Wemby Watch: Victor’s Defense Impresses in Blowout Loss to Nuggets

Story of The Game

Victor was featured in the Spurs offense for the better part of the first half and paid obvious dividends, but where Wemby yielded the greatest ROI was on defense.

The Nuggets had trouble dealing with his length — both in getting up shots and passing. Victor tallied 6 steals and 4 blocks in only 25 minutes of play.

In a clear illustration of Victor’s lift on the Spurs, the game remained close until Pop took Victor out near the 9 minute mark in the second quarter.

With Victor out, the Nuggets quickly assumed control of the game with a 23–6 run.

However, Victor was able to tilt the tides back towards the Spurs when he came back in at the 3 minute mark, bringing the deficit back to 12 at the half.

But after halftime, the Spurs never could truly threaten the Nuggets and the champs held the Spurs at bay until the buzzer.

Victor Stats

22 points, 2 assists, 11 rebounds, 4 blocks in 25 minutes

7–17 fgs, 2–5 3 fgs

Quick Thoughts

Another game with even more positives, but still ample blame to go around — mostly on Victor — so let’s start with Victor’s many mistakes.

The Spurs finally set Victor up with opportunities galore and while he had some nice conversions, he also fumbled away a decent chunk of those opportunities.

Here are some Victor mistakes I have from my game notes:

• Guarded by Michael Porter Jr., doesn’t really take advantage of the matchup
• Doesn’t box out Michael Porter Jr., just stands there while MPJ grabs the ball
• Decides to bring the ball up with the final seconds ticking away in the first quarter — he must take the shot, but then gets hesitant and quickly shovels the ball to a covered Cedi Osman with 2 seconds left
• Horrible pass to Jeremy Sochan on the break — just shoot the damn ball
• Shot multiple turnaround, leaning fadeaways, bailing out defense
• Doesn’t box out Nikola Jokic and Jokic gets the easy tip

For as much as he did right, the pass to Jeremy was an extremely low IQ play. He had a great shot near the basketball, there was no reason to pass.

It’s also clear that Victor is generally shying away from physicality. This happened a few times tonight when he resorted to turnaround, fading/leaning jump shots. We also saw Victor’s aversion to physical play with him inexplicably not boxing out whatsoever and then looking blankly around as if someone else was supposed to do the job.

Once Victor starts asserting himself and imposing his will, he’ll realize that he can hold his own more than he thinks, especially with refs present to nullify any opponents trying to beat him with brute force.

One good example of this was when Victor stood his ground and DeAndre Jordan bowled him over trying to get the ball and Victor got the call.

Another rock solid moment was where he passed up a top of the key jumper and opted for a mega dunk attempt, getting the foul but not the basket.

Obviously, given his frame, Victor should balance how many wrestling matches he gets into, but he will need to step up and show that he does have underrated strength and make it more difficult for opponents to move him without getting called for a foul.

I thought he should have had a field day with Michael Porter Jr. but we didn’t see it.

Given all these negatives, there were several really bright spots:

One was there were a few possessions where it looked like Victor was starting to develop a genuine 2-man game with Devin Vassell. If these two develop a chemistry, the Spurs would have an amazing tandem to build off of.

Another great sign was the Spurs were starting to force feed Victor in the paint, a few times during transition. And Victor was converting despite congestion.

We saw Cedi passing. We also saw Tre Jones throw it ahead.

The more movement the Spurs have going towards the basket with Victor, the better.

I was also surprised at how much trouble Victor gave Jokic. I thought Nikola would just muscle Victor out of plays but Victor’s length was giving Jokic real problems.

Usually Jokic is able to his body to shield other big men to where they can’t affect his shot, but he had much less success against Wemby. Of course, Joker still put up NBA Jam type stats and scored many easy hoops but Victor had several moments where he won the matchup on the defensive end.

Victor’s defense truly was dominant for a large majority of his 25 minutes. He totaled 10 blocks + steals and altered or prevented numerous shots in the paint.

A few more game notes:

Keldon Johnson and Tre Jones both missed easy Victor bucket opportunities.

Early in the game it looked like Tre was freezing out Victor again.

One thing that can’t happen is Victor expending significant energy into gaining post position down low and then someone elect to forego the post up for no obvious reason. We saw this happen in the half court where Tre Jones elected just to pass elsewhere after Victor had established possession.

Also, Victor only totaled 25 minutes because Pop didn’t play him in the 4th, which I can partially understand (even though Jokic was playing) because the game was out of reach.

However, my problem continues to be Pop’s obsession with shaving Victor’s minutes. As I’ve written about previously, Pop is managing Victor’s playing time as if he’s a 37 year old Tim Duncan with bad knees, literally.

At the half, Victor only had 15 minutes which means he was on pace for 30 minutes. And had Victor played more minutes in the second quarter, it’s unlikely the game gets out of hand so quickly.

Nevertheless, the Spurs were unlikely to win this matchup with the Nuggets because the Nuggets are such an excellent and organized team (even though they were missing talents, Jamal Murray and Aaron Gordon).

Overall, the Spurs can immediately increase their competitiveness with basics like less unforced turnovers and/or low probability plays.

And, of course, defense is a huge pain point for the youngest team in the league, but just having 3–4 more possessions a game will give them better odds, especially if the more Victor trend continues.

A more solid team defense will definitely require significant time and personnel upgrades.

P.S. Did we see the Jeremy Sochan experiment start to dissipate this game? Before his injury, we saw Jeremy and Tre Jones sharing the court.

Pre-Game Setup

The Denver-Spurs matchup is game #17 for the Spurs.

Betting: Spurs +10.5, Over/Under 230.5

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

Betting Record going into the game 3–3.

The Spurs travel to Denver for this contest.