 games.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We have to get better as group,&#8221; Gilgeous-Alexander said. &#8220;You don&#8217;t lose to a team three times in a row in a short span without them being better than you. We have to get better &#8230; if we want to reach our ultimate goal.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The Thunder made their first seven field goals and went up 18-12 before Fox helped the Spurs fight back. His 21 points in the first half propelled San Antonio into the break with a 69-60 lead.<\/p>\n<p>The Spurs pushed their advantage to 85-68 midway through the third quarter, and a dunk by Dylan Harper late in the quarter put the Spurs up 91-74. The Spurs were ahead 95-79 at the end of the third and maintained control from there.<\/p>\n<p><em>The Associated Press contributed to this report. <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Dec 25, 2025, 05:34 PM ET OKLAHOMA CITY &#8212; De&#8217;Aaron Fox scored a game-high 29 points to lead the San Antonio Spurs past the Oklahoma City Thunder 117-102 on Christmas Day for their third win over the defending NBA champs in two weeks. The Spurs also defeated the Thunder in an NBA Cup semifinal on<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":39123,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[2638,5222,9133,1082,1259],"class_list":{"0":"post-39122","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-continue","9":"tag-dominance","10":"tag-spurs","11":"tag-thunder","12":"tag-win"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39122","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=39122"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39122\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/39123"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=39122"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=39122"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=39122"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}