Victor Wembanyama did not dress up the first half. Speaking after San Antonio's 124-119 win over Chicago, as reported by TalkBasket, he said the Spurs simply could not get a stop early, and that the Bulls got into a rhythm the Spurs had to chase.
"They wanted more than us in the first half," he said. "Couldn't get a stop. We let them get a rhythm and it was a whole new game in the second half. We just got back to normal. It was really bad first half for us."
The scoreboard backs that up. Chicago scored 41 points in the opening quarter, led 64-42 midway through the second, and shot 66% from the field in the half, including 10-for-12 from three over the start of the game. San Antonio spent most of the night answering that start rather than setting the terms.
What stood out in his account was the tone. Asked about the locker room at halftime, he described the players as "focused, not worried, but appropriately concerned." He also made a point about habit: when a team keeps repeating the same mistake, talking about it stops carrying weight, so the answer has to appear on the floor. Wembanyama finished with 32 points, nine rebounds and five blocks, an line that places him near the centre of the night without the report crediting him with a specific sequence that turned the game.
That is the useful detail for a team on a ten-game run. The streak can disguise a bad quarter, and this one nearly cost the Spurs the game. The comeback answered the scoreboard, but the first-half stops are the part still unresolved.
