'Very Fun' | Wemby Talks Through His Shot That Sent the Spurs to the Playoffs

SAN ANTONIO - The Spurs had played sloppy all night, but with 10 seconds left and a one-point deficit they had a chance to steal a win and officially end a six-year playoff drought.

Victor Wembanyama, the biggest reason for the team's change in fortunes, caught the ball half of one of his huge feet inside the arc. He held it, and he held it some more, and the double never came as the clock ticked down. He took one dribble to his right and drilled a leaning jumper to punch San Antonio's ticket and make good on a goal he set at media day of bringing this team to a top-six seed.

"It was hard to take in all the stimulus around me, I had the fans looking at me, I had this guy spilled wine on me," Wembanyama said with a laugh. "That was before the end of the game, like I make the shot, sprint back on defense and kind of hit a guy. I got wine on my shorts now... it was a lot going on."

The aftermath was pandemonium inside a Frost Bank Center that had watched the Spurs struggle through most of this game before completing the 11-point comeback. As for the shot itself? Wembanyama was cool, calm and collected.

"It's a shot I've worked on," said Wembanyama, who finished with 34. "This shot, especially, it's a shot I've been working on with Tim Martin as far as six years ago... it's just reps. I mean, we got the answer to any situations that come in front of us."

"Victor did a good job getting the ball where he wanted, and then we got to our appropriate spacing and let the plans hold," Mitch Johnson said. "And when sometimes you do those simple fundamentals, then the talent becomes the highlight. But there's a lot of things that go into it before that."

The shot fell with 1.1 seconds left, and that was done very deliberately by Wembanyama.

"In this situation you want to wait. If you take a shot too early, whether you make it or miss it, it's shooting yourself in the foot, because the defense will probably get the rebound and have some time, or inbound and have some time. So you want to shoot it as close to one or two seconds. This way we have a chance to get a rebound if we miss, and if we make, they don't have time."

It's not an exaggeration to say that Wembanyama lives for moments like this, with the fate of the game resting in his ginormous hands.

"It's very fun. We hadn't had this type of situation in a while, and it was a good test, and we passed," Wembanyama said. "It doesn't mean, by no means, that our game was perfect, far from that, it was actually below average. But it's a good test, especially at this moment in the year. It's not a meaningless game, you know? I mean, I should say it's a meaningful game, close to the playoffs, so it's a good test."

After the shot, Wembanyama banged the drum as his loudest teammate and the longest tenured Spur, Keldon Johnson, grabbed the microphone to start an MVP chant.

"I didn't know what I was gonna say. I just knew I needed to get on the mic," said Johnson, who was emotional after clinching his first playoff berth. "The rest of it just naturally came... he deserves it. He deserves his flowers. He deserves it. He's playing at that type of level. He's been our guy on and off the court, and I'll be the one to go out there and speak out and say what needs to be said, and that's what needs to be said. Victor Wembanyama: MVP."

This is the most meaningful shot of Wembanyama's career, a raindrop fadeaway to beat the buzzer and end a six-year playoff drought for a franchise with a proud history. As much as this moment means, everybody knows there's a lot left to accomplish.

"I'm happy for the city and the community and the organization and to be a part of that process is rewarding, and there's a lot in that, but that's also kind of outside of me, so I'll watch this game and then get ready for Saturday, but there's a lot in that," Mitch Johnson said.

"Of course, the first instinct is to be proud of it and to love it, because you're part of it," Wembanyama said. "But the key for me is to try to not care, because we want to attack 82 games, and I'm not gonna lie, I'm scared to become complacent."