Victor Wembanyama and the San Antonio Spurs will look to stretch the NBA’s longest winning streak to eight games when they visit the Portland Trail Blazers on Saturday night.
The Spurs lost their first two games of the season before beginning the winning streak, during which they have five double-digit victories.
Wembanyama made four 3-pointers and had 30 points, 14 rebounds and two blocked shots in Friday night’s 124-109 road victory over the Sacramento Kings in NBA Cup play.
Those numbers were tame compared to his historic Wednesday night outing, when he had career bests of 52 points and 24 rebounds to go with eight blocked shots in a 112-111 home win over the Dallas Mavericks.
That was the NBA’s first 50/20/5 statline since Bob McAdoo had 52 points, 22 rebounds and seven blocked shots for the Buffalo Braves in 1974.
Wembanyama has scored at least 30 points in four of the past five games and is averaging 34.6 points during the stretch. But Spurs coach Mitch Johnson said there is no expectation that Wembanyama will continue to score points at that pace.
“I expect Victor to play the right way,” Johnson said. “… There are teams that make concerted efforts to take him away, and what that should do is open up opportunities for his teammates. I don’t think we should be worried about anybody getting a certain number of points.”
Stephon Castle (seven assists), Dylan Harper and Devin Vassell all added 19 points for San Antonio on Friday. Vassell made a season-high five 3-pointers in six attempts.
Vassell was just 1 of 15 from behind the arc over the previous four games.
“He’s had a couple games this year where he just missed shots,” Johnson said.
Vassell knows that if he makes more long-range shots, things will open up inside for Wembanyama.
“He’s unstoppable when he puts two feet in the paint,” Vassell said. “There’s nothing (opponents) can do. … This year, we have made an emphasis of him getting the ball lower in the paint and making sure he’s dominating the game.”
Portland also is off to a strong start, having won six of its first eight games. The second loss came Friday, 124-118 to the host Los Angeles Lakers to complete the Blazers’ 3-1 road trip as the Lakers won their fourth straight game to improve to 8-2.
Deni Avdija just missed a triple-double with 22 points, 11 assists and nine rebounds for the Blazers. Damian Lillard also had 22 points.
Portland coach Micah Nori said his squad was its own biggest enemy in the setback.
“We had 24 turnovers and allowed 17 offensive rebounds, and that adds up to 41 extra possessions for them,” he said. “… That was essentially the ballgame.”
Of course, Lakers star Luka Doncic also was a huge factor. He scored a season-best 53 points and is averaging an NBA-high of 40.1 points a game.
Portland was outscored 34-15 in the third quarter before scoring 43 fourth-quarter points to put a scare in Los Angeles.
“We have a resilient group,” Nori said. “They battled back, and they obviously compete.”
This will be the first meeting between the teams since the Spurs beat Portland in a first-round playoff series in five games last season. Wembanyama averaged 21.0 points, 8.8 rebounds and 4.0 blocks despite missing most of Game 2 and all of Game 3 due to a concussion.
San Antonio took two of three regular-season games from the Trail Blazers last season. Wembanyama missed each game due to a different injury.
Avdija averaged 31.7 points, with a high of 37, in the regular-season matchups.
–Field Level Media
