“It sucks losing and it’s hard for that to not overshadow everything else.”
That was the tone of Chet Holmgren’s season-ending media session on Sunday, one day after the Oklahoma City Thunder lost Game 7 of the Western Conference Finals to the San Antonio Spurs, ending a 64-win season that began with championship expectations.
Holmgren repeatedly returned to accountability, development and perspective when discussing a Thunder team that finished first in the Western Conference but fell short against a Spurs group he described as unlike any other opponent.
“I think there was a lot of resilience from all the guys,” Holmgren said when reflecting on Oklahoma City’s season. “As a team we had our challenges and adversities and really great moments and I feel like everybody individually had those same things. Overall I think I’m just proud of the fight that we had as a team all year.”
The Thunder opened the season 24-1 and finished with the NBA’s best record before advancing through the playoffs with series wins over the Phoenix Suns and Los Angeles Lakers. Oklahoma City then pushed San Antonio to seven games before losing 111-103 at home in Game 7.
Holmgren averaged 14.9 points, 8.2 rebounds and 1.5 blocks across 15 playoff games while shooting 56.8% from the field. Still, the 23-year-old acknowledged that his Western Conference Finals performance did not meet his standards.
“I feel like it comes down to looking at the tape, figuring out where I can improve individually, and then trusting my work through the offseason,” Holmgren said when asked how he would prevent a similar outcome.
The big man also addressed a noticeable drop in his offensive involvement during the Spurs series, where he saw fewer shot attempts and three-point looks.
“Part of it is being closed out heavy too,” Holmgren said. “And also kind of just being a little bit out of rhythm at times. There were definitely opportunities to get more attempts up that I didn’t in the moment. And that’s an area to improve.”
Holmgren framed development as an ongoing process rather than a reaction to one playoff loss.
“I think it’s both,” he said when asked whether improvement comes from refining current strengths or adding new skills. “No matter how good you are at something, you can always improve. Nobody’s perfect at any skill.”
The Spurs matchup also stood out because of how different the challenge looked compared with most opponents. Holmgren pointed to San Antonio’s personnel and style as something Oklahoma City could not approach in routine fashion.
“I definitely think that they’re different in terms of I don’t think there’s another team that has their play style, their personnel,” Holmgren said. “You can’t just kind of play like a base normal this is what we kind of do on an average Tuesday night type of thing.”
Despite the disappointment, Holmgren suggested experience has changed how he processes setbacks compared with earlier in his career.
“The longer you live the days start to feel shorter because you’ve lived so many,” Holmgren said. “It’s the same thing with mistakes. If you’ve only ever made one mistake, that mistake probably feels so heavy and so easy to dwell on, but as you make more mistakes, you learn that there are opportunities to learn from and improve from.”
Holmgren closed with a simple assessment of playoff defeat and the challenge ahead.
“Losing isn’t fun,” he said. “But I definitely feel like I’ve gotten better at being able to take a loss for what it is, look at it objectively rather than emotionally and then try to figure it out and work forward from there.”
