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SAN ANTONIO — Victor Wembanyama wasn’t sure what just happened. He was a jumble of emotions after Game 2.
He understands that is the issue.
“I’m still very blurry. That’s the whole problem. I need to have more poise, more control over the game,” Wembanyama said from the podium.
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Wembanyama is learning that poise in these biggest of moments is earned, and the path to it can be a painful one to walk.
Wemby was born with incredible gifts — size, athleticism, touch — and has worked relentlessly to hone and master them. Wembanyama has challenged himself mentally and works as hard on his mind and that side of the game as he does on the physical side.
However, poise on the biggest stage in basketball is often earned through painful lessons. In that way, these NBA Finals for Victor Wembanyama follow in the footsteps of Kobe Bryant, LeBron James and countless other legends of the game who struggled in their first playoffs and/or first NBA Finals. It’s not a lesson that can be learned in a gym or sitting with Shaolin monks. It is unique to this stage.
Wembanyama rough 12 seconds
Through six quarters of these NBA Finals, Karl-Anthony Towns and a physical Knicks defense that bumped Wemby on every roll to the rim, bodied him up, threw different looks at him and generally just made him uncomfortable. Wemby was still putting up counting stats, but he wasn’t putting his imprint on the game the way he did from the start against Oklahoma City in the Western Conference Finals (a more familiar opponent).
That changed in the third quarter of Game 3, not coincidentally when Towns went to the bench with four fouls (a couple of them questionable, considering how the rest of the game was being called). Wemby found space to operate.
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After taking four shots in the entire first half, Wembanyama took double that in the third quarter alone and four of them at the rim. He scored a dozen points in the frame, but could not totally close the gap against the Knicks as a New York lineup of Mikal Bridges and four bench players outplayed the Spurs and had New York up nine entering the fourth quarter.
That lead stretched out…
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/wembanyama-learning-lesson-kobe-lebron-152841978.html
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Publish date : 2026-06-06 15:28:00
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