Yaxel Lendeborg's plan to bait and rough up Victor Wembanyama backfired about as completely as a gameplan can. Lendeborg blew it up himself: he talked big before tipoff, then shot 1-for-13 as San Antonio won by 38.
Start with what he actually said before tip-off at Frost Bank Center. Asked what he'd been told about Wembanyama, Lendeborg went straight to the blocks. "Well, he has like five blocks," he said. "I'm going to try to shoot as many 3s as I can tonight. You know, just try to bait him into helping out. Maybe we get some more kickouts. Oh, and try to rough him up as much as we can."
The block number was close. Entering Friday's game, Wembanyama led the NBA with 4.4 blocks per game, along with 30.3 points and 11.7 rebounds. This was a first-year forward filling in as Golden State's de facto No. 1 option while Curry recovers from an oblique tear, picking a fight with the most disruptive defender in the league and announcing his counter-strategy to the room.
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RatingThen the game happened, and none of the plan did. He said he'd fire threes; he attempted two and missed both. He said he'd bait Wembanyama into help defense; instead Golden State scored 33 points in the entire first half, its worst half of the season, and trailed by 30 at the break. San Antonio had already built a 24-point lead after one quarter and stretched it to 43 at its peak. Golden State shot 33.3% for the night. The plan never left the ground.
Lendeborg's own box score shows it: 1-for-13 from the field, three points, seven rebounds, one assist, and a minus-40 while he was on the floor. The vow to shoot "as many 3s as I can" produced two attempts. Both missed.
RTGHe knew it, too. "I don't know what was going on with me, man. I couldn't make a shot. I was 1-13, it was an awful performance by me. I let everybody on this team down," he said afterward. He described a whole team shrinking from the paint: "Nobody wanted to go into the paint; they didn't want to get their shot blocked by him, so we were all just doing a bunch of weak a-- floaters." The plan didn't survive contact with the game because, by his own account, the guy who built it played scared.
The one piece of the pregame bravado that actually showed up came from a 36-year-old. Draymond Green shoved Wembanyama in the back on a rebound and got hit with a flagrant foul one. That was it. The "rough him up" portion of Lendeborg's plan was carried out entirely by a veteran who got punished for it, while the kid who proposed it did nothing of the sort.
Wembanyama handled the whole thing with a shrug and a scalpel. He finished with 12 points, 12 rebounds, six assists, two blocks and a steal on 5-of-11 shooting in just 21 minutes, resting much of a fourth quarter that was already decided. A modest box score by his standards, produced in a blowout he never had to stay on the floor to secure. Then he answered the physical talk directly: "It's not a good basketball strategy, and it shows. I'm ready to put my body on the line for the team if that allows us to win by 40." The scoreboard backed him up.
Lendeborg talked without a media filter and said exactly what he thought, and that kind of candor is rare in a league that coaches most rookies into saying nothing at all. His confidence is fine. One ugly night from an 11th overall pick thrust into a star's minutes doesn't define his career.
But confidence is only worth something when you back it up. Lendeborg didn't get out-schemed. He never ran his own scheme. He narrated a specific plan to the entire basketball world and then, when the lights came on, didn't follow through on any of it.
San Antonio ran its win streak to 11, stayed unbeaten in Cup play, and sent Golden State home down 38. Wembanyama didn't need the noise. He just played, and the final score made the point for him.
