OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — San Antonio ruled starting guard De’Aaron Fox out of Monday night’s Western Conference finals opener against the Oklahoma City Thunder because of right ankle soreness, meaning adversity hit the Spurs in the much-anticipated series before it even started.
The Thunder, meanwhile, got Jalen Williams back in their lineup after he missed six games with a left hamstring strain.
And in the end, the Spurs found a way anyway — winning 122-115 in double overtime, behind a 41-point, 24-rebound night from Victor Wembanyama and a 24-point, 11-rebound, six-assist, seven-steal gem from rookie Dylan Harper, who took Fox's spot.
Fox spoke at the Spurs’ morning shootaround session Monday — “trying to test it out,” he said — and was on the court again in Oklahoma City about 90 minutes before tip-off of Game 1. That second workout obviously didn’t go as hoped, and the decision was made that he wouldn’t play.
Fox was averaging 18.8 points and 5.8 assists in a team-leading 33.3 minutes per game for the Spurs in these playoffs entering Monday. The Spurs haven’t revealed any specifics on the nature of the ankle issue, simply calling it soreness.
“It’s one of those deals where it’s not going away for as long as we’re playing, I don’t believe,” Spurs coach Mitch Johnson said.
The Spurs put Harper into the starting lineup in Fox's place, alongside Victor Wembanyama, Stephon Castle, Devin Vassell and Julian Champagnie — all of them 25 or younger. The Spurs said it was the youngest starting lineup in the history of the NBA's conference finals.
Fox missed the first eight Spurs games of the season — and missed only three games since. The Spurs are now 8-3 without Fox this season.
The Thunder went with what would be considered their typical starting lineup: Williams with two-time Most Valuable Player Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Lu Dort, Chet Holmgren and Isaiah Hartenstein.
Williams missed 55 of the Thunder’s first 90 games this season entering Monday, including playoffs. Of those absences, 19 were for a right wrist issue and the other 36 were related to his hamstrings — the right one costing him 30 games during the regular season, the left one costing him the most recent six before Monday in this playoff run.
Ajay Mitchell filled in seamlessly during the six playoff games that Williams missed, taking the vacated starting spot and averaging 21.2 points — second-best on the team in that span, behind only Gilgeous-Alexander — on 48% shooting.
Mitchell had four points in 34 minutes on Monday.
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Oklahoma City Thunder guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, right, talks to guard Jalen Williams, left, before a news conference after Gilgeous-Alexander was named the NBA basketball MVP as guard Cason Wallace, back right, looks on, Sunday, May 17, 2026, in Oklahoma City. (AP Photo/Nate Billings)
San Antonio Spurs forward Victor Wembanyama (1) celebrates a score with guard De'aaron Fox (4) during the first half of Game 6 of an NBA basketball second-round playoffs series in Minneapolis, Friday, May 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Abbie Parr)
San Antonio Spurs guard De'aaron Fox (4) reacts after scoring against the Minnesota Timberwolves during the second half of Game 6 of an NBA basketball second-round playoffs series in Minneapolis, Friday, May 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Abbie Parr)
BERLIN (AP) — German investigators on Sunday hunted a man who allegedly drove a van into a crowd near Berlin’s Pride festival, killing one person and wounding many more, before apparently stabbing others with a machete in what authorities believe was an Islamic extremist terror attack.
Authorities issued a wanted notice and warned people against approaching Abdul Ballout, a German citizen with Lebanese roots, saying that he may be armed and dangerous.
“Everything we see here points to us dealing with an Islamic terror attack,” Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt said.
Dobrindt put the total number of injured at 29.
Ashley Jump, a 26-year-old U.K. resident, had traveled to Berlin for Saturday’s Pride parade but had left the celebrations before the attack. They returned Sunday to leave flowers at a memorial near the crime scene in support of the LGBTQ+ community.
“They’ll never erase us, we’ll never be gone,” they said. “As long as humanity has existed, we’ve existed. And as long as humanity exists, we will exist. We will not be removed.”
Dobrindt said the suspect had come to authorities’ attention in the past because of numerous previous crimes, of which he didn’t give details, and also because of “radicalization and belonging to the Islamist scene” in the German capital.
He said Ballout was born in Germany, and that his mother was naturalized in 2002 — three years before he was born.
Dobrindt said the suspect had been convicted in Berlin in the past, though he didn’t specify for what. He said that he had been given a suspended sentence of 1 year and 10 months.
Police conducted operations in the city as they searched for the suspect. Those included a search at an apartment in Berlin's Schöneberg district in the early hours of Sunday, but police said they found no one there.
According to police, a white van drove into the Tiergarten park around 10 p.m. and hit several people before colliding with a tree. The closing party at the Pride festival, known as Christopher Street Day, was ongoing at the time next to the Brandenburg Gate, a short distance away. The party followed a parade with some 80 trucks that had made its way through downtown Berlin earlier in the day.
The attack did not occur at the festival, along its route or at the closing party. Rather, the violence took place a few hundred meters (yards) away on a track in the Tiergarten park. The van drove into a crowd that was likely a mix of festivalgoers and other locals or visitors.
Police said a woman was killed. Berlin’s fire service said that three people sustained life-threatening injuries and another eight were seriously injured.
The Pride event next to the Brandenburg Gate was called off around 10:15 p.m. and a band’s performance on stage was interrupted. People were urged to go home and to avoid taking the route through the park.
Hundreds of thousands of people had come to Berlin to celebrate on Saturday, though it’s unclear how many were still at the festival by late evening. It’s one of Europe’s largest LGBTQ+ celebrations.
The van, with its battered front resting against a tree, could still be seen at the scene Sunday morning.
“We are simply stunned by what happened,” said Andre Lehmann, a top official with the main national LGBTQ+ association, LSVD+. “This suspected attack hits the heart of the queer community.”
Chancellor Friedrich Merz vowed that law enforcement would find the suspect.
“I would like to say this to Christopher Street Day participants here in Berlin but also across Germany: Don’t let yourselves, let us not let ourselves, be intimidated," he said. "These acts have only one purpose: They aim to divide our society. They want to take away from us the most important thing we have: Namely our openness and our freedom.”
Dobrindt said he expected security measures at other major events in Germany, including Pride events elsewhere, to be reviewed and if necessary significantly strengthened.
He pointed to concern about possible copycat crimes, adding that “this is not typical of such situations, but it also can’t be ruled out.”
Berlin has seen Islamic extremist attacks before. In December, 2016, a rejected asylum seeker from Tunisia plowed a hijacked truck into a Christmas market, killing 13 people and injuring dozens. He was killed days later in a shootout in Italy.
In February last year, a Spanish tourist was stabbed and seriously wounded at Berlin’s Holocaust Memorial. A Syrian man was convicted in March and sentenced to 13 years in prison.
Saturday's violence “is suspected to be an Islamist terror attack on our way of living together, on our liberal democracy, on our openness and our freedom,” Wegner said.
In the neighboring Netherlands, Amsterdam is hosting World Pride this week and next alongside its own annual Pride celebrations. Mayor Femke Halsema said authorities and organizers “are closely monitoring the security situation” after the Berlin attack but aim to prevent any extra measures getting in the way of celebrating freedom and love.
Associated Press reporters Kirsten Grieshaber, Fanny Brodersen, Pietro De Cristofaro and Stefanie Dazio in Berlin, and Mike Corder in The Hague, Netherlands, contributed to this report.
A man writes a message on a board at the memorial site commemorating the victims near the scene where a car rammed into a crowd near the Pride March in Berlin, Germany, Sunday, July 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)
Two men hold hands at the memorial site commemorating the victims near the scene where a car rammed into a crowd near the Pride March in Berlin, Germany, Sunday, July 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)
Two people embrace near others wearing thermal blankets as they stand near emergency personnel in Berlin, early Sunday, July 26, 2026, following the cancellation of Christopher Street Day festivities. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)
Police officers stand near a vehicle crashed into a tree after driving into a crowd near Berlin's annual Pride event, in Berlin, Germany, Sunday, July 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)
Police officers stand near a vehicle crashed into a tree after driving into a crowd near Berlin's annual Pride event, in Berlin, Germany, Sunday, July 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)
Police officers stand near a vehicle crashed into a tree after driving into a crowd near Berlin's annual Pride event, in Berlin, Germany, Sunday, July 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)
Two people walk together past emergency vehicles in Berlin, early Sunday, July 26, 2026, following the cancellation of Christopher Street Day festivities. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)
Emergency personnel and police gather in Berlin, early Sunday, July 26, 2026, following the cancellation of Christopher Street Day festivities. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)
Emergency personnel and police gather in Berlin, early Sunday, July 26, 2026, following the cancellation of Christopher Street Day festivities. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)
Emergency personnel and police gather in Berlin, early Sunday, July 26, 2026, following the cancellation of Christopher Street Day festivities. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)
Two people embrace near others wearing thermal blankets as they stand near emergency personnel in Berlin, early Sunday, July 26, 2026, following the cancellation of Christopher Street Day festivities. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)
