After blowing a record 29-point lead at Madison Square Garden, Victor Wembanyama and the young Spurs face a 3-1 deficit fueled by arrogance, fatigue, and costly late-game blunders.
They can blame Donald Trump or Taylor Swift or Wu-Tang Clan or Ben Stiller or James Dolan or Mayor Zohran Mamdani or Spike Lee or the refs.
But the San Antonio Spurs know the truth.
In Wednesday's Game 4 of the NBA Finals at Madison Square Garden - a joint full of glitz and glamor and grit and controversy - the Spurs held a massive lead on the way to tying the series.
Win this game, and return to Texas with an edge in the NBA Finals despite an 0-2 start ... a very doable thing ... until the New York Knicks mounted an NBA Finals-record 29-point late-game comeback to hand the Spurs a 107-106 loss.
It's going to go down as the biggest flop in NBA Finals history.
And who or what is to blame?
Greed.
The Spurs clearly thought they had this thing in the bag, which might be the most painful indictment of this young team's not-ready-for-prime-time status.
“I think it’s just execution, greediness of some sort,” 22-year-old star Victor Wembanyama said. “We clearly weren’t the most hungry in the second half.”
Not "hungry''? How is that possible in an NBA Finals game?
San Antonio is now down 3-1 to the Knicks, with Game 5 on Friday providing all involved to ruminate on the specifics of "greed.''
Why did De’Aaron Fox, with 12 seconds left, sprint to the basket for a needless layup (the Spurs were up by 1) that was blocked by the Knicks ... instead of dribbling out the clock?
Why is young Wemby - the 7-4 All-World stud who is playing huge minutes in this series (Spurs coach Mitch Johnson played Wembanyama all but 58 seconds in the second half) - wasting precious energy on trash-talking?
“I’m in your head, boy!” Wembanyama seemingly said tauntingly to nine-year NBA vet Mitch Robinson.
Why is a team capable of scoring 76 points in a first half suddenly running out of steam on the way to scoring just 30 points in the second half? (That happened here - and has apparently never happened before in any NBA game).
Why did the Spurs think that heaving up a long series of 3-pointers (miss after miss after miss) was a viable way to milk a lead?
Greed - accented by some immaturity, some inexperience, some laziness and some low BBIQ.
As we move on to Saturday's Game 5 in San Antonio, Wemby offered a deep and revealing thought.
“I think it’s going to go one of two ways,'' he said. "A bad (way or) and a good (way). The bad one would be giving up. The good one would be getting stronger through this, getting more together. I know this is what we’re going to do.”
Maybe. But just the fact that Wembanyama's head is even entertaining the possibility of the Spurs "going the bad one'' and "giving up'' is rather stunning.
Said the Spurs' Dylan Harper: “We’re all going to bounce back. We’re going to show the world what we’re made of.''
Unfortunately, in front of a gaggle of celebrities and in front of the basketball gods and in front of the sports-world's planet while on the game's biggest stage ... maybe the Spurs already showed the world what they're made of.
