SAN ANTONIO — Spurs center Victor Wembanyama set an NBA playoff record with 12 blocks in Monday night’s Game 1 loss, but the Minnesota Timberwolves are adamant that one-third of them shouldn’t have counted.
“At least four of them were goaltending,” Timberwolves coach Chris Finch said. “Maybe even a fifth. To me, it’s a little alarming that none of them were called.”
The Timberwolves were still glowing in the aftermath of their stunning 104-102 series-opening road win after Tuesday morning’s film session, but Finch, perhaps delivering a subtle nudge to the NBA and its officials in the upcoming games against Wembanyama, pivoted the first question of his press scrum toward the perceived goaltends.
“Here’s a generational shot blocker, who is 7-foot-6 and goes after everything and there’s no heightened awareness that these blocks could be a goaltend?” Finch asked. “The third possession of the game was a goaltend and it was a clean obvious one.”
While the score was still 0-0, Wembanyama swatted a Terrence Shannon Jr. transition drive, but replays show that Shannon’s layup attempt quite clearly hit the backboard before Wembanyama contacted it, which should’ve resulted in a goaltend.
The other handful of non-goaltend calls that angered the Timberwolves were more borderline, including a second quarter swat of a Naz Reid hook that might’ve been on the way down and a first quarter block of Rudy Gobert that, at minimum, appeared to be a foul.
“Let’s just say there were four (goaltends),” Finch said. “That’s eight points. You know the value of eight points in an NBA game? It’s massive. That means 33 percent of his blocks were goaltending uncalled. If I were to give you a 33 percent raise, you’d like that, right? It’s a huge number.”
Gobert is teammates with Wembanyama on the French national team and has become somewhat of a mentor to the rising superstar, but the two are squared up in a competitive center matchup in this second round.
“He fouled me on the first one,” Gobert said. “But if you look at them, probably three or four (goaltends).”
The 7-foot-1 Gobert is 24th all-time in blocks and long considered one of the league’s best rim protectors. He had one block in Game 1.
“I wish I had that type of treatment, too,” he said.
Game 2 is on Wednesday night in San Antonio.
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