What Victor Wembanyama Said After Winning First Career Playoff Series

The Spurs are on to round two of the NBA playoffs for the first time since 2017.

The San Antonio squad advanced in the 2026 postseason after defeating the Trail Blazers in an emphatic Game 5 win on Tuesday night. Portland, to their credit, battled back from quite an early deficit to bring things within nine points in the fourth, but the Spurs nonetheless ran away with it in the end. Final: 114–95.

As expected, San Antonio big man Victor Wembanyama came up huge during the contest, finishing with 17 points, 14 rebounds, three assists, and, perhaps most importantly, six blocks (one of which will certainly be the stuff of legends).

When you add his seven blocks from Game 4 to that total, the Alien is now the third San Antonio player with 13 blocks over 2 postseason games, joining franchise greats Tim Duncan and David Robinson.

Overall, it was an excellent playoff debut for the former first overall pick; he may have missed one full contest and most of another with a concussion, but he still ended with an average of 21 points, 8.8 rebounds, 2.0 assists and 4.0 blocks across four games.

Speaking with the media after the fact, Wemby reflected on his first-ever first-round series and addressed some of the chatter surrounding the team's appearance (mainly that they are perhaps a bit too young to handle the postseason).

“Definitely different feeling to win against somebody and think that their season’s over, and also playing the same team over and over again,” he observed. “But we’re all competitors, so ... it’s good. It’s all fun.”

Of the talk of inexperience, meanwhile, which clearly doesn't bother him, he added: “We know each other much more than anybody outside knows us and we trust each other. But for me, I’m not even really trying to avoid that, it's jut not a thing.”

Although the Blazers stole one game in the five-game series, the Spurs won the other four games by a decent margin. Wemby believes that the team stayed true to itself in its success.

“We did discuss not changing what we do, just correcting little things and doing everything you’re saying, but better,” he noted, maintaining that the team's identity held up “great.”

“And we’ve kept trusting the game plan. ... We resorted to going back to the game plan and going back to trusting each other in moments where it was hard. So that’s a statement in how much we trust each other and how much we trust the process.”

The Blazers, though, “give great resistance,” he added. “It’s fun to play against them.”

With about the clock dwindling in the fourth and the Spurs up by 19, coach Mitch Johnson subbed out his starters, who had themselves a little moment on the bench.

Also asked about that moment postgame, Wemby—no stranger to a little postgame passion—attributed the emotion to “a step well done, you know?

“I’m personally happy to see things moving forward and in the right direction.”

San Antonio will next face the winner of Nuggets-Timberwolves in the second round. Minnesota currently leads that series 3–2.

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