San Antonio had Game 2 in its hands. A 14-0 run late in the fourth quarter erased a double-digit deficit and put the Spurs in front, the Frost Bank Center roaring. Then the closing minute belonged to Victor Wembanyama for all the wrong reasons — two missed mid-range jumpers, a thrown-away pass meant for Stephon Castle, and a final look that rimmed out. New York escaped 105-104, and the Spurs are buried in an 0-2 hole heading to Madison Square Garden.
Wembanyama did not hide from any of it at the podium. Asked to walk through the last three possessions, he was blunt about his own state of mind.
"I'm still very blurry and that's the whole problem," he said. "I need to have more poise, more control over the game."
He was the last Spur to touch the ball, and the giveaway gnawed at him more than the misses. "That's the most frustrating thing — to throw it away after putting in all this work," he said. Pressed on the emotions as he walked off, he refused to soften it: "I threw that one away. I messed up. We didn't play great as a team. We needed to win that game. This game was ours."
What he would not do was sulk. "Am I going to regret it? Yes, of course. Am I going to use that to fuel me and to fuel us next game? Absolutely."
Wembanyama also pointed to a bigger pattern. He took just four shots in the first half before launching 17 in the second, and the slow starts have become a theme. "We need to put ourselves in better conditions," he said. "We've been digging ourselves a hole." He even turned the lens on himself coming off the Game 7 win in Oklahoma City: "We need to never get too high, never get too low. I think I could have been better in recovering from the high of the conference finals."
Head coach Mitch Johnson struck the same note — that the Spurs have beaten themselves as much as the Knicks have beaten them. "We don't feel like we played well or up to our standard in the last two games," Johnson said. "New York's played very well, and they're a part of that, but we're going to go into Game 3, and if we play our brand of basketball up to our standard, we'll be just fine."
He wants more from a flat supporting cast, starting with Keldon Johnson. "He's got to crash. He's got to play with physicality. He's got to play hard," the coach said. "At this stage of the game, it's just whatever it takes."
On TNT's Inside the NBA, the panel was less forgiving — and split on the diagnosis. Charles Barkley framed it as a rite of passage. "Wemby's in shock right now," Barkley said at halftime. "He's 22. He's going to own the league soon. But right now, he's being owned." His point: even great players get humbled, and a kid in his first Finals is allowed to.
Shaquille O'Neal wasn't buying the excuse, reducing it to effort and aggression and repeating that Wembanyama simply has to "play with energy." Kenny Smith landed in between, crediting the man across the matchup rather than blaming the Spurs star: Karl-Anthony Towns "is punching him right now," Smith said, while reminding the desk that Wembanyama is "22 years old, he's never been in the Finals."
Towns has been exactly the problem the Spurs can't solve. He poured in 18 points in Game 1 and 17 in the first half of Game 2 on 6-of-8 shooting, the best player on the floor in both games and the engine of New York's timely runs.
The math is unforgiving now. No team has ever overcome an 0-2 deficit by losing the series quietly, and the Spurs must win Game 3 on Monday to keep a sweep off the table. Wembanyama, for his part, has already moved on. "We can't change the past now," he said. "We're already focused on Game 3."
