EMIRATES NBA CUP

December 13, 2025

Jalen Williams

Oklahoma Thunder

Semifinal Postgame

San Antonio Spurs 111, Oklahoma City Thunder 109

Q. What did you sense out there offensively? As a team, the straight-line drives weren't there as often as they have been recently.

JALEN WILLIAMS: Me personally, I didn't play well. I think in the midst of me trying to figure out shooting I'm like shooting more than being aggressive going to the rim. So I think that kind of starts with me.

Honestly, I didn't believe we were too bad defensively. I think there were some things we can clean up. I think we put them in the bonus too early. When you're playing against a good team and they are doing -- obviously Wemby adds a different dynamic to that. We have to work our offensive possessions a little more, and we didn't do that enough throughout the game.

Q. Obviously there's going to be a lot of talk about Wemby and his impact. But in terms of their perimeter defenders and guards, how much did that add to making things difficult tonight?

JALEN WILLIAMS: Yeah, they did a good job. Similar to us, they played really physical, which was fun to play against, and makes us better as a team.

Yeah, they have good guards that take pride in playing defense. So anytime you get to play teams like that, it's fun. It makes you better.

Yeah, looking forward to playing them more times to get better throughout the season. And they are well-coached. So when you add physicality and good defenders up there, and you can tell they are really trying to figure that out defensively; it causes its own little problems.

Q. I'm sure you guys have talked about this locally or been asked about it locally, but when you get to 24-1, that's very, very rare air. Does having a season where you win 70 or win 73 before you even get to the playoffs, is that something that matters to you guys?

JALEN WILLIAMS: Yes, because we're competitive, you know what I mean. You could say that we're chasing it, but it's also one of those things that we are not going out there to lose, either. So if it happens organically, then it does.

Obviously down the road, whenever that gets there, it's like, all right, do we sacrifice health when we're already solidified at the 1 or whatever the spot is? You get into those questions, we can answer those down the road.

But a lot of it is just seeing how good we can be every game and if it results in a win and we get there, then that's cool. But once you get to the playoffs, everybody, your season really doesn't matter. So that's kind of how we look at it.

Q. Just coming off a title, you had won 16 in a row. I believe you guys could probably put the Cup into a certain perspective, but is there a level of disappointment because you're not going to be able to check this box and say that you want a Cup in addition to everything else you've done?

JALEN WILLIAMS: Yep. Yeah, it's frustrating. Like you said, there's perspective on it, for sure.

I think an average team would probably be like, Oh, it's the Cup, whatever, we lost one.

What are we, 24-2? I mean, we can go home and just hang our hat on that, or we can look at it as a way to get better and understand that we played against a playoff team that beat us and gave us a 2 on our thing. So that's how we'll look at it from a competitive standpoint.

I think that's why we've been so good this year, is holding ourselves to a different standard than looking at it from like a winner's perspective and taking your foot off the gas a little bit.