By Ben Golliver, 2026-06-14 19:00:00
最令人难忘的画面出现在维克托·文班亚马 (Victor Wembanyama) 首次总决赛的第四场首节。当时，这位圣安东尼奥马刺队的球星在诱使纽约尼克斯队中锋米切尔·罗宾逊 (Mitchell Robinson) 吃到一次恶意犯规后，微笑着指了指自己的太阳穴。文班亚马看起来非常得意，因为他成功搞了罗宾逊的心态。
然而到了深夜，他的得意被证明只是狂妄自大：马刺队在第四场比赛中痛失29分的领先优势，输掉了这轮系列赛的关键之战。未能从这场痛苦的失利中恢复过来的马刺队，在周六的第五场比赛中再次于第四节崩盘，最终以90-94不敌尼克斯的第五场失利输给尼克斯队，赛季也就此结束。
在令人惊叹的季后赛首秀中，22岁的文班亚马打出了历史级的统治数据，并带领马刺队自2014年以来首次杀入总决赛。他证明了自己能够扛起球队，应对季后赛级别的对抗，并妥善处理巨大名气带来的重重挑战。然而，马刺队最终只能作为亚军离开弗罗斯特银行中心，这种近在咫尺却失之交臂的痛苦，文班亚马此前在2024年巴黎奥运会金牌争夺战中代表法国国家队输给美国队时就曾经历过。
在这轮异常胶着的总决赛中，全部五场比赛在最后一分钟内的分差都在5分以内。而在马刺队输掉的几场比赛的关键时刻，文班亚马的表现低于其正常水准，并在关键节点因急躁和误判犯下了几次决策性失误。随着他步入可能长达十年甚至更久的争冠窗口期，文班亚马只需回看自己与罗宾逊交锋的录像，就能找到夺得职业生涯首冠最关键的要素。
答案就在他那修长的食指所指之处：他的头脑。
“这是我人生中最大的一课，”文班亚马说道，“让我感到恼火的是，在我们重新回到总决赛之前，可能还要打上百场比赛。我必须把这种情绪深藏在心底，沉下心来去等待。”
本届NBA总决赛于本月初拉开帷幕，这本应是文班亚马的加冕礼。在西部决赛中，他带领马刺队力克俄克拉荷马城雷霆队，挺进了篮球世界的最高舞台。在那轮系列赛中，文班亚马的表现完胜联盟蝉联MVP谢伊·吉尔杰斯-亚历山大 (Shai Gilgeous-Alexander)，并在2-3落后的绝境下，通过在客场赢下抢七大战击败卫冕冠军，将年轻的马刺队拉了回来。
马刺队在总决赛开打前更被博彩公司看好，而作为自1947年以来进入总决赛最年轻的最佳阵容一阵成员，文班亚马已经在脑海中勾勒出用香槟和彩带为自己职业生涯第三个赛季画上圆满句号的画面。
“当我们赢得[奥布莱恩杯]的那一天，对我个人而言，将是梦想成真的美妙时刻，”他在西决抢七大战后说道，“这很难用言语来表达。这几乎就像是我生命的意义所在。”
当来自世界各地的媒体因总决赛齐聚德克萨斯州时，他们在圣安东尼奥的每个角落都能看到文班亚马的名字和肖像。他修长的双臂和瘦削的身影出现在多幅巨型壁画上、整个河滨步道（Riverwalk）景区的彩绘标识上，以及酒吧和餐馆的宣传传单上。在弗罗斯特银行中心，一张印有他头部剪影的海报迎接着每一位来客；东区的一家咖啡馆甚至在临街橱窗上喷涂了一个抱着篮球的绿色外星人，以此向文班亚马“外星人”的绰号致敬。
文班亚马迅速崛起成为超级巨星，重新点燃了圣安东尼奥球迷的激情。这群球迷曾在1999年至2014年间为五支冠军球队欢呼，但自2019年以来就再未品尝过季后赛的滋味。整个六月，“马刺加油 (Go Spurs Go)”的口号印在了T恤、电影院招牌和全市的公交车上；马刺队的队旗也纷纷挂上了前廊、皮卡车后挡板，甚至挂上了一台高耸的建筑起重机。为了庆祝季后赛的胜利，球迷们开着车在市中心转悠，鸣笛狂欢直至凌晨。
在第一场比赛前夕的总决赛媒体日上，几位齐聚一堂的名人堂成员让这种狂热和兴奋达到了顶点。加里·佩顿 (Gary Payton) 宣称，这位身高7英尺4英寸（约2.24米）的文班亚马“已经接班成为NBA的门面”。詹姆斯·沃西 (James Worthy) 的评价则更进一步。
“这就像是在看[斯蒂芬]·库里 (Stephen Curry) 投三分，同时他兼具科比·布莱恩特 (Kobe Bryant) 的敏捷性，以及卡里姆·[阿卜杜勒-贾巴尔] (Kareem Abdul-Jabbar) 和威尔特·[张伯伦] (Wilt Chamberlain) 的统治力，”沃西说道，“[文班亚马]集所有这些特质于一身。在未来几年内，他完全有可能被评为有史以来最伟大的篮球运动员。他现在才22岁，等他25岁时会成什么样？”
然而，一旦比赛正式开打，这位巨人神童迅速登顶篮球之巅的完美剧本便遭遇了波折。
在第一场输给尼克斯队的比赛中，文班亚马手感冰凉。尼克斯队在最后两分钟打出一波11-0的高潮，以105-95带走胜利。在第二场失利的最后一分钟里，马刺队的战术执行再次出现问题：文班亚马在最后30秒内两次跳投不中，还传球砸在了队友斯蒂芬·卡斯尔 (Stephon Castle) 的背上，随后又送出一次犯规，送尼克斯队后卫杰伦·布伦森 (Jalen Brunson) 上罚球线，后者罚球绝杀。
在文班亚马憧憬捧起冠军奖杯后不到一周，他承认自己对关键时刻那些致命失误的记忆“ 非常模糊 ”。他表示自己需要展现出“更多的沉着[和]掌控力”，并对自己临近终场哨响前在右侧肘区错失的跳投感到懊悔。
“我当然喜欢那次出手，”他说道，“但在这样的时刻，结果比过程更重要。我必须把球投进。”
那次传给卡斯尔的糟糕传球成为了文班亚马心中“最令人沮丧的事”，这也让他在这场104-105的惜败中，空砍了29分和9个篮板的努力付诸东流。
“这就像是身体的反应比大脑更快，”他说道，“我把那次机会搞砸了。我犯了错。我们作为一个整体打得不够好。我们本需要赢下那场比赛，那场胜利本该属于我们……我会后悔吗？是的，当然会。”
随着系列赛移师纽约，尼克斯队手握2-0的领先优势，文班亚马似乎也承认，在经历了与雷霆队那轮艰苦卓绝且情绪消耗极大的系列赛后，自己有些想得太远了。
“就我个人而言，我认为自己在从[西部]决赛的兴奋劲中调整过来这方面，本可以做得更好，”他说道，“但事已至此，我们现在无法改变过去了。”
随着第三场比赛在麦迪逊广场花园的二级市场最低票价飙升至4000美元以上，且总统唐纳德·特朗普 (Donald Trump) 在豪华包厢内观战，文班亚马用他在这轮系列赛中最具统治力的表现，回应了现场如同马戏团般狂热的氛围。
由于特朗普的出席，文班亚马这个伟大的夜晚始于一次彻底的安全检查，并最终以32分、8个篮板和6次助攻的数据，帮助球队取得115-111的胜利而告终。尼克斯队像对待世界上最好的球员那样防守文班亚马，抓住一切机会拉拽他的手臂并与他发生身体碰撞。尽管如此，他依然兑现了沃西的高度赞誉，通过命中三分球、完成空中接力扣篮以及送出残暴的盖帽，让纽约的观众陷入了一片死寂。
将NBA最耀眼的年轻新星与全美最大的市场结合在一起，事实证明这是一个极具威力的公式：第三场比赛平均吸引了2380万观众，创下了自2017年以来总决赛单场收视率的新高，是去年总决赛第三场观众人数的两倍多。更重要的是，马刺队与尼克斯队在前四场总决赛中创下了自1998年迈克尔·乔丹 (Michael Jordan) 领衔的芝加哥公牛队对阵犹他爵士队以来，总决赛前四场的最高平均收视人数。
文班亚马在曼哈顿这个备受瞩目的“玻璃鱼缸”里的一举一动都会登上头条，无论是在高档的格拉梅西公园（Gramercy Park）画一尊雕像，还是光着脚走向麦迪逊广场花园的新闻发布会。感受到了威胁的尼克斯队球迷对他进行了无情的嘘声，并用粗俗的口号起哄。在第四场比赛结束后，甚至有人在马刺队入住的酒店外朝他的方向扔了一个鸡蛋。
最终，文班亚马和马刺队在这个高压锅般的环境中败下阵来。在第四场比赛建立起29分的领先优势后，圣安东尼奥遭遇了总决赛历史上最惨烈的崩盘，并在比赛还剩1.2秒时，因尼克斯队前锋OG·阿奴诺比 (OG Anunoby) 的补篮得手，以以106-107憾负。
文班亚马出战了44分钟——这是他在今年季后赛非加时比赛中出场时间最长的一场——并显露出了明显的疲态。随着尼克斯队不断蚕食分差，他只能依赖跳投，无法在内线制造得分威胁。纽约在第四节将文班亚马限制到仅通过9次出手得到5分，且他在最后两分钟里错失了两次关键的罚球。
就在泰勒·斯威夫特 (Taylor Swift)、斯派克·李 (Spike Lee)、提莫西·查拉梅 (Timothée Chalamet) 等尼克斯队的明星拥趸在场边欢呼雀跃时，士气低落的马刺队队员在更衣室里默默地盯着自己的手机。在输球后的第一时间，文班亚马指出，下半场的“执行力”问题、“某种程度上的贪心”以及缺乏“饥饿感”是导致失利的原因。
在花了整整两天时间来消化这场创纪录的败仗后，文班亚马依然无法相信所发生的一切。
“我们有一千种方法可以不输掉那场比赛，”他说道。
马刺队重蹈覆辙，在第五场失利中再次上演了同样令人抓狂的剧本，痛失16分的领先优势，也让文班亚马夺得首冠的梦想破灭。文班亚马在比赛初期表现活跃，全场砍下19分、14个篮板和5次盖帽，但在赛季生死攸关的时刻，他再次隐身。而在决定系列赛归属的第四节中，总决赛MVP布伦森以15-3的单节得分完胜文班亚马。
尽管如此，文班亚马在自己的首次季后赛之旅中，效率值 (PER) 依然高居第一（26.3），总篮板数和盖帽数领跑所有球员，总得分也仅次于布伦森位列第二。在所有打进总决赛的球员中，文班亚马季后赛场均23.8分、10.9个篮板和3.5次盖帽的数据，此前只有阿卜杜勒-贾巴尔和哈基姆·奥拉朱旺 (Hakeem Olajuwon) 曾做到过。正如NBA总裁亚当·肖华 (Adam Silver) 在总决赛第一场前不久所指出的那样，文班亚马的发展“已经超越了人们预想的任何时间表”。
“他[文班亚马的领导力]成长了太多，”马刺队主教练米奇·约翰逊 (Mitch Johnson) 在周六表示，“他带着恰到好处的无畏和对大场面的敬畏，踏入每一个关键时刻，并始终做最真实的自己。他正带着他的队友和身边的每一个人共同进步。观察这一过程真的非常有趣。”
鉴于在五场系列赛中，纽约总共只比圣安东尼奥多得了12分，文班亚马对精神胜利或安慰奖毫无兴趣。马刺队的惜败提醒他，任何事情都不能视作理所当然，同时也让他看清了在最高强度的对抗下，究竟需要付出什么才能稳稳收下胜利。
他目前的处境让人联想到了职业生涯早期的勒布朗·詹姆斯 (LeBron James)——其率领的克利夫兰骑士队在2007年总决赛中被马刺队横扫；以及凯文·杜兰特 (Kevin Durant)——其率领的雷霆队在2012年总决赛中以1-4不敌迈阿密热火队。詹姆斯和杜兰特都从成长的阵痛中吸取了教训，并在此后为四支不同的球队总共赢得了六次总冠军。
为了夺得属于自己的总冠军，文班亚马必须通过丰富自己的常规得分手段、提升体能以及加深对掌控比赛节奏的理解，从而在最关键的时刻做好更充分的准备。
文班亚马的首次总决赛之旅给他上了沉重但必要的一课：真正的冠军在关键时刻绝不会“记忆模糊”。
“容错空间非常非常小，”他说道，“在系列赛的大部分时间里，我们绝对占据了主导地位。但我们的失误、我们的犯错，代价太惨重了……[输球]是痛苦的，但我不会逃避。我会以此为动力。没有赢得胜利，我绝不甘心。”
由生成式 AI 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's first NBA Finals trip ends with regrets
Victor Wembanyama’s first NBA Finals trip ends with regrets
THE LASTING IMAGE of Victor Wembanyama’s first NBA Finals came in the first quarter of Game 4, when the San Antonio Spurs star smiled and pointed at his temple after goading New York Knicks center Mitchell Robinson into a flagrant foul. Wembanyama looked delighted that he had gotten into Robinson’s head.
By night’s end, his glee was revealed to be hubris: San Antonio blew a 29-point lead to lose Game 4, the pivotal contest of the series. Unable to recover from the excruciating defeat, the Spurs suffered another fourth-quarter collapse Saturday in a season-ending 94-90 Game 5 loss to the Knicks.
During a mesmerizing postseason debut in which he posted historic numbers and led the Spurs to their first Finals appearance since 2014, the 22-year-old Wembanyama proved he could carry a team, handle playoff physicality and manage the many challenges posed by his immense fame. Yet San Antonio left the Frost Bank Center as runners-up, an oh-so-close agony Wembanyama previously experienced when his French national team lost to the United States in the gold medal game at the 2024 Paris Olympics.
In an exceptionally tight Finals in which all five games were within five points in the final minute, Wembanyama played below his standard down the stretch of San Antonio’s losses and made several mental mistakes by rushing and miscalculating at crucial moments. As he enters a championship window that could span a decade or longer, Wembanyama must only look back at the tape of his exchange with Robinson to find the most important ingredient to his first title.
The answer is right there at the end of his slender index finger: his mind.
“This is the biggest lesson of my life,” Wembanyama said. “What I’m pissed about is that there’s probably 100 games before we can get back to the Finals. I’m going to have to hold that inside of me and slow down and wait.”
THE NBA FINALS launched earlier this month as a would-be coronation for Wembanyama, who led the Spurs to basketball’s biggest stage by outlasting the Oklahoma City Thunder in the Western Conference finals. In that series, Wembanyama handily outplayed Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, the league’s back-to-back MVP, and pulled the young Spurs out of a 3-2 deficit by winning Game 7 on the road against the defending champions.
San Antonio entered the Finals as betting favorites, and Wembanyama, the youngest All-NBA first-team selection to reach the Finals since 1947, was already visualizing the champagne and confetti that would cap his third season.
“The day we win [the Larry O’Brien Trophy], speaking for myself, is going to be an amazing day of the realization of a dream,” he said after Game 7 of the West finals. “It’s hard to put into words. It’s almost like the meaning of my life.”
When media members from around the world descended upon Texas for the Finals, they encountered Wembanyama’s name and likeness everywhere in San Antonio. His long arms and thin frame appeared in several giant murals, on painted signs throughout the Riverwalk area and on fliers advertising bars and restaurants. A poster with a silhouette of his head greeted visitors at the Frost Bank Center, and an Eastside coffee shop spray-painted a green extraterrestrial with a basketball on its front window in honor of Wembanyama’s “Alien” nickname.
Wembanyama’s swift rise to stardom has rekindled the passion of a San Antonio fanbase that cheered five championship teams between 1999 and 2014 but hadn’t seen playoff basketball since 2019. The “Go Spurs Go” slogan was plastered on T-shirts, movie theatre marquees and city buses around the city throughout June, and Spurs flags popped up on front porches, pickup truck tailgates and a towering construction crane. To celebrate playoff wins, fans drove around downtown honking their car horns until the wee hours of the morning.
The hype and excitement reached a fever pitch among several Hall of Famer players who gathered at Finals media day on the eve of Game 1. Gary Payton declared that the 7-foot-4 Wembanyama “has taken over as the face of the NBA.” James Worthy went even further.
“It’s like watching [Stephen] Curry shoot the 3 with the agility of Kobe Bryant and the dominance of Kareem [Abdul-Jabbar] and Wilt [Chamberlain],” Worthy said. “[Wembanyama] has all that combined. It’s possible in the next couple of years that he could be named the best player who has ever played the game. He’s 22. What happens when he’s 25?”
ONCE THE GAMES started, the tidy story of a gigantic prodigy speed-climbing to basketball’s summit met some complications.
Wembanyama shot poorly in a Game 1 loss to the Knicks, who outscored San Antonio 11-0 in the final two minutes of their 105-95 win. The Spurs struggled to execute again in the final minute of a Game 2 defeat: Wembanyama missed two jumpers in the final 30 seconds, threw a bad pass off teammate Stephon Castle’s back and committed a foul to set up the game-winning free throw for Knicks guard Jalen Brunson.
Less than one week after Wembanyama had imagined winning the championship trophy, he acknowledged that his vision of his crunch time misadventures was “very blurry.” He said he needed to display “more poise [and] more control,” and he lamented missing a jumper from the right elbow just before the buzzer.
“Of course I liked the shot,” he said. “In moments like this, results matter more than process. I need to score.”
The ill-advised pass to Castle lingered as “the most frustrating thing” for Wembanyama, who squandered a 29-point, nine-rebound effort in a 105-104 loss.
“It’s like [the] body reacts quicker than the mind,” he said. “I threw that one away. I messed up. We didn’t play great as a team. We needed to win that game. This game was ours. … Am I going to regret it? Yes, of course.”
As the series shifted to New York with the Knicks holding a 2-0 lead, Wembanyama seemingly admitted that he had gotten ahead of himself after the hard-fought and emotional series against the Thunder.
“Personally, I think I could have been better in recovering from the high of the [Western] conference finals,” he said. “But here we are. We can’t change the past now.”
WITH THE GET-IN price to Game 3 at Madison Square Garden soaring above $4,000 on the secondary market and President Donald Trump watching from a luxury box, Wembanyama responded to the circus-like atmosphere with his most dominant performance of the series.
Wembanyama’s big night began with a thorough security screening due to Trump’s presence and ended with 32 points, eight rebounds, and six assists in a 115-111 victory. The Knicks treated Wembanyama like he was the best player in the world, grabbing his arms and bumping him at every opportunity. Still, he lived up to Worthy’s lofty praise by drilling 3-pointers, finishing lob dunks and viciously blocking shots to leave the New York crowd in stunned silence.
Pairing the NBA’s brightest young star with the country’s largest market turned out to be a potent formula: Game 3 averaged 23.8 million viewers, the highest mark for a Finals game since 2017 and more than double the audience for Game 3 of last year’s Finals. What’s more, the Spurs and Knicks drew the highest average audience through four Finals games since Michael Jordan’s Chicago Bulls faced the Utah Jazz in 1998.
Wembanyama’s every move in the Manhattan fishbowl garnered headlines, whether he was drawing a picture of a statue at the exclusive Gramercy Park or walking barefoot to a news conference at Madison Square Garden. Sensing a threat, Knicks fans booed him relentlessly and heckled him with profane chants. After Game 4, someone even threw an egg in his direction outside the Spurs’ hotel.
Ultimately, Wembanyama and the Spurs came undone in the pressure cooker. After building a 29-point lead in Game 4, San Antonio suffered the worst collapse in Finals history and lost 107-106 on a putback by Knicks forward OG Anunoby with 1.2 seconds left.
Wembanyama logged 44 minutes – the most he played in a non-overtime game during the playoffs – and showed clear signs of fatigue. With the Knicks chipping away, he settled for jumpers and was unable to establish himself as an interior scoring threat. New York held Wembanyama to five points on nine shots in the fourth quarter, and he missed a pair of clutch free throws in the final two minutes.
As Taylor Swift, Spike Lee, Timothée Chalamet and other celebrity fans of the Knicks jumped for joy nearby, the demoralized Spurs silently stared at their phones in the locker room. In the immediate aftermath of the loss, Wembanyama cited “execution” issues, “greediness of some sort” and a lack of “hunger” in the second half as contributing factors.
After taking two days to process the record-setting defeat, Wembanyama still couldn’t believe what had happened.
“There were a thousand ways we could have not lost that game,” he said.
THE SPURS SUCCUMBED to the same maddening script in their Game 5 loss, squandering a 16-point lead to dash Wembanyama’s dream of winning his first championship. Wembanyama was active early and finished with 19 points, 14 rebounds and five blocks, but he faded again with the season on the line. Brunson, the Finals MVP, outscored him 15-3 in the series-deciding fourth quarter.
Nevertheless, Wembanyama ranked first in Player Efficiency Rating (26.3) during his first postseason run and led all players in total rebounds and blocks while finishing second to Brunson in points. Wembanyama’s playoff averages of 23.8 points, 10.9 rebounds and 3.5 blocks have only been matched by Abdul-Jabbar and Hakeem Olajuwon among players who reached the Finals. As NBA commissioner Adam Silver noted shortly before Game 1 of the Finals, Wembanyama is “ahead of any timeline that people had in mind.”
“[Wembanyama’s leadership] has grown tremendously,” Spurs coach Mitch Johnson said Saturday. “He’s stepped into every moment with the appropriate amount of fearlessness and respect for the moment and being exactly who he is. He’s bringing his teammates and everybody else along with him. It’s been pretty fun to observe.”
Wembanyama had no interest in moral victories or consolation prizes given that New York outscored San Antonio by a total of just 12 points across the five-game series. The Spurs’ narrow losses reminded him that he shouldn’t take anything for granted, and they showed him exactly what it takes to close out wins under maximum intensity.
His current predicament recalls the early-career versions of LeBron James, whose Cleveland Cavaliers were swept by the Spurs in the 2007 Finals, and Kevin Durant, whose Thunder lost to the Miami Heat in five games in the 2012 Finals. James and Durant learned from their growing pains and went on to win a combined six championships for four franchises.
To claim one of his own, Wembanyama must better prepare himself for the biggest moments by expanding his package of go-to scoring moves, improving his stamina and developing his understanding of how to manage game flow.
Wembanyama’s first journey to the Finals taught him a hard but necessary lesson: Champions don’t get “blurry” in the clutch.
“The margin of error is very, very thin,” he said. “We absolutely dominated for most of the series. But our errors, our mistakes, are punished so hard. … [Losing] is painful, but I’m not running away from that. I’m using that to fuel me. I’m not satisfied with not winning.”
By Ben Golliver, via ESPN