NEW YORK — Madison Square Garden hasn’t hosted a pregame spectacle like this since the height of Steph Curry mania. Instead of the pedestrian-sized sharpshooter dunking one deep ball after another, fans flocked and cameras huddled along the baseline to witness the 7-foot-4-inch Victor Wimpanyama take the sacred ball in midtown Manhattan for the first time — 39 years to the day after It happened with Michael Jordan. The same.
The Frenchman was one of the last Spurs players to emerge from the San Antonio locker room, wearing long gray track pants and white sleeves. He worked along the perimeter, paying no mind to the wall of cell phones protruding from members of the media surrounding the baseline like paperbacks stacked on a bookshelf. When Wimbanyama moved to the paint, he paused one repetition because the Spurs’ waiting employee, who was supposed to stick his arm toward the rafters and challenge the rookie’s hook, wasn’t paying full attention to the drill. But Wembanyama wanted a distraction in his line of sight.
He saw a lot of hands, arms and bodies all evening against the Knicks. San Antonio starts Wambanyama next to center Zach Collins, often placing him along the three-point line to save his skinny frame from a whole host of bruises that come at this level. However, regardless of where his touches came from, New York often sent two or three defenders into his middle, making the teenager look professional in every detail. Wembanyama went 0-5 and 0-3 from long range over his first 12 minutes of San Antonio’s final 126-105 loss on Wednesday. He made a short air pass after sizing up Knicks center Mitchell Robinson on the left block. Then send a triple mailer from the top of the key.
“He’s a 19-year-old rookie just learning about the NBA,” coach Gregg Popovich said. “Of course, it’s a learning experience.”
Spurs are still learning from him, and this defeat is Wembanyama’s eighth league game. They observe and understand the limits of its direct influence compared to its limitless potential. The San Antonio staff speaks of the fun trying to solve this puzzle, while vehemently admitting that they’re not sure how many sets there are with wimpanyama as the largest piece they’ve ever worked on.
“We don’t put him in situations until we know where he feels most comfortable and where he reacts best,” Popovich said. “I recently discovered that he likes one clip more than the other, which is the opposite of what you might think. So we need to monitor him for a while and see where he naturally performs the best.
His favorite spot, despite being right-handed, seems to be that left block, where Wimbanyama fired his attempt at Robinson and where he put together several entry passes after cutting off the paint from the screen. He seems to be more comfortable positioning himself at the basket and facing his opponent with a combination of strikes and pivots. To the Knicks’ credit, he continued to muster his long shots to force three assists on Wembanyama and a 4-of-14 shooting performance, arguably the biggest struggle of his career so far even though he finished with 14 points and nine rebounds. New York, after all, may be the saddest and most depressing team in the league.
“The challenge is always to stay calm and maintain our team attitude,” Wembanyama said.
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His composure is usually very strong, and any crack in his outward appearance comes as a surprise. One San Antonio coach said as much postgame regarding one sequence in the final seconds of the third quarter.
Wembanyama stumbled in the lane after receiving a hard foul from Knicks reserve big man Isaiah Hartenstein. After play stopped, Wembanyama made contact with the rock, which Immanuel Quickley was happy to hit and try to free and grabbed the phenom’s arm instead. That’s when Wembanyama showed his first hint that he was becoming nervous. He was repelling pests as if he were repelling a fly.
“I had possession of the ball after the referee’s whistle,” Wembanyama explained. “It was just a reaction.”
Then he progressed to the obscene line, repeating the phrase “Overrated!” Thriving from the most famous arena in the world. Wembanyama held the ball in his huge hands. He closed his eyes and took a breath, his shoulders rising. He confidently drained both shots.
“The most important thing is how we get back to normal,” Wembanyama said.
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