{"id":1957699,"date":"2026-05-27T11:23:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-27T08:23:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1957699"},"modified":"2026-05-27T11:23:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-27T08:23:09","slug":"victor-wembanyama-looked-mortal-in-game-5-loss-the-spurs-need-his-superhuman-form","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1957699","title":{"rendered":"Victor Wembanyama looked mortal in Game 5 loss. The Spurs need his superhuman form"},"content":{"rendered":"
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OKLAHOMA CITY \u2014 For much of these Western Conference finals, Victor Wembanyama has looked superhuman.<\/p>\n

In Game 1, the San Antonio Spurs 7-foot-4 center did his best Steph Curry impression, pulling up just inside the half-court line and burying a 3 to force a second overtime. In Game 4, Wembanyama let go an even deeper 3 from behind the half-court line and swished it.<\/p>\n

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San Antonio won on both those nights, and entering Tuesday\u2019s Game 5, the Spurs were hoping to put the defending champion Oklahoma City Thunder on the precipice of elimination. With a chance to cement his status as the best player in the world \u2014 and more importantly, take another step toward reaching the NBA Finals \u2014 Wembanyama looked surprisingly mortal instead. He scored 20 points, his fewest in a game this series, and grabbed six rebounds in the Spurs\u2019 127-114 loss to the Thunder<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Wembanyama did the majority of his scoring from the free-throw line, where he shot 12 of 12, but he went 4 of 15 from the floor. Wembanyama converted 4 of 9 shots in the paint and missed all five 3s he attempted. Afterward, Spurs coach Mitch Johnson said he needs more from his 22-year-old superstar.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe has to take more than 15 shots, even with the free throws,\u201d Johnson said. \u201cHe\u2019s going to have to score more than 20 points, for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Wembanyama has been transcendent in the Spurs\u2019 two wins over the Thunder. He tallied an absurd 41 points and 24 rebounds in San Antonio\u2019s Game 1 double-overtime win and then notched 33 points, eight rebounds and three blocks in his team\u2019s blowout victory in Game 4.<\/p>\n

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If the Spurs want to end the Thunder\u2019s season, they\u2019ll likely need Wembanyama to reach that level in two more games.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey sent so many bodies towards him,\u201d said Spurs guard Stephon Castle, who scored 24 points. \u201cIt\u2019s hard sometimes. I think he just wants to make the right play. It\u2019s tough. He\u2019s our best player. We need him to be aggressive. I feel like him being aggressive opens up shots for other guys.\u201d<\/p>\n

At halftime, Wembanyama had only grabbed one rebound. That was part of what prompted NBC analyst Carmelo Anthony to wonder if Wembanyama was feeling fatigued. Wembanyama played 49 minutes in Game 1 and then 37, 39 and 31 minutes in the next three games. That is a heavy load to carry on such skinny shoulders.<\/p>\n

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The way Wembanyama reacted after the Spurs\u2019 loss Tuesday suggested that Anthony\u2019s observation had merit. Wembanyama did his typically lengthy postgame recovery routine. But as teammate De\u2019Aaron Fox was speaking to reporters in the Spurs\u2019 locker room, Wembanyama walked out without taking any questions<\/a> \u2014 an atypical occurrence for one of the NBA\u2019s most insightful players.<\/p>\n

Fox, who only scored nine points on 4-of-15 shooting, said his co-star simply had an off shooting night.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe got to the free-throw line,\u201d Fox said. \u201cHe just didn\u2019t make shots. I think he was aggressive. I think his aggression was there. He just didn\u2019t make shots.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Spurs fell behind by as many as 20 points in the third quarter. During a timeout, cameras caught Wembanyama giving an impassioned speech to his teammates. The Spurs cut the Thunder\u2019s lead to eight with 7:02 remaining in the fourth, but that was as close as they got. Thunder guard Jared McCain, who stepped into Oklahoma City\u2019s starting lineup, ensured the Spurs stayed at arm\u2019s length by hitting a pair of timely 3s. McCain helped spark Oklahoma City\u2019s offense, which mustered just 82 points two nights earlier in Game 4.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThere were a lot of things where we were in wrong positions or wrong coverages. Poor decisions,\u201d Johnson said. \u201cIn a game like tonight, you give yourself no chance if that\u2019s the level you\u2019re going to play at for the 48 minutes.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Spurs committed 15 turnovers and shot 12 of 41 from 3. There is plenty they can clean up and do better in Game 6. But beating the Thunder requires excellence, not competence. The Spurs need the superhuman version of Wembanyama if they want to win this series. Not the mortal one who played on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s probably the easiest in terms of surface-level stuff,\u201d Johnson said. \u201cHe\u2019ll definitely need to take more shots. But there is a lot of things all over the place. Even when we didn\u2019t have advantages, we didn\u2019t make the simple plays to take advantage of the opportunity of the possession. In this type of game, you have to be sure of everything you\u2019re doing in a secure, mature way.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

OKLAHOMA CITY \u2014 For much of these Western Conference finals, Victor Wembanyama has looked superhuman. In Game 1, the San Antonio Spurs 7-foot-4 center did his best Steph Curry impression, pulling up just inside the half-court line and burying a 3 to force a second overtime. In Game 4, Wembanyama let go an even deeper […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[226,241],"class_list":["post-1957699","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-crawlmanager","tag-nytimes-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1957699","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1957699"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1957699\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1957699"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1957699"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1957699"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}