Victor Wembanyama lost the NBA Finals on Sunday night and walked directly into the tunnel without shaking a single Knick’s hand. Jalen Brunson watched him go. Most of the Spurs followed. Only Luke Kornet and the coaching staff stayed to congratulate New York after a 94-90 Game 5 loss.
Meanwhile, eight minutes before the Timberwolves were officially eliminated from the playoffs, Anthony Edwards walked to the Spurs’ bench and personally shook the hand of every coach and every player on the team. While the game was still being played. Amazon Prime analysts Dirk Nowitzki, Blake Griffin, and Udonis Haslem said they’d never seen anything like it.
That contrast is the whole piece.
Wow, Victor Wembanyama was straight outta there. Wemby was not shaking hands with one Knicks player at the conclusion of the NBA Finals.
— David Furones (@DavidFurones_) June 14, 2026
Wembanyama was 26/11/3.6 blocks across the Finals. The Spurs pushed Brunson’s 45-point Game 5 to a final possession before losing. He had nothing to be ashamed of. He sat in front of reporters afterward and said, “What I’m pissed about is that there’s probably a hundred games before we can be back in the Finals.” Fine. He is a competitor, he is 22, and the competitive fire is real.
But Jalen Brunson — the man who just beat him — walked out of Frost Bank Center in San Antonio and said the quiet part out loud: “win or loss, you always gotta show respect, it’s how I was raised.” He sought out Spurs coaches first. He gave credit. The guy who won did the right thing. The guy who lost did not.
Did Victor Wembanyama skip postgame handshake after NBA Finals loss? https://t.co/dkx51WfCof
📸 Gregory Shamus, Getty Images pic.twitter.com/5aOjDgYJaQ
— For The Win (@ForTheWin) June 14, 2026
The part that should specifically sting Wolves fans is the context around it. We watched Wembanyama dismantle Minnesota for six games in the West Semifinals — including a 139-109 closeout where Castle had 32 and Wembanyama was held to 19 quiet points and it still ended in a blowout. Ant dropped 24 for us that night, shot 9-of-26, and then went over and shook every single Spur’s hand before the clock hit zero. Accountability. Class. Minnesota tradition.
He is generationally talented and he has 20 years of playoff basketball ahead of him. But the “he’s young and passionate” defense only goes so far when LeBron James — who did this exact thing after the 2009 ECF against Orlando — got torched in the press for weeks and never received the youth-and-passion framing. LeBron was 24 and “should have known better.” Wembanyama is 22 and he gets Draymond Green going viral on his podcast while the NBA quietly looks the other way.
Isiah Thomas was the one voice who pushed back: “I think he’s been treated and critiqued fairly. He’s also made some mistakes. You have to call out the mistakes also.” And Thomas knows something about walking off a court early — his 1991 Pistons left before the Bulls finished their sweep, and he called it his biggest career regret decades later.
Somebody take Mikal’s phone
— Jalen Brunson (@jalenbrunson1) June 15, 2026
From a Wolves fan perspective, here is the cleanest version of this: Anthony Edwards has never needed a lesson in how to lose. He shook their hands. He took accountability at the mic. Gave the Spurs their respect when they earned it. The guy who beat us didn’t even bother to do the same when he lost.
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Sources: Yahoo Sports on handshake skip | Wembanyama postgame quote via SI | Brunson quote via SI | Edwards handshake via Yahoo Sports | Isiah Thomas via Yahoo Sports | LeBron 2009 via NESN | Draymond Green via OutKick
