The Spurs have the Thunder’s number.

For the third time this season, San Antonio took down the reigning champions as they beat Oklahoma City 117-102 to hand the Thunder their first home loss of the season. The Spurs previously beat the Thunder 130-110 on Tuesday, and also defeated them 111-109 during the NBA Cup semifinals earlier this month.

The Thunder have now dropped to 0-3 against the Spurs this season while they are 26-2 against all other opponents. In Thursday’s game, DeAaron Fox led the scoring for the Spurs, putting up 29 points while Stephon Castle and superstar Victor Wembanyama each added 19 points.

Thunder forward Jalen Williams, who scored 12 points with two rebounds and six assists in the loss, simply encompassed the team’s troubles against the Spurs. “There’s this guy on their team that’s 7-foot-5 guy and takes up a lot of space on the floor,” Williams said. “... Just having Victor out there defensively covers up for a lot of their mistakes.”

Along with the challenge of going up against Wembanyama, Williams felt like the Thunder missed out on several shooting opportunities that contributed to their loss. "Every time we went through our progressions, we got really good looks,” Williams said, via Nick Gallo. “There's probably like a stretch where we missed like five or six wide open threes. Us missing those led to us not playing defense on the other end, and it just snowballed from there."

Williams noted that the Spurs remind him of the 2024 Thunder because of the way they play together, and felt it’s something his team can learn from. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander shared a similar sentiment after the game.

“That’s a good basketball team,” Gilgeous-Alexander said. “They know how to play. They have talent. They play the right way. They play together. When you mix those things together for any basketball team, you win games. ... They’ve been better than us three times now.”

After losing back-to-back games to the Spurs and three of their last four overall, the Thunder will look to get back on track when they take on the 76ers this weekend. They will have the opportunity to get revenge on the Spurs next month, when the two teams face off in Oklahoma City on Jan. 13.

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This article was originally published on www.si.com as Jalen Williams Had Simple Reason for Why Spurs Have Given Thunder Trouble This Season.

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