Victor Wembanyama: Spurs learned painful lesson in Finals loss

The Spurs spent much of the NBA Finals doing exactly what they wanted. The problem was they couldn’t finish.

San Antonio built double-digit leads in all five games against the Knicks, only to watch New York storm back time and again en route to a 4-1 series victory.

For Victor Wembanyama, that’s what made the loss especially frustrating.

“The margin for error is very thin,” Wembanyama said, via ESPN. “Our domination stints are absolute. We absolutely dominated for most of the series. But our errors, our mistakes are punished so hard that we can’t have ups and downs like this so much.

“The ups are OK. The downs are the reason we lost.”

The Spurs led by as many as 16 points in Game 5 before watching Jalen Brunson score 45 points and carry New York to a 94-90 victory and the championship.

Despite the disappointment, Wembanyama said the experience should serve as a valuable lesson for a young Spurs team that reached the Finals far sooner than most expected.

“This is the biggest lesson of my life, the biggest learning moment,” he said. “I can’t tell you exactly what the lesson is. But we’re learning from that.”

The scary part for the rest of the NBA? Wembanyama is only 22.

And based on his comments, it doesn’t sound like he’s planning to forget this one anytime soon.