BOSTON — San Antonio Spurs star Victor Wembanyama was a 7-foot-4 problem the Boston Celtics couldn’t solve, no matter the adjustment.
“He’s really good at what he does,” Derrick White admitted after Boston’s 100-95 loss. “Just the way he protects the paint and still can get out to the corner is special. You have to know where he is at all times, and even when he doesn’t block, he’s changing the shot. So, yeah, he’s good.”
Wembanyama wasn’t in San Antonio’s starting lineup. Instead, head coach Mitch Johnson gave Luke Kornet the nod amid his return to TD Garden. Wembanyama made his entrance midway through the first quarter and was met immediately by a Luka Garza block on his first shot attempt. From there, he struggled, finishing with five points on 2-of-5 shooting by halftime, giving the impression — prematurely — that Boston’s defense had figured Wembanyama out.
Celtics head coach Joe Mazzulla countered Wembanyama with Jordan Walsh and Baylor Scheierman. Each time the Spurs sent their 7-footer to the floor, either Walsh or Scheierman followed him toward the scorer’s table, tasked with guarding a goliath most across the league can’t handle. They threw everything they had at him, but it was only a matter of time before San Antonio’s leader in points, rebounds, and blocks put on a Boston Philharmonic of his own on the parquet.
Once that moment arrived, Walsh and Scheierman could only tip their caps to Wemby — a feeling Scheierman laid out plainly.
“You try to make it as tough as possible, but at the end of the day, he’s (7-foot-4), so he’s going to shoot over you,” Scheierman said. “There’s not really anything you can do, so you try to pressure him, make him uncomfortable, and pray he misses the shot.”
Wembanyama made himself at home in the second half, finishing with 21 points in total with six rebounds, three blocks, and a rebound in 26 minutes off the bench. In the fourth quarter, the Celtics nearly averted a disaster in the game’s final minute. Wembanyama mishandled a post feed, forcing him out to the perimeter for a contested, off-balance 3-pointer with Neemias Queta covering him. He missed, but 35 seconds later, Wembanyama redeemed himself in the clutch.
With Scheierman on him in the post, Wembanyama dribbled left and drilled a game-sealing 15-foot jumper to give the Spurs a 99-95 lead with 19.1 seconds left.
“Didn’t know if I was gonna play tonight or not, and that’s kind of just how it is,” Scheierman said. “My job is to be ready for when my number is called, and just try to go out there and impact the game in any way that I can.”
Wembanyama’s last-minute heroics secured San Antonio’s first win in Boston since Jan. 5, 2022, and helped gain some ground as the No. 2 seed in the Western Conference. For the Celtics, it was a painful reminder that Wembanyama is going to be everyone’s problem to deal with in the NBA, whether they like it or not.
Boston fell beneath the New York Knicks and slipped back to the No. 3 seed in the East, but Mazzulla still found room to commend the effort displayed against Wembanyama.
“I thought Jordan did a great job on Wembanyama,” he said. “Once they went to their cross-matches, we have to be able to space the floor to make the two-on-one reads. I thought Baylor did a good job of that.”
Furthermore, Mazzulla also credited the Spurs for positioning Wembanyama in ways that allow him to influence their offense — even when the ball isn’t in his hands. Across multiple possessions, San Antonio put the 22-year-old in spots where his freakish length could disrupt Boston’s defense and prevent the Celtics from stringing together pivotal plays that would otherwise slow down the Spurs’ offensive attack.
“They do a good job of taking advantage of his strengths by putting him in cross-matches,” Mazzulla said. “They can X-out on the weak side, they can invert and get him low, and then he’s on the perimeter. Because he can cover space, you think you have a guy beat, then he inverts and comes down, and now the two-on-one is gone just like that.”
Defensively, Wembanyama’s impact was equally critical. In the final 24 minutes, the Spurs shifted him to the low man role, which provided a defensive anchor near the basket. His presence altered the Celtics’ offensive decisions and disrupted their playmaking — so much so that Boston was smothered by San Antonio’s defensive coverage to the point where they were held to consecutive 20-point frames in the third and fourth quarters.
Wembanyama’s constant, all-encompassing involvement put Mazzulla’s offense and defense in difficult positions to navigate and escape.
The Celtics shot just 32.6% from the field in the second half, including a cold 32% from beyond the arc. Nothing was going Boston’s way on that front, and even though the box score doesn’t tell the whole story, Wembanyama’s influence was evident in every Celtics scoring lapse.
“Obviously, he’s a special talent,” Mazzulla said.
Performing in Boston, under its 18 championship banners, is no easy task for any star player — big or small. Wembanyama, however, rose to the occasion and delivered his first signature moment inside the Garden against the Celtics. During his brief trip to Boston, Wembanyama shared an equally positive impression of the city as the one he left on the court the previous Saturday night.
“Playing in Boston is cool,” Wembanyama acknowledged. “First of all, the city is pretty cool, even though I haven’t had time to really experience it. It’s pretty cool, pretty walkable, unlike many American cities. But playing in this environment is cool. Obviously, they have a great history, great culture, so it’s one of the top teams in terms of class in the NBA.”