With Victor Wembanyama's ejection in game four of the San Antonio Spurs series against the Minnesota Timberwolves, the Alien's biggest weakness has been fully exposed. Specifically, the Wolves antagonized him until he lost it and got tossed. It's not a great strategy, but it worked.
There have been a myriad of players Wembanyama's height and taller in the NBA over the decades. While being crazy tall has always been a great attribute for a basketball player, that doesn't always translate into skill or success. Many super-tall guys flame out pretty quickly because they can't shoot.
That definitely isn't a problem for Victor Wembanyama. He is a seven-footer who can legit ball. Wemby has handles, has incredible shooting range, and excels at both ends of the court. It also doesn't hurt that he has a high basketball IQ that allows him to put all of that to work for the Spurs.
As such, Wembanyama presents a unique problem for San Antonio's opponents. He recently pulled down a triple-double that featured 12 blocks. There's not much to be done about someone like that, other than just keep making his life difficult. And the Wolves have taken that strategy to the next level.
Whack-a-Wemby led the young Spurs center to snap
In their series against the Nuggets, the Timberwolves managed to slow Nikola Jokic down with their triple big line of Rudy Gobert, Julius Randle, and Naz Reid. Minnesota is doing something similar against Wembanyama, except they seem to be physically bullying him around the court.
Every couple of minutes, Wemby gets hacked, bodied, or full-on knocked to the ground. Relatively few fouls are getting called, which just encourages Minnesota to go harder. In game four, Wembanyama finally had enough and clocked Reid with a brutal elbow. The result was ejection.
This left the Spurs without their phenom for most of the game, one that the Wolves still narrowly won. In addition to Reid, Gobert, and Randle, Jaden McDaniels has also been all over Wemby. Constantly abusing him until he snaps, aka Whack-a-Wemby, seems to be their only plan for shutting him down.
Since the referees don't seem to be calling fouls on these antics, Wembanyama has to hold his temper. Without him, the Spurs and Wolves are evenly matched. San Antonio needs Wemby on the court to get past Minnesota and into the Western Conference Finals. He simply cannot take the bait.
Add us as a preferred source on Google