By Mike Finger | San Antonio Express-News (SAEN), 2026-06-14 03:49:19
2026年6月13日星期六，在霜银中心举行的NBA总决赛第五场第二节比赛间隙，圣安东尼奥马刺队中锋维克托·文班亚马 (Victor Wembanyama) (1) 在比赛暂停时调整呼吸。
这会让故事变得更加动人。
当轮到维克托·文班亚马强忍住喜悦的泪水时——也许就在周六深夜杰伦·布伦森 (Jalen Brunson) 洒下热泪的霜银中心地板的同一位置——这一幕将作为闪回画面在屏幕上播放，或者仅仅在他的脑海中闪过。
这将是重重击在他和队友身上的一拳。是他们必须化解的冲突。是他们必须雪耻的痛苦。
当故事尘埃落定时，它不会是一个关于昙花一现的奇迹，也不会是一个关于像“命运”这样无聊字眼的故事。相反，它将关乎他们能从中汲取到什么。
这次NBA总决赛的细节，以及纽约尼克斯队在第五场以94-90取得的胜利（这场胜利为一系列逆转和残酷的现实画上了句号），将为他们提供目标和前行的道路。
“我无法告诉你学到了什么教训，”文班亚马说。
他很快就会用行动告诉我们。
不过，他首先需要治愈伤痛。所有的马刺球员都是如此。尽管他们理智上清楚，自己打到六月中旬已经远远超出了预期——这本该是他们初尝季后赛滋味、仅此而已的一年——但他们的直觉却欺骗了他们，让他们相信那件不可思议的事情是可能实现的。
在西部决赛中，马刺证明了一支连续七年无缘季后赛的球队可以击败卫冕冠军。而在对阵尼克斯的全部五场比赛中，这支由三位23岁以下年轻新星领衔的球队，看起来已经准备好去统治那些在东部横冲直撞的沙场老将了。
然而事实证明，他们还没有准备好在总决赛中应对两位数的领先优势。马刺挥霍了其中的四次，包括在第四场灾难性的比赛中浪费了29分的领先优势，这将在未来数年里成为他们的梦魇，但这也同样可以成为一个非常精彩的故事素材。
如果文班亚马、斯蒂芬·卡斯尔 (Stephon Castle) 和迪伦·哈珀 (Dylan Harper) 对此有任何怀疑，他们只需去请教蒂姆·邓肯 (Tim Duncan)、托尼·帕克 (Tony Parker) 和马努·吉诺比利 (Manu Ginobili)。如果这三位不曾被雷·阿伦 (Ray Allen) 的阴影所折磨，他们或许就不会在2014年夺得总冠军。
这并不是说年轻一代的救赎是板上钉钉的，也不是说文班亚马和他的队友们能像马刺第五冠时那样，以同样冷酷无情的效率将失望转化为动力。
但至少，这种心气是在的。
“让我感到愤怒的是，在重返总决赛之前，我们可能还要打100场比赛，”文班亚马说，“我不知道用英语该怎么表达，但我必须把这种情绪深藏在心底，让自己慢下来，去等待。”
他似乎是在谈论“耐心”，而他难以准确描述这一点也并不令人意外。对于文班亚马来说，耐心并不是一个他能像普通人那样轻易体验到的概念。
哦，他以为自己懂得什么是耐心。作为2023年的选秀状元，他从16岁起就被视作这项运动的下一个全球代言人，在NBA职业生涯的开端忍受两个输球的赛季对他来说是极其痛苦的。
值得称赞的是，他从未逼迫马刺放弃他们的长期计划。“不走捷径”是马刺队的信条，文班亚马也欣然接受了这一点，但本赛季突如其来且势不可挡的成功让这一信条面临了考验。
他打进总决赛的速度比斯蒂芬·库里 (Steph Curry) 快，比勒布朗·詹姆斯 (LeBron James) 快，比迈克尔·乔丹 (Michael Jordan) 快，基本上比过去半个世纪里除邓肯之外的所有伟大球星都要快。
而当周六晚上有人提醒他，那些传奇人物为了最终夺冠等待了多久时，他似乎并没有因此得到安慰。
“这很痛苦，”文班亚马说，“但我不会逃避。”
荣耀本就不该来得太容易。否则，它也就没有那么大的意义了。如果马刺在系列赛中守住了那几次10分的领先优势，并在抢七大战中击败尼克斯，他们确实配得上这一切，但也许他们没能做到是有原因的。
诚然，部分原因在于达龙·福克斯 (De’Aaron Fox) 在最糟糕的时刻遭遇了几次惨痛的收尾。但同样重要的原因在于，布伦森、卡尔-安东尼·唐斯 (Karl-Anthony Towns)、OG·阿奴诺比 (OG Anunoby)、米卡尔·布里奇斯 (Mikal Bridges) 和乔什·哈特 (Josh Hart) 以前都经历过重大的季后赛系列赛并遭遇过失败。更重要的是，他们以前曾一起经历过失败。
尽管文班亚马、卡斯尔和哈珀在对阵尼克斯的某些时间段里表现得非常出色，但在总决赛之前，他们并没有这种共同的经历。而现在，他们有了。
“这其中有很多积极的方面，（而且）刚刚发生的事情也带来了巨大的痛苦，”主教练米奇·约翰逊 (Mitch Johnson) 说道，“这两者可以同时成立。”
还有另一个事实：当马刺的更衣室在本赛季最后一次关闭时，媒体成员通常用来离开的通道被一个巨大的三人拥抱堵住了。
文班亚马站在那里，一只手臂搂着父亲，另一只手臂搂着母亲，他们的头紧紧贴在一起。当记者们意识到这个拥抱短时间内不会结束时，他们便寻找了另一条通道离开。
因为他们深知，这绝非这段让圣安东尼奥久久无法忘怀的篮球故事的终点。
而是一个更美好故事的起点。
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：Why Spurs are in control of what they take from NBA Finals heartbreak
Why Spurs are in control of what they take from NBA Finals heartbreak
San Antonio Spurs center Victor Wembanyama (1) takes a breath during a break in game play during the second quarter of game five of the NBA Championship at Frost Bank Center on Saturday, June13, 2026.
This will make the story better.
When it’s Victor Wembanyama’s turn to choke back tears of joy, perhaps in the very spot on the Frost Bank Center floor where Jalen Brunson shed his late Saturday night, this will be the flashback scene running across the screen, or maybe just through his head.
It will be the punch he and his teammates had to take. The conflict they had to resolve. The agony they had to avenge.
And when the story ends, it will not be one about lightning in a bottle, or a tale about something boring, like destiny. Instead, it will be about what they take from this.
The details of these NBA Finals, and of the 94-90 Game 5 New York Knicks victory that closed a series of comebacks and cold truths, will provide both a purpose and a pathway.
“I can’t tell you what the lesson is,” Wembanyama said.
He will show us soon enough.
He will have some healing to do first. All of the Spurs will. Even though they know in their heads that they made it to mid-June way ahead of schedule — that this was supposed to be the year when they got their first brief taste of the postseason and little more — their guts tricked them into believing the unthinkable was possible.
In the Western Conference finals, the Spurs showed that a franchise that hadn’t made the playoffs in seven years could knock off the defending champs. And in all five games against the Knicks, a team led by three budding superstars under the age of 23 looked ready to dominate the grizzled vets who’d run roughshod through the East.
As it turned out, though, they weren’t prepared to handle a double-digit lead in the NBA Finals. The Spurs blew four of them, including a wasted 29-point advantage in a Game 4 calamity that will haunt them for years, but that can make for a pretty good story, too.
If Wembanyama, Stephon Castle and Dylan Harper have any doubts about this, they need only consult with Tim Duncan, Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili. Those latter three probably wouldn’t have become champions in 2014 had they never been haunted by Ray Allen.
This isn’t to say that redemption for the younger generation is guaranteed, or that Wembanyama and company will channel their disappointment with the same ruthless efficiency as the Spurs’ fifth title team did.
But at least the sentiment is there.
“What I’m pissed about is that there’s probably 100 games before we can be back in Finals,” Wembanyama said. “I don’t know how to say it in English, but I’m going to have to hold that inside of me, and slow down and wait.”
He was talking, it seems, about patience, and it’s no surprise that he struggled to describe it. It is not a concept that Wembanyama typically experiences like most people do.
Oh, he thinks he knows what patience is. To the No. 1 pick in the 2023 draft, who’s been pegged as the next worldwide face of the sport since he was 16, enduring two losing seasons to start his NBA career was excruciating.
To his credit, he never pushed the Spurs to abandon their long-term plan. “No skipping steps” was a franchise mantra that Wembanyama embraced, but the sudden, overwhelming success of this season put that to the test.
He reached the Finals more quickly than Steph Curry, more quickly than LeBron James, more quickly than Michael Jordan, more quickly than basically all of the greats of the past half-century outside of Duncan.
And when he was reminded Saturday night about how long those legends had to wait to eventually win it all, he did not seem comforted by the idea.
“It’s painful,” Wembanyama said. “But I’m not running away from that.”
Glory is not supposed to come easily. It wouldn’t mean much if it did. Had the Spurs held on to a couple of those 10-point leads in this series, and gone on to beat the Knicks in seven games, they would have earned every bit of it, but maybe there’s a reason they didn’t.
Part of the reason, granted, was that De’Aaron Fox picked a terrible time to have a couple of brutal finishes. But just as big of a reason was that Brunson, Karl-Anthony Towns, OG Anunoby, Mikal Bridges and Josh Hart had been in big playoff series and failed before. More than that, they’d failed together before.
For as great as Wembanyama, Castle and Harper each were in stretches against the Knicks, they didn’t have that shared experience before the Finals. Now they do.
“There’s a lot of good in that, (and) there’s a lot of pain in what just happened,” coach Mitch Johnson said. “Both things can be true.”
Here is something else that’s true: As the Spurs’ locker room was closing for the final time this season, the hallway that media members typically use to exit was blocked by a massive triangular hug.
Wembanyama stood there with one arm wrapped around his father and the other around his mother, their heads pressed together. And once it became obvious that this embrace wasn’t going to conclude any time soon, reporters found another way out.
Knowing this was not the end of a basketball story San Antonio won’t soon forget.
It was the beginning of a better one.
By Mike Finger, via San Antonio Express-News