“We don’t need to do anything incredible,” Victor Wembanyama told reporters early Thursday, and then spelled out what normal looks like: trust, execution and a steadier mental state as the Spurs prepare for Game 2 after a 105-95 loss to the New York Knicks.
Wembanyama's words carry weight because his night was uneven and the stakes are immediate. He finished Game 1 with 26 points, 12 rebounds and three blocks but shot 6-for-21 from the field and 2-for-9 on 3-pointers while committing six turnovers. Tracking data showed that when Karl-Anthony Towns was his primary defender he went 2-for-11 and turned the ball over five times. The Spurs as a team made 32 field goals on 16 assists, shot 36% from the floor and 25.6% on threes, and allowed the Knicks 23 second-chance points off 10 offensive rebounds.
Those numbers are the blunt explanation for why coach Mitch Johnson warned the team fell short of its offensive brand. “The way we played offensively in terms of a team and our brand, we didn’t play with the pass enough (and) we didn’t put enough pressure and force on the rim in the paint,” Johnson said, adding that the Spurs tried to “play with talent offensively instead of playing together” and that there is “a lot of room for improvement.”
Context sharpens the moment: Game 2 is scheduled for Friday in San Antonio at 8:30 ET on ABC, and the Spurs are trying to avoid falling into a 2-0 hole before the series moves to New York for Games 3 and 4. Wembanyama, who as the hour neared midnight Wednesday said he wasn’t worried and expected both himself and the team to be “so much better,” returned to that line in the afternoon media session: “It’s almost not like I have anything to figure out. It’s almost like I have to play normal, not even good.”
The friction is obvious in Wembanyama’s own admission: “I was bad tonight. It’s not more complicated than that.” He insisted the fix is not a schematic overhaul. “It’s not even technical, tactical,” he said. “We need to approach the game with a better mental state. We just need to play our game. We just need to be normal.” He defined normal in practical terms: “Normal means trusting each other, trusting the basketball gods, trusting the game plan, executing, and not relying on talent so much to make shots or to save the day.”
That prescription confronts two immediate problems from Game 1: inefficient individual shooting and a collective unwillingness to create higher-percentage chances. The Spurs’ 16 assists on 32 made field goals is a clear shortfall from their playoff passing norms, and Johnson pointed to missed opportunities in the paint where the team failed to force decisions from the Knicks’ defense.
Wembanyama’s turnovers — six overall, five in the moments tracked with Towns as primary defender — also underline the matchup question the Spurs must answer before heading to New York. If the offense collapses back into iso possessions or late-shot reliance, Wembanyama’s confidence that “we’re going to be so much better” will be tested not as a prediction but as an on-court demand.
The next decisive act arrives Friday night in San Antonio. The Spurs’ response will be judged by two concrete measures: whether they can lift their assist total by sharing the ball and whether they can trim the turnovers and offensive rebounds that handed the Knicks extra possessions. If they can’t, the series will head to New York with the Spurs down 2-0; if they do, Wembanyama’s plea to “play normal” will have turned a press conference promise into a strategic reset for the Finals.
