Victor Wembanyama walked from the team bus to the Spurs' New York hotel after Game 4 and into a barrage he did not see coming. At least one Knicks fan threw an egg at the San Antonio centre, and video showed it strike him. A day before his team hosts Game 5, the 22-year-old made clear the incident had not rattled him.
"I really didn't think much of it," Wembanyama told reporters on Friday. "I just saw that one video of the eggs, I didn't really see any other one. But it's OK, I don't dislike it. Obviously, it's not good at all, but it doesn't bother me."
The eggs flew after one of the most painful losses in franchise history. San Antonio led by 29 points — 81-52 in the third quarter — before the Knicks stormed back to win 107-106 and seize a 3-1 series lead.
The hostility was not isolated. After Game 3, a 39-year-old Spurs fan was surrounded, punched and kicked and had his jersey stolen, according to police. He was treated for facial cuts and bruising. The pattern drew a sharp rebuke from ESPN's Mike Greenberg.
"For those, I don't want to call them fans, I don't even know what you want to say," Greenberg said on Get Up. "If you're throwing eggs at Victor Wembanyama, and the other night, if you're beating up people, threatening or doing anything to people who are wearing Spurs jerseys, just know that you are a disgrace. You're not disgracing the city, you're disgracing yourself and everyone who knows you. And that should go without saying."
Greenberg was careful to separate the wider Knicks fanbase — one of the loudest in the league at Madison Square Garden — from the people who crossed into abuse and violence.
Former NBA champion Stephen Jackson was blunter still, telling New York's supporters: "Y'all some miserable people in New York." Stephen A. Smith used his ESPN platform to rip the perpetrators as a foolish minority who embarrassed the city.
Wembanyama kept his focus on basketball. Asked whether a wave of travelling Knicks fans inside his own building for Game 5 concerned him, he said it was "not a concern." His read on the Spurs' faint title hopes — only the 2016 Cavaliers have ever recovered from 3-1 down to win the Finals — carried the same calm.
"Everybody knows we're gonna do it," Wembanyama said of the locker room's belief. "I think it'd be a mistake to waste our energy on multiple games. It's one game at a time."
San Antonio has led inside the final two minutes of every game in the series, only to fall short on the closing possessions. Game 5 tips at 8:30 p.m. ET on Saturday, with the Knicks one win from their first championship since 1973.
