Victor Wembanyama and Chet Holmgren will be the matchup to look out for in the paint during the semi-finals of the coveted NBA Cup. He spoke to Taylor Rooks in the pregame coverage of tonight’s game on ‘NBA on Prime’. He addressed his matchup with Holmgren and credited Shai Gilgeous-Alexander for making his teammates more dangerous as offensive threats.
“The reigning MVP is on that court, so he’s our main focus. Anybody is hard to guard when you have to help with the MVP,” said Wembanyama while subtly discounting Holmgren’s own skills.
Wembanyama believes there’s no other reason Holmgren is hard to guard except the fact that the reigning MVP Gilgeous-Alexander draws so much defensive attention, which makes it tough to lock down his other teammates.
Holmgren has previously addressed this rivalry on Paul George’s ‘Podcast P’ and claimed it is purely driven by their competitive drives, and they have nothing personal against one another.
Following their NBA championship last season, it was reported that the Spurs center took it personally that Holmgren won an NBA title before him. But their rivalry apparently dates back to their initial matchups, even before they were drafted to the NBA, during the U-20 FIBA games.
Wembanyama returned to action tonight after a 12-game absence as the Spurs are facing the Thunder tonight for a spot in the championship game of the NBA Cup. However, the French wonderkid was not included in the starting lineup, which brings an end to a 129-game streak of never coming off the bench in his NBA career.
Luke Kornet retained his role and started over him. Wembanyama is available only for restricted minutes; thus, we anticipate a lot less action between him and Holmgren than we would have gotten.
In the first half, he only played for seven minutes, but his impact was instantly felt on the floor as the Spurs rallied back into a game that was slipping away with an 11-point difference after the first quarter.
They cut the deficit to three points as the Spurs trailed the Thunder 46-49 at the half. He had five points, five rebounds, one assist, one steal, and one block in that duration.
Victor Wembanyama has intentionally made himself available for this game. Following the Spurs’ win over the Lakers, Wembanyama reportedly lobbied heavily behind the scenes to convince his team to let him play tonight.
Before the 12 games he missed, he was averaging 26.2 points, 12.9 rebounds, 4.0 assists, and 3.6 blocks while shooting 50.3% from the field. He feels that he could, in tonight’s semi-final, help his teammates secure $212,373 and a chance to win $530,933 each in the NBA Cup’s championship game.
It will be interesting to see if we witness any back-and-forth between one of the newest ‘true’ rivalries in the NBA and which of these players manages to take their team all the way to the championship game.
