{"id":665126,"date":"2026-05-12T20:09:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-12T20:09:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/665126\/"},"modified":"2026-05-12T20:09:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-12T20:09:08","slug":"all-eyes-on-victor-wembanyama-for-game-5-of-san-antonio-spurs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/665126\/","title":{"rendered":"All eyes on Victor Wembanyama for Game 5 of San Antonio Spurs"},"content":{"rendered":"

SAN ANTONIO (AP) \u2014 San Antonio\u2019s Victor Wembanyama<\/a> is playing in Game 5 of the Spurs\u2019 Western Conference semifinal series against the Minnesota Timberwolves<\/a>, after getting ejected early in Game 4 for throwing an elbow.<\/p>\n

The Spurs are obviously relieved about that. And if Wembanyama is angry about missing most of Game 4, then even better, Spurs guard Devin Vassell<\/a> said Tuesday at shootaround.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know he was upset not being able to play that game,\u201d Vassell said at a shootaround attended by Spurs President Gregg Popovich, Spurs legend Manu Ginobili and former Spurs assistant Brett Brown, among others. \u201dSo, I know that he\u2019s going to be ready to go. That\u2019s what we need. We need that upset Vic who\u2019s ready to attack the game for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n

It could be easily argued that Tuesday\u2019s game \u2014 Game 5, playoff series, tied 2-2, with the winner moving one win from a trip to the Western Conference finals \u2014 is the biggest of Wembanyama\u2019s NBA career.<\/p>\n

Vassell wants to see a fiery Wembanyama \u2014 within reason, of course.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve seen it before. We\u2019ve seen when Vic gets upset,\u201d Vassell said. \u201dI mean, we just need him to calm his emotions, make sure that he doesn\u2019t let his emotions take over because at the end of the day like I said, he can\u2019t get any flagrants, he can\u2019t get anything like that. So, Vic knows what he\u2019s got to do and he\u2019ll be ready.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wembanyama was ejected from the Spurs-Timberwolves game on Sunday night because of the elbow, which he threw early in the second quarter after getting tangled with Minnesota\u2019s Naz Reid<\/a> and Jaden McDaniels<\/a> while grabbing a rebound. Wembanyama swung his arms and his elbow struck Reid in the face.<\/p>\n

Officials looked at the play and upgraded the foul to a Flagrant 2, which comes with an automatic ejection. The NBA, as it always does in those situations, further reviewed the play after the game and decided Monday that the ejection was sufficient. It could have fined or even suspended Wembanyama for Game 5 and beyond if it felt that was warranted.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think we even thought about it much at all,\u201d Timberwolves guard Mike Conley<\/a> Jr. told reporters at Minnesota\u2019s shootaround session Tuesday. \u201cI think once the ruling came down, it was just like, we expected that and just moved forward. It\u2019s one of those things. We don\u2019t want guys to miss games. We want to play against the best. We don\u2019t want to have guys missing games like that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wembanyama\u2019s elbow isn\u2019t the Spurs\u2019 biggest issue right now. The ankles and knees of two of his teammates are potentially problematic, however.<\/p>\n

The Spurs added Dylan Harper<\/a> to their injury list a few hours before Game 5 on Thursday with left knee soreness. He\u2019s listed as questionable, as is point guard De\u2019Aaron Fox \u2014 who is dealing with what the Spurs described as right ankle soreness.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

AP NBA: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/nba<\/p>\n

Raul Dominguez, The Associated Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN ANTONIO (AP) \u2014 San Antonio\u2019s Victor Wembanyama is playing in Game 5 of the Spurs\u2019 Western Conference…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":665127,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[434],"tags":[49,48,459,82],"class_list":["post-665126","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/665126","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=665126"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/665126\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/665127"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=665126"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=665126"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=665126"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}