In the Victor Wembanyama Game 2 fallout, the Spurs star blamed himself for the late turnover in a 105-104 loss to the Knicks, dropping San Antonio down 2-0.
Victor Wembanyama finished Game 2 of the NBA Finals with a game-high 29 points and 9 rebounds on Friday night, but he showed up to his postgame news conference in no mood to discuss any of that. The San Antonio superstar kept circling back to the final three possessions, when two mid-range misses and a turnover helped the New York Knicks escape with a 105-104 win and a 2-0 series lead.
He was candid about how those final moments felt.
“I’m still very blurry. That’s the whole problem,” Wembanyama said. “I need to have more poise, more control over the game.”
In the final moments, Wembanyama brought the ball up and threw a pass that bounced off teammate Stephon Castle, who had his back turned away from the ball that Jalen Brunson stole, who was fouled and made the deciding free throw.
“That’s the most frustrating thing, to throw it away after putting in all this work,” Wembanyama said. “Urgency at this point. It’s like body reacts quicker than mind.”
He was just as blunt in describing his emotions as he walked off the floor.
“I threw that one away. I messed up,” Wembanyama said. “We didn’t play great as a team. We needed to win that game. This game was ours.”
Still, he said the team could put the defeat to use.
“Am I going to regret it? Yes, of course,” he said. “Am I going to use that to fuel me and to fuel us next game? Absolutely.”
His box score was better than he made it sound. Wembanyama shot 11-of-21 with 4 blocks and 2 steals, and his 29 points led all scorers over 40 minutes. He took only 4 shots before halftime and 17 after it, and he sat at the center of San Antonio’s late charge, when the Spurs wiped out a 14-point fourth-quarter deficit with a 14-0 run that tied the game at 97. They could not finish it off and handed the lead back over the closing minutes.
Wembanyama also brought up the defense, after San Antonio gave up 105 points and again struggled to contain a New York attack built around Karl-Anthony Towns. He said guarding Towns has been unlike anything the Spurs faced on their way to the Finals.
“It’s very different from previous series. It’s bringing us into difficult areas because they’re good players,” Wembanyama said. “We can do a little bit better. We can do better defensively.”
The loss dropped San Antonio into a 2-0 hole in the series only a week after the Spurs seized the Western Conference with a Game 7 win at Oklahoma City.
Wembanyama acknowledged that the emotional swing has been hard to manage.
“We need to never get too high, never get too low,” Wembanyama said. “Personally, I think I could have been better in recovering from the high of the Conference Finals. But, I mean, here we are. We can’t change the past now. We’re already focused on Game 3.”
The path back is now a steep one, because no team has ever won an NBA Finals after losing the first two games at home, which is the position San Antonio faces. Wembanyama distilled the larger problem into a single line.
“We’re digging ourselves a hole,” Wembanyama said. “That’s been the theme so far.”
Game 3 is Monday at Madison Square Garden.
