Wembanyama sets career highs with 52 points, 24 rebounds as Spurs edge Mavericks for sixth straight win

Victor Wembanyama set career highs with 52 points, 24 rebounds and 8 blocks on Wednesday night, carrying the San Antonio Spurs to a one-point escape over the Dallas Mavericks, 112-111, and stretching San Antonio's winning streak to six games.

A record night decided in the final seconds

Wembanyama's line surpassed the previous bests of his three-year career: a 50-point outburst against Washington in November 2024 and a 23-rebound night against Denver in January 2025. He reached 29 points, 15 rebounds and 5 blocks by halftime alone, then had to close the game out at the free-throw line, where he made just 1 of 4 attempts in the final two minutes. Dallas got one last look when Kyrie Irving missed a contested turnaround jumper with three seconds remaining, preserving San Antonio's margin.

Irving finished with 29 points for Dallas, with Naji Marshall adding 22, P.J. Washington 21 and second-year forward Cooper Flagg 19. San Antonio got secondary scoring from No. 2 overall pick Dylan Harper, who had 21 points, and Stephon Castle, who added 17 points and 10 rebounds. The Associated Press recap of the game described Wembanyama's totals as the new career marks, and San Antonio's official box score and game page at NBA.com confirm the final score and his full stat line.

The win pushed San Antonio to 6-2 on the young season and fifth in the Western Conference, a record that includes an 0-2 start before Wembanyama and the Spurs won six straight. Dallas, which has alternated wins and losses much of the season, fell to 4-4 and 11th in the conference, according to the teams' respective Spurs and Mavericks team pages on NBA.com.

From a blood clot to the league's best two-way big man

The performance is the latest marker in Wembanyama's recovery from the deep vein thrombosis that ended his 2024-25 season in February of that year after doctors found a clot near his right shoulder. He underwent treatment and surgery, and by mid-2025 he said he had been medically cleared to resume basketball activity without restriction. He returned for the 2025-26 season at close to full strength and helped drive one of the more dramatic turnarounds in recent NBA history: a Spurs franchise that had finished among the league's worst teams for years went on to win the Western Conference, reaching its first NBA Finals since 2014 after a seven-game series win over Oklahoma City.

That run ended in defeat. The Spurs lost the 2026 Finals in five games to the New York Knicks, who won their first title since 1973. San Antonio spent the summer adding depth around its 22-year-old center rather than overhauling the roster, and this season's early slump — losses to Oklahoma City and Houston in the first two games — briefly raised questions about whether the Finals run had been a ceiling rather than a floor. The six-game run since has quieted that, with Wembanyama averaging well above his career norms across the stretch.

It is a sharp reversal from where the franchise stood only three years ago. The Spurs bottomed out in the early 2020s, finishing with one of the league's worst records before winning the draft lottery for the right to select Wembanyama, a 7-foot-4 French prospect who had been considered the most hyped international draft pick in a generation. San Antonio paired him the following year with Castle, taken fourth overall out of UConn, and then last summer with Harper, giving the roster three former top-four picks age 24 or younger on top of veteran contributors brought in to steady the group during the losing seasons. The 52-point night did more than pad a highlight reel: it continued a run in which a team picked to finish in the middle of the conference has instead looked like one of its best.

• Final score: San Antonio Spurs 112, Dallas Mavericks 111 (Nov. 4, 2026)
• Victor Wembanyama: 52 points, 24 rebounds, 8 blocks — both scoring and rebounding are new career highs
• Spurs improve to 6-2 and have now won six straight after an 0-2 start
• Mavericks fall to 4-4; Kyrie Irving led Dallas with 29 points

A tougher night for Dallas' rebuilding core

For the Mavericks, the loss was a reminder of how far the roster still has to travel. Dallas moved on from Luka Dončić in a trade with the Lakers last year and used the top pick in the 2025 draft on Flagg, the former Duke forward, to build around Irving. Flagg's 19 points were a solid outing, but Dallas has yet to put together the kind of sustained defense needed to beat a healthy Wembanyama, who shot efficiently inside and from the free-throw line through three quarters before the fourth-quarter misses that nearly let the Mavericks back in. San Antonio, by contrast, now has its own former No. 2 pick, Harper, playing alongside the reigning Rookie of the Year in Castle and a center who is drawing MVP-caliber praise barely a third into the season.

What comes next

San Antonio is scheduled to play at Sacramento on Friday night, the next stop on a stretch of road games before returning home later in November. Dallas, meanwhile, continues a season in which its front office has signaled patience with Flagg's development even as results have been inconsistent. Neither team's next game changes the broader storyline league-wide: Wembanyama, two seasons removed from a health scare that forced him to miss half a year, is once again being talked about as a top MVP candidate, and a Spurs team many expected to take a step back after a Finals loss has instead opened the year playing some of its best basketball yet.