The Wemby revenge-game framing was already loaded before tip — kicked from Game 4, back on the floor, with the series on the line. Big Cat called the shot before the first whistle even mattered, and the early box score made him look like a prophet.
Big Cat with the pregame framing on the revenge angle.
Wemby revenge game (revenge for being correctly kicked out of Game 4 but still revenge)
First-quarter scoreboard: Wemby's points matched the entire Minnesota team.
From there it turned into a clinic. Wemby was protecting the rim hard enough that Steven Cheah was literally tweeting at the NBA stats account asking them to review a missed block credit. Meanwhile Julius Randle was busy stinking up the other end, which is a recurring theme of his playoff resume.
Slowed-down clip of the Wemby contest on Randle that didn't get scored as a block.
Wemby putting Rudy Gobert through the spin cycle.
Add in PFT openly wondering why Dylan Harper ever sits, and you've got a Spurs core that already looks like it's playing with house money in a series most people had Minnesota winning. The kid is 22 and he just dropped the kind of close-out-pregame performance that ages well on a career reel.
On the Barstool side, the game doubled as a $20k bonus-bet sweat for Dana Beers on the Stool After Dark stream, and the over cashing in the final seconds basically confirmed how the action played: Spurs in control, Wemby cooking, scoreboard ticking.
Dana sweating out the over to the buzzer on the DraftKings bonus.
Which brings us to PicksCentral's question the next morning: do the Spurs end this in 6? Based on what Wemby just put on tape, you don't need a model to lean that way.
PicksCentral floats the Spurs-in-6 close-out angle off Wemby's Game 5.