It was enough for Victor Wembanyama to wake up for Spurs to get their hands on the match. San Antonio won last night in Brooklyn (87-96), in the last of its three games played around Christmas on the east coast, after two defeats, in Philadelphia, then at the New York Knicks on December 25. On the other side of the East River, in a Barclays Center made more for concerts than for basketball, the first half was extremely poor (41-41), but Wemby, very discreet before the break (4 points, 2 blocks), came back from the locker room with a different mindset.
Three three-point baskets in a row, a spectacular dunk, an assist for Sochan, then a counter on Shake Milton: in a few minutes at the start of the third quarter, the Frenchman turned the game on his own, with his energy and precision, making the many French people on vacation in the Big Apple stand up in the stands. The Spurs took the lead and the Nets, a team that is aiming for absolutely nothing this season, deprived yesterday of its two best players (Ben Simmons and Cam Johnson), were never able to come back.
“Our start to the match can perhaps be explained by a question of maturity, it's Christmas and we had a lot on our minds, many of us had our family in New York with us,” says a facetious Wemby, capable of invite himself into his teammate Julian Champagnie's press conference to ask him a question like a journalist (“why didn't you dunk?”), and at the end of the match exchange his jersey with …a child.
“Our record should be better”
“Our start to the match was listless and disappointing on both sides of the floor,” analyzes Spurs coach Mitch Johnson. We didn't have the right approach, everyone could see that. But the substitutes brought us a lot of energy. » The San Antonio bench scored 41 points, almost double that of the Nets (22). Julian Champagnie (18 points, including 15 from distance) and Keldon Johnson (15) compensated for the weaknesses of several starters (Barnes, Vassell, Paul).
Victor Wembanyama finished the match with a balanced statistics sheet (19 points, 7 rebounds, 6 blocks, 4 assists). “What is particularly striking about him is the extent to which he dominates under the circle, on both sides of the floor,” points out Mitch Johnson, while the French pivot obviously especially likes to play out wide. Wemby also had to spend the end of the third quarter in the locker room, for a concussion protocol, after receiving the back of New Yorker Jalen Wilson's head in his chin.
More fear than harm for the Frenchman, who was able to return to the floor without worry and conclude this “road trip” to the East with a victory. “We will learn a lot from this series of three matches, and we have already learned a lot,” said Victor Wembanyama. We clearly lacked certain things, at certain moments, which cost us matches. »
San Antonio, which is aiming to qualify for the final stages this season, has raised its standards, and Wemby with it. “Our record should be better,” adds the Frenchman. We shouldn't be at 16 wins for 15 losses, but at 18-13. This would change a lot of things in the ranking (Editor's note: the Spurs would be 5th in the Western Conference, compared to 11th today). I don't know if we could have done much better during this series of 3 games, but I know that thanks to this week spent here, we will do much better in the future. »
