Victor Wembanyama called game.
With the Spurs down by one in the final seconds of Thursday night's home tilt vs. the Suns, everyone's favorite big man sunk a clutch go-ahead jumper to seal it for San Antonio and send the team to the playoffs for the first time since 2019.
Naturally, the arena went totally wild.
As the Spurs soaked in the dub on the court just moments later, the group surrounded Wemby—their 7'4" hero—and understandably serenaded him with chants of "MVP! MVP!", to which Wembanyama replied by grabbing the microphone and loudly screaming "LET'S GO!"
"It was hard to take in all the stimulus around me," Wemby said of the environment after his crucial make. "Like, I had the fans looking at me. I had this guy spill wine on me before the end of the game. I make the shot, sprint back on defense and kind of hit a guy. I got wine on my shorts now."
As evidenced by the score when Wemby's buzzer-beater sailed through the air, this was not an inevitable dub for San Antonio. The Spurs were trailing by seven when Wemby checked into the game with about 3:30 left on the clock. But the group rallied to catch up as the clock waned, then trusted that Wemby could do something to make a win happen. And after dribbling to let the clock run, he did exactly that.
"He's been phenomenal," Spurs forward Keldon Johnson told the media, referring to Wembanyama. "To see how happy he was to hit the game-winner and to see the performances that he put on, like I said out there and like I said in the interview, he's playing at an MVP-type level. It's hard to deny when he's doing what he's doing on both ends of the court. He's leading us night in and night out to win."
With Thursday's victory, the Spurs have officially clinched a top 6 Western Conference seed in the playoffs, which means we'll also get to see Wemby in the postseason for the first time ever. Life is good.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as Victor Wembanyama Regaled With 'MVP' Chants After Game-Winner Sends Spurs to Playoffs.
