Victor Wembanyama put 16 points, six rebounds and two blocks on the Minnesota Timberwolves in the Spurs’ Game 3 win Friday night. In the fourth quarter.
All told, he carded 39 points, 15 rebounds, five blocks and a steal as San Antonio took a 2-1 lead in their second-round series with a 115-108 victory. Wemby shot 13 of 18 and made three of his five 3-pointers. He is just the fourth player in NBA history to record at least 35 points, 15 rebounds and five blocks in a playoff game (the other three are Hakeem Olajuwon, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Shaquille O’Neal), and he is the only player to chart those numbers on a 70% shooting clip. He did this in his seventh career playoff game. He’s 22 years old.
This guy is unbelievable. He can shoot, of course, but when he, and the Spurs as a unit, make it a priority to station him in the paint or just outside and get him attacking toward the basket, he is impossible to stop.
Through the first two games of the series, Wembanyama took almost half his shots from behind the 3-point line, where he was 2 for 15. He scored just 30 combined points in those games. It was not enough, especially in San Antonio’s Game 1 loss. In Game 3, his first five buckets came from inside the restricted area. Then he got the 3s going. The order of that attack is important. Like a quarterback starting off a game with a few high-percentage completions before he starts chucking bombs.
The Wolves were valiant. It’s high time we start talking about this team as one of the best in the league; a true playoff riser, and Anthony Edwards (32 points, 14 boards and six assists) is a beast. But Wemby is a different animal altogether. Right now, he is the single-most dominant player in the league when he is maximized, and San Antonio is my pick to win it all because of him.
Yes, the Spurs are deep as hell and filled with two-way studs, but Wemby is the game changer. Defensively, he alters the geometry of the court in the way Stephen Curry did offensively back in 2015 when nobody thought the Warriors were ready. They were, because Curry changed everything, including the traditional timeline a team has to take to a title. So does Wemby.
Everything from his roll gravity to his insane defensive recovery range jumbles the court calculus that these players have spent a lifetime learning. A shot that used to require two feet of space now needs four or five. Even when he’s well on the weak side, he’s scaring the hell out of drivers. You’re never safely past him as a penetrator; he’ll swat you from six feet behind. You can’t loft shots high enough; he’ll just extend above the backboard.
When he has it all working, which is most of the time, he’s a total one-man wrecking crew. Such was the case on Friday, when only two other Spurs made more than three shots. Probably the biggest shot of the night was when the Wolves cut San Antonio’s lead to three on a Naz Reid 3 with just over three minutes left, only for Wemby to bury a triple on the other end to take it right back to six. Minnesota never got within a single possession again, and with Wemby playing like this, they might never get back within reach of this series.
