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Michael C. Wright, ESPN Staff Writer
SAN ANTONIO — Spurs star Victor Wembanyama scored a career-high 50 points — including a career-high eight 3-pointers — in a 139-130 win over the Washington Wizards on Wednesday night.
“My first thought is eventually I want the rest of our performances, the rest of our games, to overshadow this one,” Wembanyama said. “I want to make it where in the future, [this is] just another one.”
Clearly, it’s not.
Prior to Wembanyama, the last three 50-point games produced by Spurs came in overtime outings. David Robinson in 1994 logged the franchise’s last 50-point night in regulation.
At 20 years and 314 days, Wembanyama is the fourth-youngest player to score 50 points. At 7-foot-4, he’s also the tallest to do so.
Wembanyama’s previous career high was 40 points in a 130-126 overtime victory against the New York Knicks in March of last season.
He made his presence felt virtually from the onset Wednesday, assisting or scoring on four consecutive field goals over the first 67 seconds as San Antonio seized a 13-3 lead.
“The big fella, man, when he comes out with that mindset, it’s a hard opportunity to deal with,” Spurs forward Julian Champagnie said. “Big praise to him, big shoutout to him. He’s working on his game. I don’t know what it was that he took personal, but he took something personal, went out there, and hooped.”
Wembanyama inflicted most of the damage in the third quarter, shooting a perfect 7-of-7 from the floor and 4-of-4 from long range for 19 points to go with four rebounds, an assist and one block. Wembanyama piled up nearly half his points on the night from beyond the arc, where he hit 8 of 16.
“If you looked at them, they were good, rhythm shots,” Spurs interim coach Mitch Johnson said. “The gravity that he occupies, or pulls, is unique. So, when he makes shots away from the basket, it’s just going to pull that gravity for sure.”
Wembanyama was 18-of-29 from the field and added 6 rebounds and 3 blocks in 32 minutes en route to becoming the first player in league history with 20 3-pointers and 13 blocks over a three-game span.
For his career, Wembanyama has now recorded a 50-point game, a 5×5 game and a 10-block game. Just three other players — Anthony Davis, Hakeem Olajuwon and Robinson — can lay claim to those accomplishments since blocks became official in 1973-74.
It took Wembanyama 83 career games to record his first 50-point game, the fourth-fewest games needed since the NBA/ABA Merger in 1976-77.
After finishing up a quick lift in the weight room, Wembanyama walked over to treatment, admitting he planned to reflect during the session on his latest milestone. Wembanyama also confessed to watching the scoreboard at times as he approached 50 points.
“I love to celebrate the small wins and the big wins for a certain amount of time,” he said. “But tomorrow we’re already locked in on the Lakers. I’m gonna give myself a little bit of time to reflect. It’s definitely a big milestone. It’s kind of a private club. It’s certainly something I’m proud of.”
ESPN Research contributed to this report.
Source: www.espn.com