After the Oklahoma City Thunder’s Game 2 win over the San Antonio Spurs, Shai Gilgeous Alexander was asked about Isaiah Hartenstein’s defense on Victor Wembanyama. His response? "I'm not sure if it was good, to be honest." It was quite a blunt message, but one that he seemingly cleared up in his post-game press conference.
When asked about his on-court response right after the game ended, Gilgeous-Alexander claimed that he couldn’t really hear the question. He was, in his defense, still on the court, and there was a lot going on in the immediate aftermath of the win. And in his follow-up to the original question, he noted, “It was alright. It was good. It was good.”
He said the Thunder wanted to switch things up and give Wembanyama different looks, because that’s what you do with star players. But he never actually mentioned Hartenstein’s name. So, maybe he really didn’t hear the question.
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander says that he didn't mean to take a shot at Isaiah Hartenstein
Gilgeous-Alexander’s version of the story makes sense based on his follow-up response. There’s a real chance he just didn’t hear the part of the question that mentioned Hartenstein:
"I didn't really hear her," Gilgeous-Alexander said. "And then once I realized what she said, I gave her the right answer. Yeah, at first, I heard it wrong what she said."
But is that the truth? Did he really not hear? Because after the game, there was a ton of discourse surrounding Hartenstein’s defense against Wembanyama and the rest of the Spurs.
A ton of clips quickly began circling, specifically clips that the broadcast showed during the game to supposedly highlight how great Hartenstein’s defense was.
Unfortunately, in a lot of the clips, it looked like Hartenstein was just fouling Wembanyama, but the fouls weren’t getting called. Could that be what Gilgeous-Alexander was referring to?
Or maybe Gilgeous-Alexander didn’t like the team’s defense against Wembanyama. Maybe he was trying to emphasize that, despite their improvements, they still didn’t do a good enough job slowing him down.
Perhaps he was just trying to criticize the Thunder as a whole. Not just Hartenstein. But even with his clarification post-game, it’s hard to tell. But Gilgeous-Alexander wanted to erase any potential shot at Hartenstein.
So, for the time being, it seems as though Gilgeous-Alexander cleared up his supposed shot. He wasn’t trying to call out a singular teammate after the game, and especially not after a victory.
It was just a simple misunderstanding, according to Gilgeous-Alexander.
Or was it…?
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