What’s it like to face Victor Wembanyama? For the Sixers, ‘there’s only so much you can do’

Tyrese Maxey tried to explain to rookie teammate VJ Edgecombe that, in matching up against the towering Victor Wembanyama, “TV don’t do him justice.”

Yet Edgecombe still needed to experience basketball life against the 7-foot-4 San Antonio Spurs superstar for himself. Edgecombe, a typically fearless athlete, got an early taste when he attempted to drive into the paint and visibly hesitated, as if uttering a massive “NOPE!” with Wembanyama lurking at the rim.

Wembanyama’s presence contributed to the 76ers’ early deficit in a 131-91 blowout loss Tuesday night at Xfinity Mobile Arena. It again exposed the Sixers’ center conundrum without star Joel Embiid, who missed a second consecutive game with an oblique strain. And the game got so out of hand that Wembanyama only needed to play 24 minutes, yet still stuffed the box score by totaling 10 points on 3-of-5 shooting, eight rebounds, four assists, six blocks, and three steals.

So what does it feel like to (try to) face Wembanyama, anyway?

“There’s only so much you can do against him,” said Sixers backup center Adem Bona.

Wembanyama was unique the instant he entered the NBA as the first overall draft pick of the 2023 draft, with that insane height and wingspan blended with athleticism and blossoming skill on both ends of the floor. Sixers starting forward Dominick Barlow, who spent his first two NBA seasons with San Antonio, described a then-rookie Wembanyama as “phenomenal” and already “one of the best I’ve ever been around.”

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Now in his third season, Wembanyama has developed into an MVP candidate and Defensive Player of the Year front-runner for the surging Spurs (44-17), who have won 12 of their past 13 games and look like NBA Finals contenders.

The 22-year-old delivered highlights despite limited minutes in Tuesday’s nationally televised matchup, including a spinning dunk while rolling to the basket. Even when the Sixers (33-28) pulled off a positive play against him — when Edgecombe (who later left the game with back soreness) swiped the ball from Wembanyama’s grasp and sent a slick pass to Maxey for a finish in transition — Wembanyama came right back with an emphatic alley-oop dunk.

And Wembanyama quickly torched fill-in starting center Andre Drummond, who lasted less than six minutes of game action and was a stunning minus-14.

In the game’s first minute, Wembanyama stuffed the typically imposing 6-foot-10 Drummond at the rim. Drummond then picked up two fouls in eight seconds, sending him to the bench for the remainder of the first quarter. Drummond missed all four of his three-point attempts, and finished 1 of 7 from the floor.

When asked what makes Wembanyama special besides his physical stature, Drummond said, “Especially when you have that type of stardom, you can kind of do whatever you want.”

“He gets touched, he gets a foul call,” Drummond said. “That’s not an excuse. You’ve got to find ways to stop those types of players.”

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The early whistles on Drummond meant the Sixers needed to turn to Bona, whose main priority was to not commit any “dumb fouls,” he said. Though the second-year big man performed admirably in his first stint (four points, two rebounds) and then started the second half, the game unraveled too quickly for that to ultimately register.

“There’s only so much you can do against him.”

Beyond those center matchups, there were subtle (and glaring) ways Wembanyama impacted a Sixers offense that shot 34.7% from the floor and 10 of 42 from three-point range.

They entered Tuesday hoping to draw on their experience with opposing centers leaving Barlow free outside the three-point arc, which Wembanyama often does against non-shooters in order to remain near the basket. Coach Nick Nurse believed his team did a “decent job finding shots” early in the game, though creating those looks via kick-out passes required patience as seconds ticked off the shot clock.

Maxey added that the Sixers needed to “just live with certain shots,” particularly in the corner. The rare instances when Maxey did get Wembanyama to switch onto guarding him, Maxey got to the rim because “the paint is wide-open.” But when Wembanyama lingered in the middle, it allowed opposing guards such as Stephon Castle — a dynamite defender in his own right — to pressure Maxey aggressively.

Maxey compared the approach to Embiid’s defensive prime, when the Sixers’ perimeter players felt free to ramp up their on-ball intensity because of the anchor behind them.

“It took [the Spurs] a couple years to kind of learn that and kind of figure out how to build a defensive system around [Wembanyama],” said Maxey, who finished with 21 points on 8-of-19 shooting and eight rebounds. “And they have, and it makes them better. …

“What [the guards] want you to do is try to go by them, and they know they got Wemby down there. That’s a good strategy.”

Nurse most lamented the Sixers’ dreadful second quarter when his team “didn’t do anything very well” and offered “no resistance defensively.” The Spurs scored 46 points on 73.9% shooting from the field, while the Sixers went 1 of 9 from long range and committed five turnovers.

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It’s why the score was lopsided by halftime. And why Wembanyama could watch from the bench by the 4:21 mark of the third quarter, his night complete.

The Sixers will see Wembanyama again on April 6 when they visit San Antonio for a matchup that could be crucial in determining playoff seeding in a tight middle of the Eastern Conference.

And now their full roster knows what it feels like to face the towering MVP candidate in real life, since, per Maxey, watching him on television does not do him justice.

“It probably takes a little bit to get used to,” Nurse said, “to figure out what you’re going to do.”