PHILADELPHIA -- The Philadelphia 76ers will take on the San Antonio Spurs on Monday night and they will face off against a tough matchup in the form of Spurs center Victor Wembanyama.
The second-year phenom from France has been terrific in the league. He's averaging 24.7 points, 10.0 rebounds, 3.9 assists, 3.8 blocks, and 1.1 steals as he looks to lead the Spurs back to respectability. He has been tough to stop and that is what the Sixers have to contend with on Monday.
Of course, the Sixers will have Joel Embiid back who is pretty phenomenal himself, but one Sixer actually played with Wembanyama in the Olympics and he knows what the team must do.
"He's an excellent player," Guerschon Yabusele said of Wemby. "Still young, but he's getting better year after year. He can pretty much do a lot of things on the court. So I think the biggest key for us tonight would be to stay physical and try to bother him as much as possible."
Being physical is the biggest advantage the Sixers have against Wembanyama. No matter who is matched up with him, they will be a smaller player with Wemby standing at 7-foot-3. Embiid, Andre Drummond, Yabusele, and KJ Martin are all much smaller so the key will be making life tough on him with physical play to make him uncomfortable.
Yabusele was impressed with Wembanyama from their days together playing for France. Seeing him up close in practice is a big difference rather than seeing him from afar.
"I was impressed, pretty much, like the whole campaign," Yabusele explained. "It was like every practice, he was showing something different, which was amazing, but for me, it was my first time actually playing with him. So I was pretty excited at the same time I was surprised, like, at the end, I was like, 'Oh my God. He's just an alien.' I was really surprised by him."
The Sixers and the Spurs will match up at 7 p.m. EST on Monday from the Wells Fargo Center.