![\"SBG](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/6ae2b6b5-ee02-47cd-8269-33a6951826d4-AircheckKABBAM_051126_0500_frame_718859.jpeg\"\/)
<\/p>\nSan Antonio Spurs got the best possible outcome on Monday.<\/p>\n
Our Don Harris confirms that Victor Wembanyama will play in Game 5 of the NBA western conference semi-finals in San Antonio Tuesday against the Timberwolves.<\/p>\n
“Two league sources say no prior history and lead up to Elbow played a role. If first foul on play had been called, probably would not have happened,” explained Harris.<\/p>\n
With one frustrated swing of his right elbow on Sunday night, Wembanyama changed the course of Game 4 \u2014 and perhaps the series.<\/p>\n
Ejected after striking Timberwolves center Naz Reid in the throat early in the second quarter, Wembanyama was confined to watching his teammates admirably overcome his notable absence before fading down the stretch in a 114-109 defeat that evened the series at two games apiece.<\/p>\n
“It was a whole lot of grabbing and pushing and shoving, but that’s a part of the game,” said Spurs rookie Dylan Harper, who matched his career high with 24 points. “The next man has got to step up. I think we all did a great job of controlling what we can control.”<\/p>\n
Wembanyama was swarmed by Reid and Jaden McDaniels after grabbing an offensive rebound following a missed 3-pointer. With McDaniels tugging on his left arm, Wembanyama snapped and jabbed his right arm back toward Reid \u2014 and struck him square in the neck.<\/p>\n
Television replays showed Harper behind the scrum with a stunned expression, his mouth agape. McDaniels quickly bearhugged Wembanyama to try to avoid escalation, and the 7-foot-4 Wembanyama took a seat on the bench while the officials reviewed the video with the fans at Target Center chanting, “Kick him out!”<\/p>\n
The foul was upgraded to a Flagrant 2 for excessive contact above the neck. That penalty triggers an automatic ejection, immediately swinging the balance of a pivotal game in the series toward the Timberwolves. The Spurs had the lead after their 115-108 win in Game 3 on Friday.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
When the penalty was announced, Wembanyama appeared to ask teammate Harrison Barnes, “What does that mean?” He slapped hands with each of his Spurs teammates on his way off the floor, with the arena sound system blaring Michael Jackson’s “Beat it!”<\/p>\n
Wembanyama finished with four points, four rebounds and three fouls in 13 minutes.<\/p>\n
Spurs head coach Mitch Johnson defended Wembanyama after the star center’s ejection.<\/p>\n
Johnson said he did not believe the play was intentional, calling it \u201ca tough break\u201d while acknowledging \u201cthe call was warranted\u201d because of the outcome of the play. He also made clear he was relieved Reid was not injured, saying, \u201cI\u2019m glad Naz Reid was okay,\u201d and adding, \u201cI didn\u2019t want him to elbow him.\u201d<\/p>\n
Still, Johnson strongly criticized what he sees as the lack of protection Wembanyama receives from officials. <\/p>\n
It\u2019s getting to a point that if the people that are in charge of controlling the game and protecting the physicality of the game don\u2019t do that, then at some point he\u2019s going to have to protect himself.\u201d Johnson went even further, calling the treatment of Wembanyama \u201cactually disgusting,\u201d pointing to the constant physical play directed at the Spurs star. \u201cHe\u2019s gotten chucked. He\u2019s gotten pushed down in transition,\u201d Johnson said. \u201cHe doesn\u2019t complain one time. We don\u2019t complain because we\u2019re just going to play.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Johnson said the frustration has built over time as teams continue trying to \u201cimpose their physicality\u201d on Wembanyama every night. While he agreed officials acted based on \u201cthe outcome of the play,\u201d Johnson insisted \u201cthere was zero intent\u201d behind the elbow and said any additional punishment \u201cwould be ridiculous.\u201d<\/p>\n
With Reid, Julius Randle and McDaniels in their frontcourt, the Timberwolves have had plenty of muscle and tenacity to send at Wembanyama, even if he’s been good enough offensively to overcome it. He had 39 points on 13-for-18 shooting from the floor in Game 3.<\/p>\n
“You never want anyone to get hurt, but you could see the frustration. I could see where he’s coming from,” Harper said. “We’ve got his back, and I think he can learn from that, and he just knows not to do that again.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"San Antonio Spurs got the best possible outcome on Monday. Our Don Harris confirms that Victor Wembanyama will…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":790212,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5133],"tags":[5229,7202,7203,358,3187,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-790211","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-antonio","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-san-antonio","10":"tag-sanantonio","11":"tag-texas","12":"tag-tx","13":"tag-united-states","14":"tag-united-states-of-america","15":"tag-unitedstates","16":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","17":"tag-us","18":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116559556745676419","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/790211","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=790211"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/790211\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/790212"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=790211"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=790211"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=790211"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}