By Jeje Gomez, J.R. Wilco | Pounding The Rock (PtR), 2026-02-25 01:27:33
编者按：我是杰杰·戈麦斯 (Jeje Gomez)。这是在马刺令人印象深刻地战胜活塞队后，我与 PtR 主编 J.R. 威尔科 (J.R. Wilco) 之间的一次坦诚对话。为了清晰起见，内容经过了微调。请欣赏！
J.R. 威尔科 (J.R. Wilco)： 你说这是一场属于文班的精彩比赛，尽管转播时一直说他表现低迷，但我同意你的看法。
对阵底特律的这场比赛，换做以前，圣安东尼奥马刺往往会输掉。因为那时受挫的文班会强行进攻，伸手要球（或者更糟，在完成封盖或抢断后试图大包大揽），并在完全失去节奏的情况下，试图将自己的意志强加于比赛。
但这一次，他顺应了比赛节奏，信任队友并分享球权，让队友们在进攻中占据优势。凭借他的引力在活塞防守中制造的空隙，他不需要非得得分。这是他在成熟度上迈出的巨大一步，如果马刺想要在今年的季后赛中走得更远，这正是我们需要从他身上看到的。
杰西·戈麦斯 (Jesus Gomez)： 这是我最喜欢的维克托·文班亚马 (Victor Wembanyama) 的比赛之一，甚至在他投进几个让数据单看起来更漂亮的球之前我就这么认为了。这种表现能够改变马刺作为一支球队的发展轨迹。而且从开局来看，这种转变似乎并不会发生。
当文班在第一节末段失误时，我认为马刺有麻烦了。当时球队抢回了球权并传给了他，他随即拔起投了一个三分，结果投了三不沾。他当时的反应看起来就像大多数从小到大在效力的每一支球队里都是最强球员的人一样，试图在逆境中强行解决问题。但这一次，他并没有像你提到的那样试图接管比赛，而是准确地理解了球队需要他做什么。
问题是，他是否能在每一次被要求这样做时都执行到位？到了第四节，马刺试图让他接球，所以他可能只是在有选择性地发力。如果下一次他们这样做却输了球呢？当队友投不进球时，他还会信任他们吗？这真的会是一个转折点吗？
威尔科： 这可不止一个问题，但它们确实都很重要。问题在于，这些事情只能通过观察来验证，而无法预测。你问的问题只有文班自己能回答，而这些问题的解决方式将决定这个赛季的走向——而这又取决于这支球队的超级巨星在他的职业生涯第三年、仅打了 160 场比赛的情况下表现得有多成熟。
这让我想起了我对文班最早的记忆之一。在他被选中的前一天，他出现在 J.J. 雷迪克 (J.J. Redick) 的播客中，他的沉稳、准备充分和成熟令我震惊。这种第一印象在很大程度上得到了他在球场上表现的支持，当然也有一些显著的例外。
其中一个主要的例外就是文班在面对那些不惜代价限制他的球队时所遇到的困难。想想本赛季早些时候对阵菲尼克斯太阳的那场比赛，那场比赛终结了马刺的连胜，并表面上给了全联盟一个如何限制文班爆发的模板。在那场对阵太阳的比赛中，球队不断给文班喂球，而他不断尝试在密林般的长臂干扰中强行突破，结果无济于事。当显而易见行不通时，球队在很大程度上绕过他运行进攻，太阳对此乐见其成，联盟其他球队也尽其所能地效仿这种做法。
但现在我们有了一个新的范式：球队通过文班展开进攻，而不是绕过他。随着对阵底特律的胜利作为数据库中的一个高规格成功案例，你会希望这种行之有效的模式不被忘记。文班在防守端撑起体系，而进攻端则受益于他所吸引的防守注意力，直到对方防守者在试图兼顾三分线和这位身高 7 英尺半的外星人时自乱阵脚。在周一晚上的第四节末段，底特律有几次防守中，甚至出现了多名防守者丢下文班去扑防三分线外的朱利安·尚帕尼 (Julian Champagnie) 的情况，尽管当时文班就在禁区内。
这位大个子能够坚持执行一次比赛计划是令人鼓舞的。而这如果最终能成为常态，简直让我欣喜若狂。
戈麦斯： 这确实提高了马刺的下限，而这正是他们一直以来所缺失的。他们的上限本就已经很高了。而且值得庆幸的是，这种调整对于马刺或大多数观察者来说似乎并不是什么大不了的事。文班没有说他做出了什么巨大的牺牲，而转播方也只在第三节末提及了一次（如果我没记错的话）。教练组察觉到了活塞的意图并做出了调整，而文班和整支球队也做好了执行的准备。第四节那几次尝试给他喂球的回合在当时有点令人担心，但最终，他们并没有强求。这确实非常令人鼓舞。
对手会做出调整，但正如你所说，他们能做的也就那么多。如果他们全力限制文班，我们现在知道马刺可以简单地利用他的引力而不是直接传球给他来发起进攻，这让很多防守策略变得毫无用处。更大的问题在于，配角阵容是否能像对阵活塞时那样持续稳定地输出。持球者应该没问题，突破空间一直都在，而且他们三个人都看到了这一点。我们早已过了那个只有特雷·琼斯 (Tre Jones) 意识到整个防守都在针对文班的阶段。投篮手可能是潜在的问题，但他们都做好了出手或传导球的准备，这是一个好迹象。
这支球队凝聚的速度惊人。还有很大的成长空间，对于一支可能最终获得西部第一的球队来说，说这种话听起来有些疯狂，但实时见证这一切发生是非常有趣的。活塞这场比赛看起来确实像是一个突破性的时刻，即使文班偶尔还会回到强打的状态，我确实相信他已经明白，不需要通过冲入人堆强投那些失去平衡的球来砍下 30 分，他也同样能产生巨大的积极影响。我很期待看到他们能否在季后赛前继续完成这些“微调飞跃”，因为如果做到了，我们可能会比预期更早地迎来一次深入的季后赛之旅。
威尔科： 我同意，关于配角阵容能否在每一场比赛中都打出像周一晚上那样的表现，确实还存有疑问。但即使他们不能，对我来说这仍然是一场胜利，原因如下：我宁愿看到球队投丢空位三分、中距离失手，或者看到受到干扰的上篮刷筐而出，也不愿看到球队为了给文班喂球而导致失误，从而让对手在另一端轻松打成快攻和转换进攻。那些连投篮机会都没能创造出来的丢掉的回合最让我沮丧。而正如你所说，如果球队能将进攻失误转化为哪怕是中等命中率的投篮，这支球队的下限就会得到提升。
而这支球队的下限越高，他们看起来就越像是一支争冠球队。
由生成式人工智能翻译，译文内容可能不准确或不完整，以原文为准。
点击查看原文：Victor Wembanyama is learning to win without being the center of the offense
Victor Wembanyama is learning to win without being the center of the offense
Editor’s note: Jeje Gomez here. This is a candid conversation between PtR’s Editor in Chief, J.R. Wilco, and me after the impressive win over the Pistons. It has been lightly edited for clarity. Enjoy!
J.R. Wilco: You said this was a great Wemby game, and even though the broadcast kept saying it was an off night for him, I agree with you.
Detroit was exactly the kind of game that San Antonio used to lose because a frustrated Wemby would force himself on the action, demand the ball (or worse, get a block and steal and try to do everything himself), and, while completely out of rhythm, attempt to impose his will on the game.
But instead, he let the game be, trusted his team and moved the ball, enabling his guys to play with an advantage. With his gravity creating gaps in Detroit’s defense, he didn’t have to score. Just a massive step forward in maturity that’s exactly what we need to see from him if the Spurs are going to make a deep run this postseason.
Jesus Gomez: It was one of my favorite Wembanyama games, even before he got a few buckets that made his stat line look nicer. It was the type of performance that can alter the Spurs’ trajectory as a team. And it didn’t seem like it was going to happen, at least early on.
I thought the Spurs were in trouble when Wemby turned the ball over late in the first, the team got it back and passed to him, and he immediately pulled up for a three-pointer, which he airballed. It seemed like he would react to adversity like most guys who have been the best player on every team they played would. But instead of trying to take over, which, as you mentioned, he has in the past, he understood exactly what the team needed from him.
The question is, will he do it every time he’s asked to? By the fourth quarter, the Spurs were trying to get him touches, so he might have simply picked his spots. And what happens if the next time they do it, they lose? Will he still trust his teammates when they don’t hit shots? Is this really a turning point?
Wilco: That’s way more than just one question, but they’re all important ones for sure. The problem is, these are things that can only be seen, not predicted. You’re asking questions that no one but Wemby can answer, and the way these issues resolve will dictate how this season progresses — which will in turn be determined by how mature this team’s superstar is in his third year in the league with just 160 games under his belt.
This takes me back to one of my earliest memories of Wemby. The day before he was drafted, he appeared on J.J. Reddick’s podcast and I was stunned by how settled, prepared and mature he was. This first impression has been largely supported by his play on the court, with some notable exceptions.
One of the main exceptions has been the difficulties Wemby has had with teams that sell out to stop him. Think of the game against Phoenix early in the season that ended the good guys’ winning streak and ostensibly gave the league a pattern for how to keep Victor from detonating nightly. The team kept feeding Wemby against the Suns and he kept trying to slice his way through a gauntlet of arms to no avail. When it was obvious that wasn’t working, the team largely ran offense around him, which Phoenix was happy to take, and the rest of the league has followed suit to the best of their ability.
But now we have a new paradigm: the team plays through Wemby instead of around him. With the win over Detroit as a high-profile success in the data banks, you’d hope it would be difficult to forget how well it can work. Wemby anchors the defense while the offense benefits from the attention he demands until the opposing defense stumbles over itself trying to defend both the three-point line and a seven-and-a-half-foot alien. By the end of the fourth quarter on Monday night, Detroit had multiple possessions where multiple defenders were leaving Wemby to follow passes to Champagnie at the arc, even though Vic was in the paint.
That the big guy was able to stick with the game plan once was encouraging. That it could become the norm eventually has me downright giddy.
Gomez: It does just give the Spurs a higher floor, which is what they have been missing. The ceiling was already high. And it’s good that the tweak seemed not to be a big deal for the Spurs or most observers. Wembanyama didn’t say he was making some huge sacrifice, and the broadcast only really mentioned it once, late in the third, if I remember correctly. The coaching staff recognized what the Pistons were doing, adjusted, and Wemby and the team were ready to execute. Those possessions in the fourth when they tried to feed him were a little worrisome at the time, but in the end, they didn’t force things. It really was incredibly encouraging.
The opponents will make adjustments, but as you said, they can only do so much. If they sell out trying to stop Wemby, we now know that the Spurs can simply play through Wemby by using his gravity instead of giving him the ball, which makes a lot of counters simply obsolete. The bigger question is whether the supporting cast can consistently deliver as they did against the Pistons. The ball handlers should be fine. The room to drive was always there, and all three see it. We are well past the stage when only Tre Jones realized that the entire defense was geared toward stopping Wemby. The shooters are the potential issue, but the fact that they were all ready to fire away or move the ball is a good sign.
This team is coming together at an insane speed. There’s a lot of room for growth, which is crazy to say of a group that might end up with the best record in the West, but it’s so fun to watch it happen in real time. The Pistons game really seemed like a breakthrough moment, and even if Victor occasionally goes back to forcing things at times, I do believe he understands that he can have a massive positive effect without having to drop 30 by driving into traffic and hitting off-balance shots. I’m excited to see if they can continue to have these mini leaps before the playoffs, because if they do, we might enjoy a deep playoff run sooner than expected.
Wilco: I agree that there is still a question about whether the supporting cast can deliver on a game-to-game basis at the level that they did on Monday night. But even if they can’t, it’s still a win for me, and here’s why. I would rather see the team miss open threes and fail to convert from the mid-range or see contested layups rim out than have the team force-feed Wemby to the point where they are turning the ball over and allowing fast break and transition baskets on the other end. It’s those lost possessions where the team doesn’t even get a shot up that frustrates me, and the degree to which the team can replace offensive turnovers with even medium-percentage shots will raise the floor, as you talked about.
And the higher this team’s floor is, the more they look like a title contender.
By Jeje Gomez, J.R. Wilco, via Pounding The Rock