Tim Duncan sat courtside and watched, with a small smile, as the kid in his old number broke one of his records. Sunday night in San Antonio, Victor Wembanyama made his NBA playoff debut and turned it into something the Spurs have not seen in a generation — a young star announcing himself on the biggest stage.

Wembanyama poured in 35 points on 12-for-19 shooting, drained five three-pointers, pulled down six rebounds, and blocked three shots as the Spurs beat the Portland Trail Blazers 114-98 in Game 1 of their Western Conference first-round series. In the process, the 22-year-old Frenchman surpassed Duncan's 32-point mark from 1998 for the most points ever scored by a Spur in his first NBA playoff game.

"I've been waiting for this a long time," Wembanyama said afterward, still catching his breath. "It's a different feeling out there. Every possession matters. I loved it."

A Long Wait, A Loud Answer

It has been six years since the Spurs last made the playoffs — a dry spell unheard of for a franchise that won five championships between 1999 and 2014. When Wembanyama was drafted first overall in 2023, the expectation was that his arrival would eventually drag San Antonio back into the postseason. Sunday night was the payoff.

He wasted no time. On the Spurs' third possession, Wembanyama curled off a screen, caught a pass at the top of the arc, and swished a three. Later in the first quarter, he dropped in a baseline fadeaway over two defenders and followed it with a chase-down block that had the AT&T Center crowd roaring. By halftime he had 18 points. By the end of the third quarter, the Duncan record was as good as broken.

Duncan, whose jersey hangs in the rafters and whose presence in the Spurs organization has only grown since he retired, attended the game along with fellow franchise legend David Robinson. When Wembanyama passed him late in the fourth, cameras caught the Hall of Famer nodding and applauding.

Built for the Moment

At 7-foot-4 with the shooting touch of a guard and the shot-blocking instincts of a traditional big man, Wembanyama has always looked like someone designed for the playoffs, where size and versatility matter even more than in the regular season. His Game 1 performance suggests the stage does not faze him at all.

Head coach Mitch Johnson said his young star "looked the same as he does in November" — which, given Wembanyama's All-NBA regular season, is exactly what the Spurs wanted. Portland tried triple-teams, switches, and even a rarely used triangle-and-two defense. Nothing worked.

"He is 22 years old, and he played like a 10-year veteran," Johnson said. "That's a compliment, but it is also just what we are seeing night in, night out."

The Bigger Picture

Wembanyama's 35 now stands as the highest-scoring playoff debut in franchise history, but the number on the stat sheet is not really the point. The point is that Sunday felt like a passing of the torch — a Duncan-sized moment, made by a player who grew up in Le Chesnay watching highlights of the very man whose record he just broke.

The series continues Tuesday in San Antonio, with Portland needing answers it did not find in Game 1. Wembanyama, meanwhile, is doing what the best players do in April: raising his game just in time for the games that matter most.

Duncan knows exactly how that goes.