Victor Wembanyama took one look at the stat sheet after the Spurs’ thrilling 112-111 victory over Dallas on Wednesday and decided he had left a few things on the table.
Fifty-two points, a career high. Twenty-four rebounds, another career high. Nineteen free throws.
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You guessed it. Another career high.
His eight blocks weren’t a career high, but they weren’t exactly shabby, either.
After authoring a statistical masterpiece that would have made even Wilt Chamberlain do a double-take, Wembanyama still wasn’t impressed with himself.
“I can be much better,” he said.
True, Wembanyama missed 7 of 8 3-point tries. He clanged four straight free throws in the fourth quarter, after making 18 in a row to start the game.
Other than that?
“He was Superman,” Spurs guard Dylan Harper said.
With the rest of the team laboring through one of its toughest shooting nights of the season, the Spurs needed their All-Star center to come charging out of the phone booth to save them.
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Wembanyama was happy to oblige.
Again and again.
With Wembanyama destroying Dallas’ best-laid plans on both ends, the Spurs managed to hold on for their fifth consecutive victory.
Dylan Harper added 21 points for the Spurs, while Stephon Castle supplied a hard-earned 17 points and 10 rebounds despite a 6-for-20 shooting night.
“Obviously Victor’s numbers reflect a wow game,” Spurs coach Mitch Johnson said. “But I thought we had some really, really tough winning plays all over the board tonight.”
The Spurs’ winning streak began Oct. 24, with a 122-106 triumph in Dallas.
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Neither All-Star guard Kyrie Irving nor reigning Rookie of the Year Cooper Flagg played for the Mavericks in that one.
They were both available Wednesday, facing the Spurs together for the first time.
Irving ended with 29 points, but missed a heavily contested 15-foot jumper at the final horn that would have given Dallas the win.
Flagg, who was coming off a dreadful 3-of-19 performance in Dallas’ loss to lowly Sacramento, started 1-of-11 against the Spurs. He salvaged his night in the second half, finishing 7 of 19 for 19 points with 10 rebounds.
Naji Marshall added 22 points off the bench for the Mavs, including 10 during a fourth-quarter spurt that allowed Dallas to tie the game after trailing by as many as 19.
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None of it was enough to overcome Wembanyama’s magnum opus.
“When he plays like that, you see the result,” Harper said.
Here are three takeaways from Wednesday’s victory, which allowed the Spurs to sweep a three-game homestand as they start a four-game road swing Friday in Sacramento:
By halftime, Wembanyama had already put together one of the most extraordinary statistical performances in Spurs history, with 29 points, 15 rebounds, five blocks and two steals.
Before Wednesday, only two players in Spurs annals had put up those numbers in a game – David Robinson and Tim Duncan.
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Wembanyama had accomplished it by intermission.
By the final horn, Wembanyama had become only the second player in NBA history to surpass 50 points, 20 rebounds and eight blocks in a game.
Chamberlain did it five times from 1960 to 1967.
His 52 points eclipsed his previous career high of 50, set Nov. 13, 2024, against Washington.
The 24 rebounds trumped his previous high of 20, set March 29, 2024, against New York.
The 19-for-23 showing from the foul line surpassed his previous mark for free throws made (16) and attempted (17), set April 4, 2026, against Denver.
Wembanyama explained his career night with something akin to a shrug.
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“It’s just figuring things out,” he said. “Sometimes you’re one step ahead.”
With time running down Wednesday, Spurs guard De’Aaron Fox found himself in the one place few NBA players want to be.
In between Irving and the basket with the game on the line.
“There may not be a scarier guy with the basketball in his hands in that moment,” Johnson said.
Tasked with defending one of the league’s all-time great clutch scorers, moments after Wembanyama’s final free throw had given the Spurs’ a one-point edge, Fox harkened back to his schoolyard roots.
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“You go back to when you play one-on-one and there’s no help,” Fox said.
Fox won the showdown, forcing Irving into a tough, fading mid-range jumper that clanged off the rim and into the corner, where Harper corralled it as time expired.
“He’s one of the toughest covers ever,” Fox said. “You just try to make him uncomfortable. You just want to make it a shot that he wants less than whatever he’s thinking at the time.”
It was an appropriately gritty finish to a game in which the Spurs needed every defensive stop they could get down the stretch.
The Spurs flirted with a season low by shooting 38.9% from the field. They made only 5-of-36 from 3-point range, a miserable 13.9% that was a season low.
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Devin Vassell and Julian Champagine, the Spurs’ top floor-spreaders, were a combined 0-of-14 from the field.
That the Spurs won anyway bears testament to all the little things they did right.
They compensated for their struggles from beyond the arc by going 33 of 39 from the free-throw line, outscoring Dallas by 14 points there.
They defended, too, holding the Mavericks to 38.2% shooting. They kept their turnovers in check, committing only 10, while hauling in 22 offensive rebounds.
And they pummeled Dallas in the paint, where they enjoyed a 62-40 advantage.
In other words, the Spurs found plenty of ways to win a game even when they couldn’t consistently put the ball in the basket.
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That’s the sort of resilience Johnson has been trying to instill in his team. Wednesday provided a pretty good example of what it can look like.
“I think we’re starting to finally play the brand of basketball that we know how and how we should play,” Johnson said.
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This article originally published at 3 Takeaways as Victor Wembanyama’s career night helps Spurs clip Dallas.
