Houston forward Dillon Brooks exited the Frost Bank Center after Tuesday’s 103-101 victory over the Spurs feeling like a kid at the end of a Disneyland vacation.
He didn’t want to leave.
“I wish we played them again,” Brooks said.
Who could blame him?
For the second time in a week, the 6-foot-6 Brooks had accomplished what many taller men throughout the NBA could not. He successfully made 7-foot-3 Spurs rookie Victor Wembanyama appear momentarily mortal.
Hounded by Brooks and a cast of what seemed like thousands, Wembanyama finished with 13 points and 10 rebounds.
It was good for his ninth consecutive double-double, his longest streak of the season.
It would have also marked Wembanyama’s lowest-scoring game since December, had it not been for the 10 points he managed in a loss against Brooks and the Rockets on March 5 in Houston. While Brooks can’t wait for his next meeting with the Spurs, Wembanyama will be glad not to have to see the Rockets again until his second NBA season. “The physicality, the energy,” Wembanyama said when asked what made Houston’s defense so difficult to decipher. “Every night it’s a challenge, but this is a very aggressive team defensively, so this is the most hard.”
Brooks’ job was to bump Wembanyama off his spots. Once Wembanyama caught a pass, he saw red everywhere — other players in Rockets uniforms flying at him from every direction.
The double- and triple-teams were designed to get the ball out of Wembanyama’s gargantuan hands. It worked, again. “I wouldn’t even say Brooks was a problem (Tuesday) guarding him,” point guard Tre Jones said.” It was just the many bodies they were throwing at him on the help side. When they are bringing one, two, three extra defenders, it is going to be tough for him to get looks.” Spurs coach Gregg Popovich hopes the lessons provided by Houston’s defensive scheme can be one of many Wembanyama and his young teammates learn throughout a season full of them. “A lot of little guys can get into a big guy like that and make it tough,” said Popovich, whose team resumes its season with a pair of games at Austin’s Moody Center beginning Friday against Denver. “And they double-teamed him every time, so if somebody is going to be guarded that way, everybody else has to participate and you have to do it a different way.”
After going scoreless in the second half of the meeting in Houston, Wembanyama opened Tuesday’s rematch with a two-point first half.
His goal was to continue to make the right basketball play, passing out of double and-triple teams the way those “basketball gods” Popovich always talks about command.
“Not force anything,” Wembanyama said.
With the way the Rockets were playing him, Wembanyama needed help from up and down the Spurs’ roster. With a few exceptions, he did not get it.
Jones nearly submarined the Rockets’ game plan with 24 points, including an unexpected 4 of 7 showing from 3-point range.
Jeremy Sochan added 21 points, including a 3-point play that brought the Spurs within a point with 18.5 seconds remaining.
Blake Wesley added 10 points and his usual dose of defensive moxie off the bench. It wasn’t enough. Through it all, Wembanyama remained patient despite the dearth of open shots.
“He was playing the right way,” small forward Julian Champagnie said.
“The thing with Victor is, he’s not always going to have 30 (points). The thing that makes him so good, he’s a willing passer. He’s going to play the right way.”
Wembanyama was not the only bucket-getter the Rockets erased from the box score.
Devin Vassell, the Spurs’ second-leading scorer, finished with six points on 2-of-6 shooting. It matched his fewest field goal attempts of the season.
Note to future opponents: Limiting the Spurs’ two best scorers to a combined 19 points is a good way to beat them. “Obviously, Victor is going to get that type of attention a lot throughout his entire career,” Jones said.
“Same with Devin. We know they are going to try to take them both away a lot and it will be on the rest of us to hit those open shots when they are there.”
Indeed, there is onus on the rest of the Spurs to learn how to play off Wembanyama on nights like this.
At times Tuesday, the Spurs got too impatient trying to get Wembanyama going. Four of their 13 turnovers came via players attempting lobs to Wembanyama that were not there.
Part of the continuing education of the Wembanyama Spurs will be figuring out how to best exploit the outsized attention he is likely to receive from opposing defenses.
“Sometimes it’s hard,” Champagnie said.
“You don’t know what to do. He’s so big. I don’t want to cut into him. Sometimes, I give him some space and when he gets doubled, then we can make our move. We’re figuring out the little kinks to it.”
The (almost) best example of how the Spurs need to play off of Wembanyama double teams came midway through the fourth quarter.
Wembanyama beat that one with a sweeping hook pass from one block to Jones on the opposite 3-point arc.
Jones attacked a seam toward the basket from there, then dumped the ball to a diving Sandro Mamukelashvili for a layup. Alas, officials later determined Mamukelashvili’s shot did not beat the 24-second clock and was wiped out.
Wembanyama said he takes the kind of defensive attention the Rockets gave him as a compliment. “Looking back, yeah,” he said.
“And also when somebody does a good play on me and is super happy, looking back I see it as a compliment. But on the court it isn’t what I think about.”
Wembanyama can rest assured he won’t need to be complimented by the Rockets again this season. The next time he meets Brooks and Co., at some point in his second NBA season, he will be better for it.