What does the San Antonio Spurs playing the Oklahoma City Thunder on Christmas Day have to do with the Phoenix Suns? You would think very little, but you would actually be wrong.
The Thunder have lost only five games all season, and three of those have come at the hands of Victor Wembanyama and company. A reason for hope at a time when the Thunder looked like they had the rest of this decade wrapped up.
Suns can build roster to defend Thunder like the Spurs do
Taking the obvious out of the equation, which is that there is only one Wembanyama and the Suns are never going to have him on their roster, the Spurs have created a successful blueprint on how to beat Oklahoma City.
Which is just as well, with the Thunder themselves having brutally exposed Collin Gillespie in an earlier matchup this season. All the Spurs did, and we wish this was easy, was not be afraid to switch defensively and expose the fact their opponents only have one elite creator.
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander: “We have to get better as group. You don’t lose to a team three times in a row in a short span without them being better than you.
— Josue Pavón (@Joe_Sway) December 25, 2025
We have to get better. Look in the mirror, and that’s everybody from top to bottom, if we want to reach our ultimate goal” pic.twitter.com/g6tBBqGhOZ
They let Shai Gilgeous-Alexander do whatever he wanted in trying to get his teammates going, and ensured that every other player was seeing different looks when they tried to get on the ball.
The concept of switching defenively is hardly new, and it again helps that Wembanyama seems to take every meeting against Chet Holmgren personally. But what does this have to do with the Suns?
We know head coach Jordan Ott is building his roster out from the defensive end first, and his finest work this season was using the likes of Grayson Allen and Royce O'Neale to slow down Wembanyama on the way to an impressive win.
Both those guys, plus Gillespie, Ryan Dunn and Dillon Brooks, are comfortable guarding all manner of players. Where the Suns run into trouble is with the fact center Mark Williams can't hang with smaller and faster players, while Devin Booker also has some limitations.
What the Suns can now do this offseason, and before the deadline if they shift their asking price for Nick Richards, is begin to build out a roster of guys who can guard all manner of opponents.
In some ways the Spurs are both the mirror image and also polar opposite of the Thunder, and both have shown their hands on how to beat the other.
Putting the roster together to do so is the hard part, but the Suns have time, a returning Jalen Green and hopefully some future draft picks acquired down the road via trade to make that happen. This was much more than a marquee Christmas Day matchup, it was a glimpse into the future for Phoenix.