If the San Antonio Spurs aren’t able to win two straight games in this Western Conference Finals that they now trail 3-2 to the Oklahoma City Thunder, Victor Wembanyama is going to regret his Game 5 performance for a long time. This was the biggest game of his life and he laid an egg with 20 points and six rebounds on 4-of-15 shooting in a 127-114 loss. He only reached the 20-point mark because he piled up 12 free throws.The six rebounds is inexcusable for Wembanyama, a skyscraper of a human being at 7-foot-4. The four buckets speak more to Wembanyama’s weakness — in more ways than one — as a 22-year-old who is still, as crazy as it sounds, in the infancy stage of his basketball development. And here it is: Wembanyama does yet operate consistently enough in the paint. It’s not exactly a revelatory observation that the dude who can damn near reach the rim without lifting his feet off the ground should be playing closer to the basket, but it’s the truth nonetheless. Sometimes Wembanyama gets down there, as he did in Games 1 and 4. Not coincidentally, those are the games the Spurs won in this series. And sometimes he doesn’t, as was the case in Games 2 and 3, and most painfully, Game 5 on Tuesday. If all you do is put Wemby’s Game 1 shot chart (a 41-point, 24-point masterpiece) next to his Game 5 shot chart (Tuesday night’s clunker), you already know which game the Spurs won and which one they lost.
It has been said that great strengths can also be great weaknesses, and in this case, Wembanyama’s ability to play a skill- and too often perimeter-based game that nobody his size has ever been able to play has, at least for now, clouded his offensive judgment in terms of where his true advantage lies. Great scorers score on their terms, from their spots, but Wembanyama doesn’t have any ironclad terms or spots yet. He is something of an offensive free agent, willing to listen to any and all defensive offers and then accept whatever option strikes his fancy in the moment. That needs to change. And it will. Wembanyama needs to establish an offensive office — the spots and shots he goes to when it’s time to work. Not because the defense broke a certain way to allow it, but because he owned the possession from the start. This is Kevin Durant at the elbow. Luka Dončić or Houston James Harden getting to the step-back. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander separating in the midrange. Carmelo Anthony facing up. Stephen Curry saying “screw it” when the…
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2026-05-27 06:25:44
