Victor Wembanyama counters Timberwolves' 'rage baiting' with cold-blooded revenge

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But following Victor Wembanyama’s ejection in a narrow Game 4 loss to tie up their series against the Minnesota Timberwolves Sunday, the Spurs went back to their hotel to get a good night’s sleep. They landed in San Antonio Monday afternoon, sun blazing, late enough in the day for El Jefe to greet them. No fanfare, just Pop. Victor Wembanyama could see a blue Tesla Model X waiting for him on the tarmac, gull-wing door in the air, somehow high enough to reach his eye level. Gregg Popovich stepped out, waiting for his young pupil a day ahead of what would become a 126-97 Game 5 win that gave the Spurs a 3-2 series lead. He knew his first NBA coach would have an earful to say, as he always does. Just by showing up, Popovich made a statement before Wembanyama even got a chance to say hi. Wembanyama stood there and listened, an arm behind his back, vulnerable, attentive, present. “As always, when he speaks, everybody listens,” Wembanyama said. Wembanyama would not reveal the content of their discussion, though video showed that it included Popovich turning his shoulders back and forth like, perhaps, a 7-foot-4 center trying to get out of a trap without elbowing anyone in the throat? Maybe Popovich told Wembanyama that the burden of being the star is never losing control, especially when that’s the opponent’s clear goal. That was obvious, yet again, in the first quarter on Tuesday night. After a basket, Jaden McDaniels tried to knock the ball out of Wembanyama’s hands and grabbed him by the wrist, yet again. Within seconds, a smiling Ayo Dosunmu got in Wembanyama’s face, saying something that didn’t appear to be an autograph request. Wembanyama smiled back, appearing to respond, “I’ll be here,” repeatedly. Anthony Edwards came over to get Dosunmu, but Wembanyama pushed Edwards’ hand away as well and kept repeating the same thing. In a stark contrast to Game 4, Wembanyama looked completely unbothered. He wasn’t ducking the challenge. He was inviting it with a smile. He knew it was coming, and he had to stand his ground. He learned in Game 4 that the only other place to go is the locker room for the night, so that’s why he’ll be here. “I feel like the rage baiting would have been maybe one of their strategies,” Wembanyama said. “I just feel like we need to stay composed as a team.” The Timberwolves could see they weren’t getting to Wembanyama anymore. After all of the tension was released with one elbow, everything suddenly snapped into perspective. Like Naz Reid said, pain is just weakness leaving the body. Every time they would grab, smack or shove Wembanyama, it hurt a little bit, it frustrated a lot and it prevented him from playing freely, which is how he becomes most dangerous. The Wolves wanted to take away his freedom, to make the alien play on a planet they controlled. Once he stopped resisting their gravity and learned to embrace it, he was free. After a series of drives through Rudy Gobert, dimes to shooters and a 3 to cap it off, Wembanyama broke the game open almost as soon as it started. By the end of the first quarter, he had 18 points and six rebounds, joining LeBron James and Nikola Jokić as the only players to pull that off in the first quarter of a playoff game in 30 years, per Stathead. “Tonight, some of the stuff that Wemby was doing, you don’t really have too much of an answer for it,” Edwards said. “Just kinda hope he misses.” Wembanyama finished with 27 points, 17 rebounds, five assists and three blocks. The only other players to do that are Anthony Davis, Tim Duncan (three times), Shaquille O’Neal (three times), Hakeem Olajuwon, Ralph Sampson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Wilt Chamberlain (seven times, unofficially). If you add in Wembanyama’s pair of 3s, his stat line is unprecedented. Earlier in the day, Devin Vassell said they were looking for “Angry Vic” to show up that night. After the game, Mitch Johnson praised “Mature Vic” for showing up. “I feel like they ain’t mutually exclusive,” Wembanyama said. “So I’m looking for both.” For most of the season, he was right. Wembanyama’s furor was carefully curated. The fire in his eyes would rage suddenly, with only a few embers of Mature Vic foreshadowing Angry Vic’s arrival. An occasional rough-and-tumble matchup would bring him out and remind the world just how dangerous he is becoming. But playoff-level physicality isn’t something that just happens every few nights. It’s the norm, and it features fiercer collisions, sharper elbows and straight-up shoves. Some teams try to toe the boundary, while some try to suplex their opponent over it, knowing that the officials will have to wipe away some blood to find the line again. The Wolves make no mistake about where they live on that spectrum. The Spurs drew a playoff path that has perhaps the three most physical defenses in the NBA. Wembanyama’s first test was carefully designed to make him miserable and then see how he handles it. Now, he’s officially passed, even if it took a failure to get there. “I feel like we got the Vic that you’ve seen all year. I think his maturity level was off the charts,” teammate Stephon Castle said. “When he’s playing like that, playing aggressive with everything he brings for us defensively, I feel like we’re pretty hard to beat.” Wembanyama made a point that can not be mistaken. The all-time greats, the players who define their eras, do it through statement games. His 16-point run in the first seven minutes was a love poem to his potential and a diss track to his haters: Reid, McDaniels, and, until they can be brothers again at the end of this week, Gobert. “I thought we had a couple times tonight where we just kind of drew the line and said enough was enough, whatever that meant,” coach Mitch Johnson said. When McDaniels hit the bench in the fourth quarter, he threw his towel in frustration. The rage baiting won’t work anymore. Wembanyama is past all that. Angry Vic, Mature Vic, it doesn’t matter who is in the driver’s seat in that moment. They overlap enough to coexist spectacularly. He’s not throwing elbows anymore, at least the Spurs hope. He’ll be there. He’s not going anywhere. Revenge is sweeter with a smile. “Once we got back up, we never looked back,” De’Aaron Fox said. “And that’s the team that we want to be.” Spot the pattern. Connect the terms Find the hidden link between sports terms