Julian Champagnie speaks out about how Spurs need to protect Victor Wembanyama

May 22-Spurs forward Julian Champagnie believes it's time for him and his teammates to "hit back" to protect Victor Wembanyama from the Oklahoma City Thunder's physical play against the French superstar.

Champagnie didn't mention Isaiah Hartenstein by name, but it's a safe bet he was referring to the Thunder big man, who muscled up against Wembanyama in helping Oklahoma City even the best-of-seven series at 1-1 with a 122-113 victory Wednesday night at the Paycom Center.

After playing just 12 minutes in the 122-115 loss in double overtime in the series opener Monday night, the 7-foot Hartenstein logged 27 minutes in Game 2, finishing with 10 points and 13 rebounds. On the defensive end, his rough play against Wembanyama was credited with the 7-4 center finishing with 21 points in 37 minutes after producing 41 points in 49 minutes in Game 1.

Champagnie was asked at shootaround ahead of Game 3 on Friday night how the Spurs can help Wembanyama.

"Hit back. Honestly, hit back," Champagnie said. "The guys hit him, they pull him, they grab his jersey, they're grabbing his arm when he's jumping. Obviously, that's not basketball. That's just a physicality thing. That's up to the refs to deal with, not us. But I think as a team, how we can help him is we hit them back."

The Spurs know that Wembanyama has to keep his emotions in check after he was ejected in the second quarter of Game 4 of the West semifinals for a Flagrant 2 foul after he threw an elbow in Naz Reid's face while battling for possession of the ball after a rebound.

But Champagnie said he and his teammates should answer the Thunder's physicality for him.

"Honestly, truly, do the same thing," Champagnie said. "Do the same thing that they're doing to us to them. Match the level of physicality and then just see how that goes."

Hartenstein praised Oklahoma City coach Mark Daigneault for calling on him to serve as Wembanyama's primary defender.

"He does a great job of just communicating before what kind of your role's going to be," Hartenstein said. "So, going into Game 1, I kind of knew what it was going to be. And yesterday, he sat me down again. He kind of apologized, but it was more like, 'Hey, just be ready. Your number's going to be called more, and we're going to try to do something different.'"

"Mark's a great coach. I trust him. If you want to play in a team sport, if you want to play on a team like this, you really have to put your ego aside and do what's best for the team."

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