Wemby Watch: Spurs Can’t Cash on BBQ Chicken Kevin Love Guarding Victor, Give Up on Game in 4th

Story of the Game

Shaquille O’Neal is in the bottom quarter of basketball analysts, but there’s one essential he mastered early on and continues to advocate for: you never let inferior players guard you.

Especially when it’s an absolute scrub amongst scrubs like Kevin Love. As Shaq would say, Love is “barbeque chicken.”

It’s too bad Shaq wasn’t in the Spurs huddle because he would have ripped Victor for not dominating Kevin Love and he would have yelled at the rest of the team for not getting Wemby the ball.

After a solid start to the game, that the Spurs didn’t or couldn’t use Kevin Love as a free pass to unlimited buckets is embarrassing.

And this was by no means the only failure.

The Heat game was winnable, but the Spurs had bad decisions/play coming from all directions and immediately gave up to start the fourth quarter. Gregg Popovich deserves a big share of blame as the Spurs were competitive for three quarters and then, in the fourth, the game turned into a blowout in just a few minutes.

Victor Stats

18 points, 3 assists, 13 rebounds, 1 block in 28 minutes

7–13 fgs, 3–453 fgs

Quick Thoughts

What could have been a competitive game (the Spurs were up 1 headed into the fourth) devolved into a runaway Heat win.

Some other problems besides not abusing Kevin Love:

• Tre Jones was making stupid plays and turning the ball over.
• Multiple Spurs couldn’t get the ball to Victor.
• Victor was ignored on too many possessions.
• Zach Collins continues to not be an NBA player but Pop keeps playing him over Dominick Barlow

Some more thoughts:

Keldon Johnson has to give up his nickname if he’s going to turn soft against Jimmy Butler. I saw “big body” turn into regular body when the going got tough.

Sean Elliott deserves rare criticism because he advocated for Victor to chunk threes. I completely disagree — Victor is far too three point reliant, the advocacy should be for shots going to the basket.

Victor appeared to climb over the rookie wall but other obstacles including the Heat’s savvy defense dragged him back into the solid stats, mediocre game pool.

Bam Adebayo is a guy who’s optimized his abilities and strengths 100% — I don’t think he can be any better than he already is. He’s not all that athletic or talented, but he’s tough and he’s strong and he knows exactly what to do in the perfect role that the Heat have carved out for him.

Bam got away with a lot of fouling and stealing two jump balls from Victor.

Gregg Popovich had some absentee coaching, once again. The beauty for Pop is, when the Spurs are playing better playoff teams, the Spurs really don’t have to tank to lose.

Pre-game Setup

The Miami-San Antonio matchup is game #51 for the Spurs.

Betting: Heat -8, Over/Under 226

(Guess-Prediction: I’ll take the Spurs and the over.)

Betting Record going into the game 34–37–1.

The Spurs traveled to Miami for this contest.