After veteran forward Harrison Barnes implored the Spurs not to take being in the NBA Finals for granted, Victor Wembanyama compared the team to a group of “spoiled kids,” writes Tom Orsborn of The San Antonio Express-News (subscription required).
“They (the Knicks) understand how fortunate they are to be in the Finals, and they know it’s not guaranteed they’ll ever get another chance like this,” the 22-year-old star told a French reporter in their native language.
“As for us, we’re kind of like spoiled kids,” Wembanyama added. “For some of us, it’s our first season, or one of our first seasons, and we’re already in the Finals. We don’t fully realize it yet. And to me, the team that appreciates the position we’re in the most will be the one that wins.”
The Spurs are the second-youngest team to make the Finals, Orsborn notes, just a little older than the 1977 Trail Blazers.
Here’s more on the Spurs:
- The Game 2 loss, which put San Antonio in a 2-0 hole as the series head to New York, taught Wembanyama a valuable lesson about how difficult it is to become a champion, Marcus Thompson II writes in an excellent story for The Athletic. While Wembanyama spearheaded a furious late-game rally, he was responsible for a disastrous turnover and subsequent foul that gave the Knicks back the lead, then missed a potential game-winning jump shot in the closing seconds. The third-year center has been open in his pursuit of greatness, and every all-time great has experienced similar low points. As Thompson puts it, “the road to being legendary is paved with hard lessons and heartbreaks.”
- Second-year guard Stephon Castle stepped on Mikal Bridges‘ foot in Game 2 and was forced out of the game for about six minutes. He said the injury was feeling much better on Sunday, according to Orsborn (Twitter link). “It’s been feeling good…It feels a lot better than I thought it would initially,” Castle said. “Obviously, I had some adrenaline running, kind of once I settled down, I started to feel it. Waking up the next day, actually felt really good.”
- Zach Kram of ESPN.com takes a closer look at the most important moments from Game 2.
- Veteran center Bismack Biyombo recently spoke to Marc J. Spears of Andscape about being a mentor to Wembanyama.
The Spurs need to lock in for Game 3 tomorrow. No more stinkers from Wemby, Fox, Castle, and Vassell. The Spurs need all of them to contribute if they want to come back and win the Finals. If not, it’s gonna be wraps. Must win game for San Antonio tomorrow night. Should be good
It appears Wemby is out of gas to me. He reached into the tank too deep in game 1 against OKC and hasn’t been able to recover since then. He’s still great and still capable of having great games despite it but can’t go from playing 28 minutes a night in the regular season to playing 40 in the playoffs and not expect to burn out eventually.