That was it for the Spurs. They all knew it. At a minimum, they needed a big Victor Wembanyama performance in Game 3 of the NBA Finals on Monday. He delivered. They needed someone else to do so as well. Down 2-0 against the Knicks. At Madison Square Garden. Do or die. Stephon Castle did. The Spurs didn’t die.
You could point out any number of massive moments for Castle in what has been a series of endless pressure for both teams, but his big bucket and free throws late in the fourth quarter of Game 3 were the stuff that you’d expect from veterans, not a 21-year-old. He wasn’t fazed. If anything, Castle seemed to welcome the responsibility.
The Spurs were clinging to a four-point lead late in the fourth quarter and were desperate to find another bucket, to avoid blowing a lead yet again, as they had in the first two games. The shot clock was winding down. Wembanyama tried to take Karl-Anthony Towns off the dribble, then had second thoughts. Instead, Wemby threw an awkward, twisting pass to Castle and all but begged him to bail out the Spurs. Castle obliged.
That 3 alone would have been reason enough for his teammates to throw him a salute and thank him for his service. But with 6.8 seconds remaining and the Spurs lead cut to two points, Castle went to the line for two critical free throws. He shot 73.4% there this season, and he’s upped that to 81.1% in the playoffs. Pretty good. But improved numbers only get you so far. Imagine the weight of being that young and knowing that knocking down both gets you another game, and doing anything short of that might very well end your season with the way the Spurs have struggled to close out the first two games. If Castle was thinking about any of that, he didn’t let the MSG crowd or anyone else see him sweat.
Castle played it cool after the game, too. He went for 23 points, five rebounds, five assists, one steal and one block. He committed just two turnovers. He made 8 of his 14 shots, including two 3s, and drained 5 of 6 free throws. And then after all that he sat on the courtside set with the Inside the NBA guys — all of them legends — and calmly answered questions like he didn’t just make three of the biggest shots of his life when his storied franchise needed it most and all eyes everywhere were firmly fixed on him. The postgame poise alone was impressive.
Without Castle having the most important game of his young career at such a critical moment, the Spurs would be cooked. Maybe they still will fall short in this series, but, at the very least, they prevented the Knicks from feasting on them late for a third straight game. That’s not nothing. Here’s something else: however this series ultimately resolves itself, San Antonio knows that it has a killer young core that will make the Spurs a living nightmare for the rest of the league for the foreseeable future. Dylan Harper, at 20, is already so far ahead of the curve that it almost feels unfair. And Wembanyama is Wembanyama. But Castle emerging as a monster two-way force — a guy who has All-Defense-level talent in him along with a developing no-fear offensive game — is perhaps the secret sauce. What he’ll be two or three years from now boggles the mind. What he already is isn’t much easier to process.
When the Spurs traded for De’Aaron Fox a little over a year ago, the idea was to pair him with Wemby and fast-track the San Antonio rebuild. But with respect to Fox — who hit the biggest shot of his career in the fourth quarter on Monday evening — he’s already been supplanted by his two young teammates. Maybe Harper ends up being the better of the two, and he’s certainly had plenty of big moments this postseason, but in Game 3 it was Castle who picked up as much weight as he could carry and helped Wembanyama lift the Spurs to a victory. Together, they became the first teammates in NBA history 22 years old or younger to both go for 20 or more points in the NBA Finals.
Castle played through contact to find Wemby several times. And he made some contact of his own when he steamrolled Jalen Brunson, much to the displeasure of Knicks fans. Through it all, throughout the game, he looked like a veteran in both body and mindset. And when it was all done, he shrugged it off the way you’d want from a professional who’s going about his business and knows the job is far from over. The Spurs had just won a massive game on the road to climb back into the series and make the Knicks think twice about their pending parade, and this kid who is barely out of college said he felt “like we haven’t done anything yet.” Castle was right. The Spurs still have plenty to do — but that’s only the case because Castle did plenty in Game 3.
