No. 1 pick Victor Wembanyama remained unfazed after he was at the receiving end of a vicious poster dunk from Golden State Warriors‘ second-round pick Trayce Jackson-Davis.
“Getting dunked on, it is nothing,” Wembanyama said in French during his postgame presser following the Warriors’ 122-102 win on Monday, March 11. “It’s part of the game. I dunk on a lot of people and a lot of people dunk on me too. But I think I counter more often than I get dunked on it, so that’s positive.”
Wembanyama had the better numbers — 27 points, 14 rebounds, 2 blocks, 2 assists and 1 steal — but Jackson-Davis had the last laugh.
The poster dunk over the generational player from France punctuated Jackson-Davis’ double-double performance. Slept on during the NBA Draft headlined by Wembanyama, the 57th pick Jackson-Davis proved he can hang with the top of their class.
Jackson-Davis finished with 13 points, 10 rebounds and 5 assists off the bench.
If the highlight dunk was the cherry on top, his game-high plus-20 in 27 minutes was the whole ice cream.
“I know everyone, I mean a lot of guys want to come at me like this hard all game,” Wembanyama told reporters. “Especially veterans and sometimes, [fellow] rookies. So it’s another challenge. But sometimes rookies feel like we have something to prove against guys our age or more or less our age.”
Jackson-Davis anchored the Warriors’ defense after Draymond Green fouled out in the final 2:43 to hold off the Spurs’ late rally.
“It’s not easy to do,” Warriors coach Steve Kerr told reporters. “Obviously [Green] is our best defender but it was also an indication of how good Trayce was. He was incredible tonight at both ends.”
Warriors Rookie Brushes off Victor Wembanyama Poster
Despite his poster dunk going viral, Jackson-Davis played it cool and dismissed it as just a “basketball play.”
“I saw that he overplayed it, and he overplayed it to my right. Obviously, I’m left-handed,” Jackson-Davis told reporters after the win. “So, I think I spun or got to my left hand and then I had to step on him. I just tried him. I told (Kevon Looney) before the game that if I got the chance to try him, I would. At the end of the day, sometimes you dunk on people, sometimes you get dunked on. It’s just a basketball play.”
Jackson-Davis’ phone blew up after that highlight play. And he just laughed it off.
“I watched [it] a few times,” Jackson-Davis said on “The Morning Roast” on 95.7 The Game on Tuesday, March 12. “It’s funny, one big play like that happens, everyone wants to send it to you like like you haven’t seen it. I’ve seen it a few times.”
‘That’s What NBA Fans Come to See’
Kerr, who also exploded from his seat on the bench when Jackson-Davis threw down the electrifying dunk that floored Wembanyama, was in awe.
The bench was FEELIN’ IT
@MichelobULTRA || Joy Cam
“That’s two guys about as high as humanly possible and you know, one guy barely getting the ball over the other guy’s arm. That’s what NBA fans come to see. It just doesn’t seem human.”
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Victor Wembanyama Reacts to Warriors’ Trayce Jackson-Davis Posterizing Him