SAN ANTONIO (AP) \u2014 Victor Wembanyama, the tallest man in these NBA Finals, is about to face the tallest order of his basketball career.<\/p>\n
And he\u2019s fine with that.<\/p>\n
Wembanyama and the San Antonio Spurs \u2014 who just became the first team in NBA Finals history to lead a game by 29 points and still lose \u2014 need to win the next three games, or they\u2019ll watch the New York Knicks celebrate an NBA title at their expense. And when the Spurs gathered for practice on Friday, Wembanyama insisted the belief within the Spurs camp is still there.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverybody thinks, everybody knows, we\u2019re going to do it,\u201d Wembanyama said.<\/p>\n
If he was nervous, he hid it well. The 7-foot-4 French star has helped the Spurs stave off elimination twice already in these playoffs, after San Antonio won Games 6 and 7 of the Western Conference finals against Oklahoma City and ended the Thunder\u2019s reign as NBA champions.<\/p>\n
Now, the Spurs have to do it again on Saturday in Game 5 against the Knicks. And if they win Saturday, they\u2019ll have to do it again in Game 6 on Tuesday. And if they win Tuesday, a Game 7 awaits next Friday.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel like we need to isolate that one game and take it one game at a time,\u201d Wembanyama said. \u201cI think it would be a mistake to waste our energy on multiple games. It\u2019s one game at a time.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Spurs led Game 1 by 14 points and lost by 10. They led Game 2 by 12 points and lost by one. They won Game 3 by four, then had the 29-point lead in Game 4 and lost by one.<\/p>\n
Clearly, they know how to get into position to beat the Knicks.<\/p>\n
They just haven\u2019t finished it off in three of the four games. And now, they will try to be just the second team in NBA Finals history to successfully rally from a 3-1 series deficit; Cleveland did it against Golden State in 2016. The other 37 teams that have tried to do so all failed.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt definitely matters,\u201d Spurs guard Stephon Castle said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019ve made history all year, and we\u2019ve proven that with our backs against the wall that we can step up. So, I don\u2019t really expect this to be any different.\u201d<\/p>\n
Neither does Wembanyama.<\/p>\n
The Spurs know they\u2019re good enough. They\u2019ve had the leads. They\u2019ve won every first quarter, then frittered those advantages away. In Game 3, they recovered. In Games 1, 2 and 4, they didn\u2019t. In Game 5, they\u2019ll have to \u2014 or else.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou said all of it,\u201d Wembanyama said. \u201cWe\u2019re very confident. I wouldn\u2019t say it was so hard to shake off (Game 4). Harder than any other game before, by far, for sure. I mean, now we\u2019re over it. It\u2019s the playoffs. There\u2019s no time to regret things for too long.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
SAN ANTONIO (AP) \u2014 Victor Wembanyama, the tallest man in these NBA Finals, is about to face the tallest order of his basketball career. And he\u2019s fine with that. Wembanyama and the San Antonio Spurs \u2014 who just became the first team in NBA Finals history to lead a game by 29 points and still … Continue reading Wemby, Spurs still believers, even while down 3-1 to Knicks in NBA Finals<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":65,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1452],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1515382","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports-news"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":true,"date":"2026-06-15 07:44:03","action":"change-status","newStatus":"trash","terms":[0],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1515382","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/65"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1515382"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1515382\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1515383,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1515382\/revisions\/1515383"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1515382"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1515382"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1515382"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}