Victor Wembanyama might already be the best basketball player in the world despite not having a go-to move, shot or scoring spot yet. It’s a scary thought for the future, when he inevitably develops these features, but the 2026 Western Conference Finals isn’t being played in the future. And right now, the Spurs need more out of their best player if they’re going to come back from 2-1 series hole they find themselves in after dropping Game 3 at home on Friday.
On the surface, that’s going to sound crazy for a guy who is averaging 29 points, 15 rebounds, four assists and three blocks on 54/43/88 shooting splits in this series. But numbers don’t tell the full truth. The full truth is that Wemby’s out-of-this-world Game 1 is propping the numbers up some, and the 26 points he scored in Game 3 weren’t nearly as impactful as a raw number like that would usually indicate.
His overall impact remains elite. In a 15-point loss to the Thunder in Game 3 (123-108), the Spurs actually won Wemby’s minutes by four points. That means they lost the minutes he was on the bench by 19. In fact, through three games in this series, the Spurs are +21 with Wembanyama on the court. They’re -38 when he’s off. We’ll get back to this, but for now, just know that this isn’t an attack on Wembanyama’s value. If anything, this is a reiteration of just how valuable he is.
In this series, the Thunder have almost every advantage over the Spurs. They’re deeper. They’re more physical. They’re winning the 3-point battle. The turnover battle. And the bench battle in an absolute blowout. The Spurs have one advantage: Wembanyama. And it can be a big one, as we saw in Game 1. Big enough to come back and win Game 4 and maybe even the series.
But that advantage has to be maximized. They can’t just win the Wemby minutes by a point or two if Oklahoma City’s bench — which, not counting a couple garbage-time buckets, outscored San Antonio’s reserves 71-18 on Friday — is going to keep shooting and playing like this.
Under those circumstances, Wembanyama needs to dominate his minutes. And to do that, he has to go back to operating in the paint, where he owned OKC in Game 1 and where, obviously, his biggest offensive advantage lies. That’s easier said than done, and it’s not all on him.
Mitch Johnson isn’t scheming much offense at all to help Wemby receive the ball closer to the basket. In Game 3, there were hardly any rim rolls, duck-ins, rapid reversals that could lead to deep seals or inverse pick and rolls to get him into mismatches against smaller defenders that he can take down into the post.
Thunder big man Isaiah Hartenstein also has a lot to do with this, and Mark Daigneualt’s decision to put the Hartenstein card into play in Game 2 has, for the moment, completely swung this series. Hartenstein is a lot stronger than Wemby, and he’s not just going to allow him to set up as close to the basket as he wants.
But it begs the question: How badly does Wemby actually want to dominate in the paint? Because a lot of this is on him, too. He’s either not strong enough to get down there consistently, or he’s not committed enough. Either way, it’s a problem, notably because when he does, it so obviously works.
On Friday, he made five of his eight shots in the paint. But he started forcing his way down there too late. This pick and hard roll didn’t happen until the end of the third quarter.
A few minutes later, he did it again.
Look how hard he’s fighting for deep position in the clip below. When Wembanyama doesn’t get the ball the first time, he starts fighting again, and wins the spot, and San Antonio swings it back his way, and he finishes an and-one at the rim. But this didn’t happen until late in the fourth quarter.
In Game 1, these were the kinds of shots he was seeking out from the start. He used all kinds of maneuvers to assert himself in the paint. Lobs. Seals. Posts. But that’s when he was largely being guarded by smaller players. Now that Hartenstein — who’s in full bully mode — has been activated, Wembanyama has slowly but surely been fazed out to the perimeter. He can play out there. He’s shooting 42% from 3 in this series. But shots like this one below are fool’s gold. The Thunder will happily live with this kind of shot, and the Spurs will die.
The key here is all the dribbling. It looks cool that a 7-foot-4 guy can shake like this, but just because a player can do something doesn’t mean he should. Wembanyama needs to be minimizing his dribbles. As a general rule, Wemby should aim to be no more than two dribbles from a deep scoring spot. Ideally, one dribble.
For a guy as long as him, that can be damn near the 3-point line if he makes quick decisions to attack downhill before stronger guys (Hartenstein) can set up on him.
Or by fighting for just a few feet of deeper catch position, so that now he’s one quick turn and dribble from a 10-footer, which he can shoot comfortably over anyone.
That’s a lot different shot than catching on a pop or just a straight wing face up from behind the 3-point line and trying to either handle your way into a quality look like you’re Kyrie Irving or even Kevin Durant (a total death trap in the jungle of OKC arms) or simply falling out of the possession and serving as nothing more than a giant floor spacer if the first action doesn’t materialize, which was far too often the case on Friday.
It’s important to stress again, Hartenstein has been an animal, and Wembanyama is not going to be able to get any position he wants any time he wants. But he has to want it in the first place. From there, he is capable. Just look at this forceful duck-in and deep seal in Game 3. He doesn’t make the shot, but this is where he should be operating.
It’s worth noting that this aggressive positioning happened in the first half, when Wemby still had energy. He was very clearly gassed for stretches of the second half. Hartenstein is wearing him out, and again, this is something that Wemby has to address. He has to be conditioned to play with force deep into extremely physical postseason games. He has to get stronger. He has to develop shots and spots he can consistently return to on his terms.
But right now, it’s all too random. Sometimes he attacks inside, sometimes he falls in love with the 3. In Game 1, Wembanyama took two 3-pointers. Over the last two games, he’s taken 12. This happened in the Wolves series, when 15 of Wemby’s 32 shots through the first two games were from beyond the arc.
He was held to 11 points in a Game 1 loss vs. Minnesota when over 50% of his shots were from 3. In Game 3, he flipped the script and took 13 of his 18 shots from inside the arc. He cored 39 points, and the Spurs won. This is not brain surgery. Whether it’s Johnson unlocking this dynamic schematically or Wembanyama taking matters into his own hands, or preferably a combination of the two, the guy who is taller than everyone else needs the ball in spots where that advantage can be maximized. If the Spurs can do that consistently, they can still win this series. If they can’t, they can’t.
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