Wemby Watch: Victor’s 5x5 Pushes Spurs Past Jazz Minus Markkanen

The Milwaukee Bucks might be the only team in the Association worse than the Jazz without Lauri Markkanen, but I’ll take the win.

It’s not like the Spurs excelled, but they comfortably distanced themselves from the Jazz after a Patty Mills party at the end of the first quarter had the Jazz up 30–19.

Looking at the box score, you see a few plus minus stats that really stand out:

• Victor Wembanyama: 34 minutes, +43
• Chris Paul: 32 minutes, +37
• Zach Collins: 11 minutes, -21
• Blake Wesley: 5 minutes, -14
• Malaki Branham: 17 minutes, -13

When you consider the Spurs only won by 18, the Paul and Wemby numbers especially jump off the stat sheet.

The Death Lineup

There’s a lineup that Pop puts in that is Zach Collins + Malaki Branham + Blake Wesley + Julian Champagnie, Keldon Johnson and/or Stephon Castle that is basically the death of the Spurs because the offense dies.

And the reason for the plus minus swing is because he has a wholesale shift where he takes out Victor and Chris Paul.

As I discussed in the OKC Wemby Watch recap, Branham and Wesley are the two dumbest players on the Spurs and that creates all sorts of problems.

As for Collins, he just flat out can’t play. Tonight he badly airballed a wide open three and, generally, he gets outmuscled, outplayed, and/or just can’t hold onto the ball.

Collins is really, really bad. He’s at his best when he‘s hitting open threes and he’s fighting with every last shred of his being for boards, but we don’t see both of these sides of him very often.

25 Points, Victor’s Back in Business, Right?

No, not really.

First, half of those points came by way of three pointer. Early on Victor caught warmth from behind the arc, but as he shot more, he cooled all the way down to a chilly 4–13.

Victor can get 3’s whenever he wants against any team so I don’t consider him hitting three pointers to be any type of putting the puzzle pieces together. He’s simply not that good of a three pointer shooter and as this game showed, the three can come and it can go.

I like Victor threes as an optional capability, but I hate launching threes as a primary weapon. It’s lazy and it’s not how Victor takes the next step.

That said, Victor did get a few dunks and closer buckets so that was nice, but there’s a huge grain of salt in the Jazz being the Jazz.

They’re now 0–5 and 0–4 at home and they played without Markkanen. Victor only got 5 non-three buckets so I’m not impressed, but it’s a start.

Other Thoughts

• The Spurs had a moderate officiating advantage, but it didn’t make a difference.
• The Jazz looked horrible. Like Cooper Flagg lottery potential horrible.
• The stands in Vivint Arena were very empty for some extended stretches. Maybe some fans got to move down closer to the court in the second half.
• Jeremy Sochan and Keldon Johnson are fairly bad finishers when it comes to anything short of a dunk.

I’ll stop short of saying this was a good win, but it was the right win and now the Spurs move to a more respectable 2–3 with a tough game against the Timberwolves at home on Saturday.

It will be interesting to see if the Wolves employee a similar Victor strategy as the Thunder and Rockets or if they let Rudy handle Wemby 1-on-1.

Devin Vassell’s Return

Monday’s Clippers game or Wednesday’s Rockets game look like prime Devin Vassell return games. With this being the Spurs (abundance of caution, etc.), I’ll guess Wednesday at Houston.