Victor Wenbanyama is headed to the NBA Finals in just his third season in the NBA, following the San Antonio Spurs‘ 111-103 win over the Oklahoma City Thunder in Game 7 of the Western Conference Finals at Paycom Center on Saturday. Wembanyama had to get past the two-time reigning MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander to reach the big stage, and he had some additional motivation to do so.
Gilgeous-Alexander received the MVP award before Game 1 against the Spurs, and Wembanyama didn’t seem too happy watching him lift the award. The Frenchman then dominated Game 1 with 41 points and 24 rebounds and admitted afterward that he was bothered by watching the Canadian hoist the trophy.
Wembanyana wasn’t interested in speaking too much about it at the time. Now that the series is over, though, the 22-year-old revealed on NBA on NBC postgame just how much it fueled him.
“This fueled me more than anything else could have,” Wembanyama said, via Chaz NBA. “Sometimes this game is so hard. This team is so good that you got to use every single emotion you got in you in order to win.
“And sometimes these emotions is passion, is love for the game,” Wembanyama added. “Sometimes it’s anger. Sometimes might even be jealousy. But I don’t want to…weigh myself down with any of these energies. I use them on the court.”
Wembanyama had made his case for MVP during the season, but finished a distant third to Gilgeous-Alexander. He had five first-place votes compared to 83 for the Thunder superstar.
That was bad enough, and Wembanyama seeing Gilgeous-Alexander lift the trophy in front of him only made things worse. The two-time All-Star, who had had 22 points (7-15 FG), seven rebounds, two assists, one steal, and one block in Game 7, drove home the point in this series that he is the best player in the NBA today.
Wembanyma finished with averages of 27.3 points, 10.9 rebounds, 3.1 assists, 1.4 steals, and 2.7 blocks per game against the Thunder while shooting 48.1% from the field and 40.0% from beyond the arc. He was unsurprisingly named Western Conference Finals MVP and has his eyes now set on winning the NBA championship.
The Spurs will take on the New York Knicks in the 2026 NBA Finals, and there might be some additional motivation for Wembanyama in that matchup, too. The Knicks, of course, beat them in the final of the 2025 NBA Cup. Taking them down in the Finals after that setback would surely feel great.
As for Gilgeous-Alexander, he averaged 25.9 points, 2.9 rebounds, 8.9 assists, 1.9 steals, and 0.9 blocks per game in this series while shooting 40.9% from the field and 28.6% from beyond the arc. He certainly didn’t play like the MVP for much of this series.
Gilgeous-Alexander did pay respect to the Spurs after the Thunder’s elimination. He thinks they have the makeup to win it all. Provided these teams stay healthy, we’re going to see them clash quite a few times in the playoffs in the future.
