How Victor Wembanyama, Spurs fought the MSG noise — and won

Thousands of people passed through the hallways from the San Antonio Spurs’ locker room to the interview room of Madison Square Garden, where on Monday night Victor Wembanyama reflected on the first NBA Finals win of his young career. Every one of them was wearing shoes.

Except for Wembanyama. These were his first steps as a winner in the Finals, and he wanted to feel them — with his bare feet.

“He always likes to walk barefoot so he can really feel the ground,” his longtime agent Bouna Ndiaye said as he stood outside the news conference room, waiting for the 22-year-old superstar. “It’s how he connects.”

A Spurs staffer held Wembanyama’s size 21 slides for him if he changed his mind — or started to consider the cleanliness of the Madison Square Garden floor.

But by now this has become part of his routine and everything throughout these playoffs suggests Wembanyama and the Spurs have tremendous faith in their routines and structures, no matter the pressure or odds.

They’ve fallen behind in each of their previous two playoff series and come back to win by doubling down on their strengths and talent, rather than making large-scale tactical adjustments.

“What we’ve built with this team is we have an identity that makes everybody dangerous,” Wembanyama said Tuesday. “Sometimes it will pay off over a season, [sometimes] over a playoff series.”

The only changes to their starting lineup this postseason have come due to injury, with Wembanyama missing one game and De’Aaron Fox missing two. Otherwise, the Spurs have stuck with what has gotten them here, and that’s the plan again heading into Wednesday’s Game 4 at Madison Square Garden (8:30 p.m. ET on ABC and the ESPN App).

That’s the luxury when arguably the most talented basketball player in the world is on your roster.

The biggest question the Spurs face every game is how to maximize Wembanyama, depending on what the opposition is trying to do to stop him.

Spurs coach Mitch Johnson and his staff take that responsibility seriously and make adjustments from game to game, which is a big part of the reason why this Spurs team hasn’t lost more than two consecutive games all season.

“When you get into series, you got to settle in,” Johnson said. “The clarity that comes from watching the tape, arguing with your staff. Trying to help the guys is the job.”

In Game 3, the Spurs switched Wembanyama off the defensive assignment on center Karl-Anthony Towns to help him preserve energy for the offensive side — where they pushed him to get inside to put more pressure on the Knicks.

But the biggest adjustments this postseason have come from Wembanyama himself — and those have started to seep out publicly with the intense attention being paid to these Finals.

Wembanyama went for a walk Sunday afternoon in New York City and was caught on video sitting on a small park bench, head down, immersed in drawing a sculpture in front of him.

The sight of the opponent’s 7-foot-4 center out in public in a city that has worked itself into a frenzy over the Knicks being on the precipice of their first championship since 1973 was enough to turn heads.

The fact that he had been let into one of the city’s most exclusive private areas, Gramercy Park, on Lexington Avenue between 20th and 21st streets, turned many more.

No one gets into Gramercy Park unless they either live in one of the 39 buildings around the park or know someone who does. There are just a few hundred keys in circulation in the world that open the gates. To replace a lost one costs thousands of dollars.

No one, not even keyholders, can rent the park out. It is only open to the public for one hour each year, on Christmas Eve, from 6 to 7 p.m., for caroling.

But Wembanyama wasn’t playing some mind game on the city. This, too, is part of his routine. In Oklahoma City, one source close to him said he went out walking in the Botanical Garden a few blocks from Paycom Arena.

Those who know him well say he often finds a park or outdoor space near the team hotel when he goes to visiting cities, so that he can get some fresh air and clear his mind.

Spurs rookie Carter Bryant said Tuesday that he, Wembanyama and veteran Harrison Barnes recently visited the anechoic chamber at Orfield Laboratories in Minneapolis. There, a room holds the Guinness World Record as the quietest in the world — a 12-by-10-by-7-foot space that is so silent some who visit say they can hear their blood coursing through their veins.

“The playoffs, it’s like a whirlwind,” Wembanyama said. “It’s hard to put your head out of the water. … I need some time off, let my brain cool down, recover. Recover as much for the body as for the mind.”

After the Spurs lost Game 2 on Friday night to fall behind 2-0 in the series, Wembanyama said he wasn’t “clear” on what had gone wrong.

He said the team studied the game tape for answers, but as usual with this uber-talented young team, whose two stars — Wembanyama and Stephon Castle — became the youngest teammates with 20 points, five rebounds and five assists in a Finals game on Monday, the answers lie far more within than with any scheme.

Wembanyama struggled when he was guarded by Towns in the first two games, shooting just 7-for-20 with Towns as his primary defender. On Monday, he was 6-for-10 for 14 points.

In Games 1 and 2, he had trouble getting and converting lobs as the Knicks pushed him away from the basket. In Game 3, he was 4-for-4 on lob plays, according to Genius IQ.

After the game, Wembanyama was asked about his public outing in New York City and his stop at Gramercy Park. He didn’t remember the name of the park, he said, but the drawing he made was of the statue inside of it.

That statue is of a famous 19th-century actor named Edwin Booth, the older brother of John Wilkes Booth, the man who assassinated Abraham Lincoln.

Booth was known in his day as one of the finest Shakespearean actors in New York.

He founded the Players Club, which has become a popular gathering spot for actors and writers since its founding in 1888.

The statue portrays Booth at the age of 35 as he plays the role of Hamlet. Whether Wembanyama understood the existential parallels between himself and the Prince of Denmark as he drew in his sketchbook, we’ll never know.

But he certainly was made for the biggest stages.

In Game 4, Wembanyama will have to be the best version of himself again for the Spurs to even the series 2-2 and head back home to San Antonio.

If he isn’t, there won’t be much of a series left to fight for.