SAN ANTONIO – Tre Jones wasn’t trying to throw an alley-oop. He just wanted to get the ball back where only Victor Wembanyama could get it.
The 7-foot-4 rookie took care of the rest.
It was one of Wembanyama’s many highlights as the San Antonio Spurs beat a depleted Miami Heat team 120-104 Friday night at Frost Bank Center.
With just over 30 seconds left in the first half, Wembanyama had the ball on the right wing, and Jones, who says he’s 6-foot-2 on a good day, set a ball screen for his rookie teammate .
Wembanyama passed the ball to Jones and immediately began cutting toward the basket. As soon as the ball hit Jones’ hands, he let it fly. His intention was a pass. Wembanyama leapt into the air, located the ball once it entered the lane, grabbed it with both hands and sent it home for the slam.
“Before we knew it, he dunk it. With ease too,” Jones said. “It wasn’t like he was reaching for it. It was crazy.”
Asked about the play, Wembanyama smiled.
“As far as I’m concerned, the problem is rarely that the ball is thrown too high,” Wembanyama said. “It just depends on how well we know each other.”
This is only the second preseason game for the Spurs, but Wembanyama has been playing with his teammates for weeks in pickup games and open runs.
Jones said it didn’t take long to realize you could throw the ball just about anywhere and have Wembanyama go get it.
“You see how coordinated it is with its length and size,” Jones said. “We don’t see that very often. If we vomit him up, he’s able to go get it several times.”
But the alley-oop wasn’t even the standout play. Spurs guard Devin Vassell, who had 21 points and was 6 of 7 from distance, said the play that jumped out at him was Wembanyama catching the ball one foot inside the three-point line and ‘Euro was driving to the basket for a dunk. .
“He didn’t even dribble,” Vassell said. “He’s going to make special plays. I’m going to keep talking about it, he’s going to make a play every game where you watch like what just happened.”
Vassell received a pass from Wembanyama on two of his 3-pointers. One of them was when Wembanyama was double-teamed in the post, and he dealt it to a wide-open Vassell near the top of the key.
“What I felt in the previous game, sometimes when I get the ball, I don’t even need to dribble and I see defenders come to face me and forget about their own guy,” Wembanyama said. “When it comes to a shooter like Dev, it’s the easiest option to pass it on to him.”
Wembanyama finished with a team-high 23 points on 10-of-15 shooting with four rebounds, four assists and three blocks in 23 minutes. He left the game midway through the third quarter to loud applause from the 17,412 people in attendance.
“He’s obviously a gifted player who was very humbly trying to find his place,” Spurs coach Gregg Popovich said. “I called a play for him all night and I think he went over 20. He just did that because he’s a good basketball player and he understands how to play, we so let’s make sure we mix that with everything we have.”
After playing all of his minutes exclusively at power forward in the Spurs’ first preseason game against the Oklahoma City Thunder, Popovich and the Spurs experimented with Wembanyama at center against the Heat.
Popovich said how the team deploys Wembanyama will depend on the opposing team’s matchups and how the scouting reports line up.
One roster adjustment the Spurs used Friday was starting 6-foot-9, 230-pound Jeremy Sochan at point guard and bringing Jones off the bench. Sochan finished with 10 points, six rebounds and three assists in 25 minutes.
“I think he was really confident, had good rhythm, [and was] aggressive,” Popovich said. “He did everything we hoped he would do.”
Wembanyama said having Sochan play the point would only cause more problems for opponents.
“He’s comfortable in that position,” Wembanyama said. “Everyone trusts him and I think he certainly has a bright future in this position.”
