Victor Wembanyama walked off the Madison Square Garden floor on Wednesday night one flagrant-foul point from a suspension, his San Antonio Spurs reeling from the largest collapse in NBA Finals history.
The 7-foot-4 star was whistled for a flagrant-1 with 9:27 left in the third quarter of Game 4 — the very play that ignited the New York Knicks' 29-point comeback in a 107-106 defeat that left San Antonio facing elimination, down 3-1 in the series.
The foul carried consequences beyond the moment. Because Wembanyama was assessed a flagrant-2 in the Western Conference semifinals against Minnesota, Wednesday's call left him with three flagrant-foul points for the postseason — one shy of the four that trigger an automatic one-game suspension under league rules.
Asked afterward whether that threat would change the way he plays, Wembanyama was unmoved. "I'm going to be more careful," he said. "But it's not going to change much."
His night also unraveled at the free-throw line. Wembanyama missed two crucial attempts with 1:47 left in the fourth quarter, part of a meltdown in which a team that scored 76 first-half points managed just 30 after the break.
The Garden had cast him as its villain from the warmups. Boos rained down as Wembanyama went through his pregame routine, and the crowd cheered the lone free throw he missed before tip-off.
Spurs coach Mitch Johnson did not dodge the numbers. "Yeah, 76 points one half and 30 in the second — that's a stark difference in a lot of surface-level things," he said. "You don't get to peel too many layers and dig too deep to find some differences."
He traced the collapse to a lost identity. "It's a pretty clear picture," Johnson said. "If you watch the game in terms of what we did in the first half and why we scored so many points: it was pace, finding the paint, passing the ball to your teammate, taking good shots. The second half was opposite of that."
The mistakes were often self-inflicted. De'Aaron Fox committed two unforced turnovers late in the third quarter, then attempted an ill-advised transition layup in the closing seconds — swatted away by OG Anunoby — when running clock would have served the Spurs far better.
ESPN's Michael C. Wright saw a team that won the physical battle but could not finish the job. "The Spurs seemed to dominate the Knicks physically for the second consecutive game, but they couldn't do it long enough to prevent the largest collapse in league history to fall behind 3-1 in the series," he wrote.
Now San Antonio must do the very thing it failed to protect against: win with everything on the line. Game 5 is Saturday in San Antonio, where a loss ends the season. The Knicks became the 39th team to take a 3-1 Finals lead, and 37 of the previous 38 went on to lift the trophy.
For Wembanyama, the margin is narrow in more ways than one. One more flagrant point, and the league's most electrifying young star would watch a potential elimination game from the locker room.
