Victor Wembanyama Made Rudy Gobert Look Silly During Spurs’ Game 5 Win

Victor Wembanyama is a problem. There's really no other way to put it after he turned in a 27-point, 17-rebound, five-assists, three-block performance in just 33 minutes in Game 5 against the Timberwolves on Tuesday night. Wembanyama and the Spurs now have a 3-2 lead in their Western Conference semifinal matchup with Minnesota after their 126-97 win.

If you have any doubt that Wemby is officially a playoff problem, just listen to Anthony Edwards. After the game told the press that sometimes there's really nothing you can do: "Some of the stuff Wemby was doing, you don't really have an answer for."

While Edwards may have been talking about Wembanyama scoring 16 points in the first six minutes of the game, it was also very clear there was nothing to do late in the fourth quarter when the Spurs big man put his fellow French countryman Rudy Gobert in a spin cycle before dishing the ball to Julian Champagnie for an easy basket.

Gobert, a four-time NBA Defensive Player of the Year, slipped down to second team All-Defense this season, but he's still pretty good at what he does. And yet Wemby made him look silly.

This is right up there with what Luka Dončić and Stephen Curry did to Gobert in the past that landed him in some classic Shooting Stars edits. Gobert has been such a good defender for so long he's been meme'd by three different generations of superstars. Talk about a blessing and a curse.

There is a proud tradition of stars cooking great defenders and Wemby is up there right now. No wonder Dylan Harper reacted like he did:

This is the second straight game where Harper's reaction to Wembanyama has gone viral. He was first captured looking shocked by Wemby's elbow to Naz Reid last Sunday.

Clearly we need a camera on Harper at all times in case Wemby does anything interesting.

On top of the tremendous reaction, Harper also had a nice game with 12 points, 10 rebounds, two assists, a block and a steal in 25 minutes off the bench last night. The 20-year old rookie is now averaging 13.6 points, 5.1 rebounds, 2.2 assists and 1.3 steals a game in the playoffs. He's shooting 55% from the field and 38% from three. All of those numbers are better than the ones he posted in the regular season except his assist numbers have dropped.

Maybe the Spurs in general are just a problem. One of the two games they have lost in this series so far was Game 4 where Wembanyama got thrown out in the first half. Who knows if the series would even still be going this morning if Wembanyama hadn't lost his temper on Sunday.

But he did so there will be. Wemby, Harper and the Spurs can now clinch the series on Friday in Minnesota. The game is scheduled for 9:30 p.m. ET on Prime Video. The winner of this series will face the Oklahoma City Thunder in the Western Conference finals.

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