How Carter Bryant can pick up Victor Wembanyama and swing a series

PORTLAND, Ore. — Carter Bryant extended his right arm, offering a helping hand. Victor Wembanyama, dazed on the floor, was not yet ready to accept it.

The postseason is young, though.

The kid still has time to pick him up.

This wasn’t Plan A. If the Spurs had their druthers, a 20-year-old rookie who came off the bench during his one year in college would hold no sway over their first playoff series of the decade.

But ready or not, Bryant holds sway now. And he’s learned something already about that responsibility.

“If you go in there not ready to throw haymakers,” Bryant said, “you’re going to be in a lot of trouble.”

So far in a first-round series tied 1-1 heading into Friday’s Game 3 against the Trail Blazers, the Spurs’ baby-faced forward has absorbed more haymakers than he’s landed. Bryant’s four minutes in the opener netted him three fouls, and his 12 minutes on Tuesday were more productive, but at a cost.

While he was on the floor, often as the nominal big man in a small lineup, the Spurs were outscored by 13 points. 

In a game they lost by three.

The loss wasn’t Bryant’s fault, though. Starters De’Aaron Fox and Julian Champagnie posted similar plus-minus numbers, and the multiple offensive possessions that disintegrated down the stretch came while Bryant was watching from the sideline.

 But with Wembanyama unlikely to be cleared from concussion protocol before Game 3, more is going to be asked of everybody. That includes the 6-foot-6 neophyte who a mere four months ago was in danger of losing his hair to, well, rookie mistakes.

During a particularly perplexing December stretch, the high-flying Bryant misfired on so many dunk attempts that his teammates threatened to shave his head if he missed two more. He called that the good kind of peer pressure.

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And now, as he looks for the biggest reason to believe he can handle a share of the burden Gregg Popovich used to be loath to assign to rookies?     

“My teammates are empowering,” Bryant said.

It would be helpful, of course, if those teammates empowered themselves, too. 

If Wembanyama stays sidelined, the Spurs need Fox to be a lot better than he was in the fourth quarter on Tuesday. They need Stephon Castle to recalibrate his approach to some of the drives that drew fouls in the regular season but haven’t generated whistles in the playoffs. They could use one well-timed vintage playoff performance from former NBA champion Harrison Barnes.

But even if they get all of that, the Spurs also need their non-Luke Kornet minutes to not be a liability. Wembanyama’s backup acquitted himself nicely at both ends of the floor in Game 2, but with Kornet playing alongside the starters, it left a hole with the reserves.

In the second half Tuesday, Spurs coach Mitch Johnson chose to fill that hole with the small-ball lineup — featuring Bryant at center — that had been successful in occasional stretches during the regular season.

That will be an option Friday, too.

“We’ll have to kind of sit down as a staff and really think about the game holistically,” Johnson said. “Can we get through a game doing that, or do we need to play somebody else?”

If there’s optimism about the small-ball approach working, it’s in part because of the franchise’s belief in Bryant. He works his tail off on defense. He won’t let himself get bullied by bigger players, like the Blazers’ Donovan Clingan and Robert Williams. He doesn’t look intimidated by the moment. And when he gets going as a fast-break rim-runner or as a floor-spacing 3-point shooter, he creates all sorts of matchup problems for opponents.

The other thing Bryant has going for him? He might be completely oblivious to the threat of failure.

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In December, after a game in which he inexplicably clanged two dunks off the back of the rim, he pulled the local columnist aside and swore he still had no doubt he would become “one of the best players in the world.” 

Why was he sure he was making progress? Well, on those missed dunks, he was running the floor in the proper lanes. Whether or not he finished the easy part of the play, he knew where he was supposed to be.

“In my head, that’s growth,” Bryant said then. “It’s something you have to appreciate. It’s going to make it so much sweeter someday.”

There’s no guarantee “someday” will come this week. In the Spurs’ glory days, there was a reason Popovich was so reluctant to rely on playoff contributions from any newcomers. As much as he liked rookies from Tony Parker to George Hill to Kawhi Leonard, Popovich was quick to yank them the moment they showed they might not be ready.

But this is a different era, and a different team. Few players on this roster have more playoff experience than Bryant and fellow rookie Dylan Harper do.  

Harper already is entrenched in Johnson’s rotation. Friday night, Bryant will get another chance to prove he should be, too.

And while Wembanyama waits for a teammate to pick him up?

Bryant, with his hand still extended, can’t wait to oblige.