{"id":652429,"date":"2026-05-06T03:08:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-06T03:08:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/652429\/"},"modified":"2026-05-06T03:08:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-06T03:08:11","slug":"timberwolves-accuse-wembanyama-of-goaltending-after-spurs-star-sets-nba-playoff-block-record-victor-wembanyama","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/652429\/","title":{"rendered":"Timberwolves accuse Wembanyama of goaltending after Spurs star sets NBA playoff block record | Victor Wembanyama"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Minnesota Timberwolves have questioned whether Victor Wembanyama\u2019s NBA playoff record 12 blocks were legitimate<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The San Antonio Spurs<\/a> star set the record during his team\u2019s conference semi-final loss to the Timberwolves on Monday night. But Minnesota coach Chris Finch believes the refereeing during the game was questionable.<\/p>\n

\u201cHistoric night. But when we looked at [Wembanyama\u2019s blocks], at least four of them were goaltending,\u201d Finch said on Tuesday. \u201cTo me, it\u2019s a little alarming that none of them were called. Here\u2019s a generational shot blocker \u2026 and there\u2019s no heightened awareness that these blocks could be goaltends? The third possession of the game is a goaltend. A clear, obvious one. So let\u2019s just say there were four [violations], that\u2019s eight points. You know the value of eight points in an NBA<\/a> game? It\u2019s massive. That means 33% of his blocks were goaltending uncalled. If I were to give you a 33% raise, you\u2019d like that, right? It\u2019s a huge number.\u201d<\/p>\n

One glaring incident came at the start of the game when Wembanyama swatted away a Terrence Shannon Jr layup that had hit the backboard first, which should have resulted in a goaltending call. Wembanyama was instead credited with a block.<\/p>\n

Shannon said on Tuesday that he would not change his philosophy going forwards. \u201cHe gonna have to block it every time, I ain\u2019t gonna stop going downhill. I told him that when he said a little something,\u201d Shannon said. \u201cHe gonna have to block it every time, man. I know he ain\u2019t gonna block it every single time. I\u2019m gonna dunk on him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Minnesota\u2019s Rudy Gobert, a teammate of Wembanyama on France\u2019s national team, also said he believed the Spurs star benefited from favorable calls.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe fouled me on the first one,\u201d Gobert said. \u201cBut if you look at them, probably three or four [goaltends].\u201d<\/p>\n

Game 2 of the series is on Wednesday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Minnesota Timberwolves have questioned whether Victor Wembanyama\u2019s NBA playoff record 12 blocks were legitimate. The San Antonio…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":652430,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[64,63,590,85],"class_list":["post-652429","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/652429","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=652429"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/652429\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/652430"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=652429"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=652429"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=652429"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}