OKLAHOMA CITY — 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 3 from behind the half-court line and swished it.
San Antonio won on both those nights, and entering Tuesday’s 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 — and more importantly, take another step toward reaching the NBA Finals — Wembanyama looked surprisingly mortal instead. He scored 20 points, his fewest in a game this series, and grabbed six rebounds in the Spurs’ 127-114 loss to the Thunder.
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.
“He has to take more than 15 shots, even with the free throws,” Johnson said. “He’s going to have to score more than 20 points, for sure.”
Wembanyama has been transcendent in the Spurs’ two wins over the Thunder. He tallied an absurd 41 points and 24 rebounds in San Antonio’s Game 1 double-overtime win and then notched 33 points, eight rebounds and three blocks in his team’s blowout victory in Game 4.
If the Spurs want to end the Thunder’s season, they’ll need Wembanyama to reach that level in two more games.
“They sent so many bodies towards him,” said Spurs guard Stephon Castle, who scored 24 points. “It’s hard sometimes. I think he just wants to make the right play. It’s tough. He’s our best player. We need him to be aggressive. I feel like him being aggressive opens up shots for other guys.”
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.
The way Wembanyama reacted after the Spurs’ loss Tuesday suggested that Anthony’s observation had merit. Wembanyama did his typically lengthy postgame recovery routine. But as teammate De’Aaron Fox was speaking to reporters in the Spurs’ locker room, Wembanyama walked out without taking any questions — an atypical occurrence for one of the NBA’s most insightful players.
Fox, who only scored nine points on 4-of-15 shooting, said his co-star simply had an off shooting night.
“He got to the free-throw line,” Fox said. “He just didn’t make shots. I think he was aggressive. I think his aggression was there. He just didn’t make shots.”
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’s 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’s starting lineup, ensured the Spurs stayed at arm’s length by hitting a pair of timely 3s. McCain helped spark Oklahoma City’s offense, which mustered just 82 points two nights earlier in Game 4.
“There were a lot of things where we were in wrong positions or wrong coverages. Poor decisions,” Johnson said. “In a game like tonight, you give yourself no chance if that’s the level you’re going to play at for the 48 minutes.”
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.
“That’s probably the easiest in terms of surface-level stuff,” Johnson said. “He’ll definitely need to take more shots. But there is a lot of things all over the place. Even when we didn’t have advantages, we didn’t 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’re doing in a secure, mature way.”