Monday night basketball is a beautiful thing, especially when it begins at 6:00 PM Central Time. As a hoops-loving midwesterner, I’ve always envied the early west coast starts, and dreaded the possibility of maybe one day moving east and having to survive even later tipoffs. This dual truth has grown stronger with every year that I’ve aged, and Peacock seems to have understood my plight in the first year of their new NBA streaming rights rollout, launching early-week games at dinner time and concluding them well before bed time. In my struggle to adapt to new viewing patterns after decades of comfort with the old broadcast paradigm, this bit of it has grown familiar the fastest.
And the latest early Monday night game was a doozy, one of the better displays of what’s new and exciting about the league this season. Two of the best teams in the sport—both of whom sucked as recently as two years ago—faced off as the NBA-leading Detroit Pistons hosted the San Antonio Spurs, winners of eight in a row coming into the contest. It’s not hard to understand how they did it: sure, there are other reasons too, but the biggest one is that they have Victor Wembanyama. He’s reclaimed consistent levels of maximum athletic comfort and high-minute availability since his injuries and related load management November through January; February has offered the full Wemby experience, any time you turn the Spurs on.
Statistically, he’s averaged about 25 points, 12 rebounds, and 3.5 blocks over the winning streak. If you watched him in the Spurs’ 114-103 win in Detroit, though, you might think that last number would be higher. He had six in the game, but it felt like a billion. Cade Cunningham, who’s been gathering MVP momentum and scored 42 less than a week ago, had his worst shooting performance of the year, making just five of his 26 attempts from the field. He couldn’t get any of the mid-range looks that are easy for him against every other team, because Wemby, with his length and instincts, is one of history’s greatest paint-haunters.
Jalen Duren, the Pistons’ other All-Star, wasn’t so bothered by him. The most relentlessly physical big man in the NBA today, Duren has streamlined his front-court algorithm this season and cannot be stopped by anyone, not even Wemby, from rebounding and dunking all night long. He pushed the world’s best defender around to the tune of 25 points and 14 rebounds. 250 pounds of pure, lean menace, he has also grown to relish the spiritual dimensions of his brawn, having just finished a two-game suspension for taking the extra-physical behavior a bit too far in a recent scuffle with the Charlotte Hornets. He didn’t get into that kind of trouble on Monday, but he did remind Keldon Johnson of his strength with an especially zesty finger in the face.
The fact that Duren can mitigate so much of Wemby’s dominance is incredible, but it wasn’t enough for Detroit in the loss. Their dubious three-point shooting caught up to them. The Pistons can win almost any war in the interior—particularly when Isaiah Stewart, still suspended for his even wilder role in the Charlotte brouhaha, is available—but against a team that can neutralize them there, they’ve looked unable to triumph the second battle, out on the perimeter. Devin Vassell and Julian Champagnie converted on open looks for the Spurs, making more deep shots as a duo than all of Detroit combined, and that was the primary difference in the game.
Perhaps Wembanyama is such a uniquely overwhelming variable that Detroit shouldn’t make anything of the loss; who else can make them second-guess their domineering physicality? It has been the most winning NBA formula this season. But it’s possible that, for all their success, Detroit’s weakness is increasingly visible, and that teams who can out-shoot them will more regularly win against them. That’s why the Detroit front office added marksman Kevin Huerter at the trade deadline, who didn’t see the floor last night, but who may be essential to more spread-out offensive looks when Cunningham is double- and triple-teamed near the hoop come Springtime.
On the Spurs end of the game, victory looks like proof of concept: against the Pistons and the Oklahoma City Thunder, the other best team in the league, they are now 5-1. Wemby is doing singular things, and he’s surrounded by a platoon of guards and wings that has high odds of winning the hot-streak lottery on any given night. The only teams young and athletic enough to potentially deal with this seem like they have no answers for it. Should the Spurs bring this steamroller to the postseason, energetic and physically intact, their odds at a title will be about as short as their superstar is long.