The Minnesota Timberwolves have questioned whether Victor Wembanyama’s NBA playoff record 12 blocks were legitimate.
The San Antonio Spurs star set the record during his team’s conference semi-final loss to the Timberwolves on Monday night. But Minnesota coach Chris Finch believes the refereeing during the game was questionable.
“Historic night. But when we looked at [Wembanyama’s blocks], at least four of them were goaltending,” Finch said on Tuesday. “To me, it’s a little alarming that none of them were called. Here’s a generational shot blocker … and there’s no heightened awareness that these blocks could be goaltends? The third possession of the game is a goaltend. A clear, obvious one. So let’s just say there were four [violations], that’s eight points. You know the value of eight points in an NBA game? It’s massive. That means 33% of his blocks were goaltending uncalled. If I were to give you a 33% raise, you’d like that, right? It’s a huge number.”
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.
Shannon said on Tuesday that he would not change his philosophy going forwards. “He gonna have to block it every time, I ain’t gonna stop going downhill. I told him that when he said a little something,” Shannon said. “He gonna have to block it every time, man. I know he ain’t gonna block it every single time. I’m gonna dunk on him.”
Minnesota’s Rudy Gobert, a teammate of Wembanyama on France’s national team, also said he believed the Spurs star benefited from favorable calls.
“He fouled me on the first one,” Gobert said. “But if you look at them, probably three or four [goaltends].”
Game 2 of the series is on Wednesday.