SI:AM | The Spurs’ Fatal Flaw Was Too Much Victor Wembanyama

Good morning, I’m Dan Gartland. I’ll be honest, if I went into Manhattan to watch last night’s game, I would have gotten on the train home at halftime.

In today’s SI:AM:
🤯 Historic Knicks comeback
👏 OG Anunoby’s shot for the ages
😬 Where it went wrong for the Spurs

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Another miraculous Knicks comeback

I would have liked for this newsletter to arrive in your inbox a little earlier, but I’ve been sitting here for a while this morning trying to wrap my head around what I witnessed last night. The Knicks erased a 29-point deficit, capped by an outrageous flying tip-in by OG Anunoby, to beat the Spurs and take a commanding 3–1 lead in the NBA Finals. It was the biggest comeback in Finals history, and the second time this postseason that the Knicks had come back to win after trailing by at least 20 points.

There are a million different aspects of the game that I could choose to focus on—De’Aaron Fox’s decision not to run out the clock, Karl-Anthony Towns’s deflection on the Spurs’ final inbounds play, the officiating, Jose Alvarado’s unexpectedly significant role—but the thing I keep coming back to is how exhausted Victor Wembanyama looked.

Wemby was excellent in the first half, with 16 points, six rebounds and two blocks. More than that, he was brimming with confidence—cocky, even. Late in the first quarter, he scored over Mitchell Robinson and then taunted him on his way back down the floor, eventually baiting Robinson into committing a flagrant foul. But Wembanyama disappeared in the second half, scoring eight points on a dreadful 3-for-14 shooting. Part of the reason was that Karl-Anthony Towns, who spent much of the first half on the bench in foul trouble, returned to the floor and played good defense on Wemby, as he had in the first two games of the series. But go watch the highlights of the fourth quarter, and you’ll see that Wembanyama was completely gassed. He wasn’t moving with the same aggression and determination as he was in the first half.

It’s easy to see why Wemby was so exhausted. He played 44 minutes, a new career high for a regulation game (regular season or playoffs). The only time in his 202 career games that he saw more playing time was in San Antonio’s double overtime win over the Thunder in Game 1 of the Western Conference finals last month. He was only on the bench for 58 seconds in the second half of last night’s game.

“He had a few more minutes tonight because we were trying to put the game away,” Spurs coach Mitch Johnson told reporters. “With two days [off] after this, what was at stake, we wanted to win the game and try to put it away.”

Johnson’s strategy makes a certain amount of sense. The Spurs have limited options behind Wembanyama at center. They’ve been outscored by 19 points in the series when Luke Kornet is on the floor. As the Spurs’ lead began to shrink, the prospect of taking their best player off the floor became less and less attractive. But it came back to bite them.

You also have to wonder about Wembanyama’s ability to cope with pressure. We’ve seen at times this postseason that he can be an emotionally volatile player, like when he was ejected for elbowing Naz Reid in the series against the Timberwolves, or when he got away with throwing Jalen Brunson to the floor in Game 3. I’d even argue that his long-range shot to tie the game against the Thunder was more of an emotional decision than a rational one.

Wembanyama’s emotions were on display again throughout Game 4. I already mentioned his back-and-forth with Robinson in the first quarter. In the third quarter, he was called for a flagrant foul against Towns. In the fourth quarter, after he failed to block a Mikal Bridges layup, he slammed his fist against the basket stanchion.

The best evidence that Wembanyama was succumbing to the pressure is that he uncharacteristically missed two clutch free throws. The Spurs were clinging to a one-point lead with just under two minutes to play after Josh Hart missed a fast-break layup. Wembanyama went to the line for two shots with a chance to extend the lead to three. He missed both. He had hit 86% of his free throws this postseason before that moment. On the ensuing Knicks possession, Jalen Brunson hit a tough jumper in the lane to give New York its first lead of the game.

The Spurs were the better team in the regular season, and this may very well be the first of many Finals appearances for their impressive young core. But their lack of playoff experience is showing in this series. Do they have the maturity and mental fortitude to recover from a historic collapse?

The best of Sports Illustrated

Jalen Brunson and Victor Wembanyama went toe-to-toe in an NBA Finals classic. | Erick W. Rasco/Sports Illustrated

Chris Mannix has the details on what was said in the Knicks’ locker room at halftime before New York pulled off the greatest comeback ever, putting the franchise on the brink of ending its 53-year NBA title drought.
Liam McKeone recounts the euphoric reactions from Knicks fans after OG Anunoby’s improbable tip-in sent Madison Square Garden into pandemonium.
Mannix also details how Leon Rose, the elusive Knicks president, has transformed the franchise.
The Browns continue to search for a franchise QB while reshuffling their roster through the draft and trades. In our Super Bowl road map series, Gilberto Manzano says Cleveland is repairing and not rebuilding in 2026.
With offseason workouts wrapping up, Matt Verderame gives each team one reason to hope and one reason to mope.
Tim Capurso articulates why Dodgers first baseman Freddie Freeman, who recorded his 2,500th base hit on Tuesday, may be one of the last of a dying breed in an ever-changing sport.
Pat Forde implores the Big 12 to end the saga with Texas Tech and quarterback Brendan Sorsby before it completely consumes college football.
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The top five…

… angles of OG Anunoby’s game-winner: 5. From high above the court. 4. Former Yankees and Mets pitcher (and Manhattan native) Dellin Betances’s view. 3. The U.S. World Cup team’s reaction. (Midfielder Tyler Adams was climbing all over the furniture in a way that made me think he was going to turn an ankle.) 2. This video, where a fan replaced the broadcast audio with a classic clip from Hot 97 DJ Funkmaster Flex. (When Jay-Z and Kanye West’s song “Otis” debuted on Funk Flex’s show in 2011, he restarted the song 25 times and played his signature “Flex Bomb” sound effect over 60 times.)
1. Kirk Herbstreit’s view from courtside.

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