Wembanyama One Foul From Suspension: The NBA Finals Now Hinge on a Decision Off the Court

The NBA Finals have a new main storyline, and it has nothing to do with the basket. Victor Wembanyama is one foul away from an automatic one-game suspension - precisely when San Antonio can least afford it.

In the third quarter of the fourth game against New York, the French center hit Karl-Anthony Towns with an elbow to the chin while swinging his right arm. After review, the referees called a flagrant foul of the first degree. Towns stayed on the floor after the blow.

The problem for San Antonio is in the math. Wembanyama now has three points for flagrant fouls in these playoffs, and one more automatically means missing a game. In a series where every game decides, the absence of the league's most dominant defensive player would be a tremor hard to recover from.

And it's not the first time this spring that this has hung over him. In the Western Conference semifinals against Minnesota, he got a flagrant of the second degree after an obvious hit on Naz Reid - that time the league spared him a suspension. In the third game of these Finals, though, Jalen Brunson shoved him hard, and despite the anger around it, went unpunished.

Here comes the question San Antonio would rather not hear: how many times can one star get away without consequences before the league decides it has to react after all? The disciplinary office has so far chosen to look the other way. But in the Finals, under all the spotlights, the same move weighs differently - and the very fate of the series may now depend on a single decision made off the court.