Wembanyama's 52-point career best sparks Spurs winning streak

Victor Wembanyama posted a career-high 52 points, with 24 rebounds and eight blocks, as the San Antonio Spurs edged the Dallas Mavericks 112-111 on Wednesday, according to BBC Sport.

The 22-year-old Frenchman had never previously passed 50 points in a game, his best until now standing at 50 in 2024. No player in the previous 52 years had combined a half-century of points with 20 rebounds and five blocks across one game; Wembanyama's display made him only the fifth since 1982 to pair 50 points with 20 rebounds.

By half-time Wembanyama had already compiled 29 points, 15 rebounds, five blocks and a pair of steals, numbers San Antonio needed as Dallas rallied in the second half behind Kyrie Irving's own 29-point haul. The result lifted the Spurs to 6-2 on the season.

"I haven't been feeling great lately" Wembanyama said afterwards. He added separately that he felt he had "got my legs back, so it should be more like this more often."

Two nights later the Spurs were back in action at Sacramento, where Wembanyama's numbers settled to a more modest 30 points, 14 rebounds and two blocks as San Antonio beat the Kings 124-109, according to Yahoo Sports. The win was San Antonio's seventh in a row, the longest active streak in the league, and came in the opening fixture of NBA Cup group play for both sides.

Stephon Castle contributed 19 points and a team-high seven assists, while Dylan Harper and Devin Vassell each scored 19 as the Spurs made 15 of 30 attempts from three-point range. San Antonio led by 19 at half-time, with Wembanyama having already posted 20 points and eight rebounds by then; across 26 minutes he made ten shots from eighteen attempts overall, including four of his six three-point tries.

It was Wembanyama's fourth 30-point outing and seventh double-double of the campaign. The performance put him alongside Shaquille O'Neal, in 1993-94, and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, in 1975-76, as the only players to reach 250 points, 100 rebounds and 35 blocks across a season's opening nine games since blocks became an official statistic in 1973-74.

Spurs coach Mitch Johnson, asked whether he set any scoring threshold for his star forward, said he simply expects Wembanyama "to play the right way." Johnson added: "He obviously has a tremendous amount of gravity in terms of putting the defense in a tough spot when he's putting pressure on the rim and running the floor and rolling after screens. And I think that's going to produce points, but there are teams that have made very concerned efforts at times of taking that away. And what that should do then is open up opportunities for his teammates."

Wembanyama himself pointed to the squad's balance, saying: "We've got a team well-built." Harper echoed that, saying: "We're at our best when everyone's touching the ball, everyone's getting to the paint, kicking out, just making the right play. And it's just a byproduct of our chemistry and how much we generally enjoy playing with each other."

Rookie Darius Acuff Jr scored 22 points on 9-of-20 shooting for Sacramento, who dropped to 1-8 with a second straight defeat; Domantas Sabonis added 17 points for the Kings. San Antonio, now 7-2, were playing the first night of a back-to-back that concludes in Portland as part of a four-game road trip.

Elsewhere on Wednesday, Jaylen Brown's 30 points and Joel Embiid's 26 led Philadelphia to a 112-106 win over Detroit in a meeting of Eastern Conference pace-setters, with LeBron James recording a 13-point, 10-rebound double-double as all five 76ers starters reached double figures. The win moved Philadelphia to 8-1, the league's best record following the off-season arrivals of Brown and James.

James said it remained premature to discuss the Finals. "It's too early to be talking about the Finals and things of that nature," he said, before adding separately: "We'll just continue to buy into what we want to do. We got a good team."

The Lakers overcame the Kings by a score of 116-103, with Luka Doncic contributing a game-high 40 points to push his season total to 308 - the most through a team's first eight games since Michael Jordan posted 303 in 1988-89. The contest was briefly stopped after a fan threw a ball onto the court that struck an official signalling a Lakers possession, leading to the fan's removal.

In New York, OG Anunoby scored 18 points as the Knicks recorded their biggest margin of victory this season, beating the Chicago Bulls 135-105 to move to 4-4.