Luke Kornet just authored the play of the 2026 playoffs. And the comparisons started flowing immediately.
With the Spurs clinging to a 97-91 lead late in Game 7, Thunder big man Isaiah Hartenstein picked off a pass and took off the other way for what looked like a sure breakaway dunk that would have cut the deficit to four. Kornet, the 7-foot-2 journeyman center, sprinted the length of the floor and erased it. The chase-down block sealed the game and sent San Antonio to the NBA Finals.
Fans, analysts, and Spurs teammates were all making the same comparison within minutes. LeBron James, 2016 NBA Finals, Game 7, Andre Iguodala. You know the one.
“I was so proud of him, so happy,” Wembanyama said about Kornet after the game. “That’s the definition of a winning play.”
The block was made even more incredible by who made it. Kornet has spent his career as the kind of player who shows up in box scores once a week, gives you eight quality minutes, and disappears. He was never going to be confused with Russell Westbrook in a footrace. And yet there he was, hauling down the floor at full speed to save the Spurs’ season.
“I’ve never seen Luke run that fast,” teammate Julian Champagnie told reporters. “He was hauling, man, hauling.”
The play has already entered Spurs playoff lore. Tim Duncan had his blocks. Manu Ginobili had his steals. Now Luke Kornet has the chase-down. That is the kind of company nobody projected when the Spurs signed him last offseason.
Kornet’s path to this moment is the kind of story that makes professional basketball worth watching. He went undrafted out of Vanderbilt in 2017, bounced through six different organizations, and never averaged more than 7 points per game in a season. He has spent most of his career fighting for minutes and a guaranteed contract. Now he has a Game 7 highlight that will run on every NBA Finals broadcast for the next month.
The block also exposed something about the Thunder. Hartenstein had clean space and a runway to the rim. The Thunder bench was already celebrating before the ball was even in his hands. And then Kornet caught up out of nowhere, timed it perfectly, and pinned the ball against the glass without fouling. That is not luck. That is effort plus awareness plus a little bit of guts.
San Antonio coach Mitch Johnson has trusted Kornet in big moments all postseason. The decision to keep him on the floor late in Game 7 instead of going small was vindicated within minutes. Sometimes the analytics chart says one thing and the situation calls for another.
This whole Spurs run has been about Wembanyama, and rightly so. But the team would not be in the Finals without the rest of the rotation making plays. Kornet just made the biggest one. He has earned every dollar of his next contract and then some.
Spurs vs Knicks tips off Wednesday night. If Kornet ends up adding a championship to this kind of moment, his story might be the best one nobody saw coming.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
