The iron fist of Wembanyama: Spurs continue their winning streak
The Spurs’ center absorbs every advantage of the struggling Hornets. San Antonio has won 17 of its last 19 games and is hot on the heels of the Thunder.
The Charlotte Hornets are a good team if you isolate the last few weeks and consider their young starting five (LaMelo Ball, Kon Knueppel, Brandon Miller, Miles Bridges, Moussa Diabate). But they spent Saturday afternoon at the Frost Bank Center chasing shadows.
They were always trailing the San Antonio Spurs, never seeming able to catch up. The faster they tried to push the pace, the faster their opponents matched them. Like a coyote chasing the Road Runner, all their traps blew up in their faces, some almost successful, others not, against a team that controlled the game, set the tempo, and cruised to a 115–102 victory.
Wemby shows why he’s untouchable
Yes, the Hornets are a good team, but their fate seems destined for the Eastern Conference play-in. A few days ago, they might have had a shot to avoid it, but on the bright side, it’s still far better than when they were 11–23. Now at 34–34, they’ve done well, but beating the Spurs in San Antonio requires more than a good team. You need to be great, have a perfect game, and have a plan (not an ACME-style cartoon plan) to even annoy Victor Wembanyama.
Victor Wembanyama is officially pressing the gas. With the Spurs winning 16 of their last 17 and Wemby coming off a 39-point masterclass against Boston, the race for the hardware is heating up. 📈🛡️#Wemby #Spurs pic.twitter.com/jsPsfGGxFl
— Essentially Dunk (@DunkEssentially) March 15, 2026
Some players are hard to figure out. Wembanyama is not one of them. What he does is simple, almost like something you’d program in a 2K simulator to create the perfect player. The challenge isn’t understanding him...it’s surviving him. Very few can. The Spurs are now 49–18, winning 17 of their last 19, leaving no one in the rearview (the Lakers, third in the West, aren’t even visible), and still chasing the Thunder in an improbable but not impossible surge. They are now just three games behind, essentially two and a half given the Spurs’ 4–1 head-to-head advantage.
Kon Knueppel (20 points, 6 rebounds), likely the main competitor for Rookie of the Year alongside Cooper Flagg, lit up his exceptional shooting touch in the third quarter, giving the Hornets a glimmer of hope. But that was it. Foul trouble slowed LaMelo Ball, and it wasn’t Brandon Miller’s night (6 points, 2/14 shooting) in the battle between the No. 1 and No. 2 picks from the 2023 class.
Miller is talented and will score plenty in the NBA, but Wembanyama is in another league. After sitting out one game, he returned and disrupted every Hornets plan. Simply by putting his limitless body and masterful court control on the floor, he created imbalance, which then turned into a symphony of threes, mid-range shots, finishes around the rim, smart passes to beat double teams, instinctive transition plays… finishing with 32 points, 12 rebounds, 8 assists, 4 blocks, and 5/10 from three.
“Right now I want to take care of my body because I want to win MVP and Defensive Player of the Year,” he said. He probably won’t win MVP this season, but it seems impossible for him to avoid it in the next few years. And honestly, it would be strange if he only wins one. Defensive Player of the Year is almost guaranteed unless the 65-game rule from last season comes into play. He has played 51 games and the team has 67 total, so he’ll need 14 more. Beyond that, Wembanyama is proving, after missing time last season due to blood clots, that he can handle a full, high-intensity regular season.
If anyone had doubts about his endurance, they should be gone now. In the last five games, all against playoff-caliber opponents, he’s averaging 33 points, 11.4 rebounds, 3.8 blocks, and 3.2 assists. In March alone, he’s hitting 3.3 threes per game at 42.6%. Those are MVP-level numbers and vibes, even if the timing isn’t right this season.
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