Victor Wembanyama was almost at a loss for words after the Spurs blew a 29-point third-quarter lead as the Knicks moved one win away from an NBA title.
The Spurs big man and NBA Defensive Player of the Year had a hard time trying to explain what happened in Game 4. The Spurs scored just 30 points in the second half, and Wembanyama was held to just eight over the final two quarters in a 107-106 loss.
Wembanyama, 22, also missed a pair of free throws late in the game with the Spurs clinging to a one-point lead with a little less than two minutes on the clock.
“Can’t really explain it right now,” he said bluntly. “It’s just execution. Greediness, of some sort. We clearly weren’t the hungriest in the second half.”
Wemby and the Spurs were dominant early on, going into halftime with a 27-point lead. The big man scored 16 points on 6-of-11 shooting.
Even late in the game, the Spurs kept the Knicks at bay, leading by 17 points with less than nine minutes to go.
According to NBA researcher Jacob Kaye, no team had ever won a game trailing by 17 or more points in the final nine minutes of regulation of an NBA Finals game since 1970-71.
That was, until the Knicks came along on Wednesday night.
“It was painful, of course,” Wembanyama said about the emotions of walking off the court. “It feels like we worked too hard to give up our leads. It’s as simple as that. It just hurts.”
The Spurs will have two days before they return to the court for Game 5 on Saturday night.
The series shifts back to San Antonio with the Knicks on the verge of capturing their first NBA championship since 1973.
[Notigroup Newsroom in collaboration with other media outlets, with information from the following sources]
