SAN ANTONIO — The Spurs have never been in this moment before. Most of the roster has never played in any moment of this magnitude. But there’s one player in the San Antonio locker room who has found his back against the wall on the biggest stage and found his way out.Harrison Barnes was down 2-1 to LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers in the 2015 NBA Finals, playing alongside the Golden State Warriors’ generational talent, who was getting his first whiff of the air at the mountaintop. Barnes can remember what it felt like fighting back. He can remember seeing Steph Curry figure it out as they became champions and an era was born.Barnes learned then how hard it is to live up to the standard you’ve set for your team when you’re playing against the absolute best, with everything on the line. The Spurs are playing a different sport right now, a roughshod edition of basketball full of vitriol, precision and destruction. These teams are trying to break each other’s spirits. It’s the clearest factor in the Oklahoma City Thunder’s 2-1 Western Conference finals lead over the Spurs after Friday night’s 123-108 win.The Spurs lost by 15 after starting the game on a 15-0 run. Spirit strained. But broken?“It’s a matter of saying, ‘Look, however many games the series goes, are we going to play to our standard when we look back at those games?’” Barnes told The Athletic. “The last few games, can we have said that? No. And so going into this next game, what is it going to take for us to do that?”There are many answers to that question. They need to find their pace of play on offense and stick to it, even when things get ugly. Someone besides Devin Vassell has to get shots to fall. They have to get the ball out of Shai Gilgeous-Alexander’s hands, and then keep it out.But, most importantly, Victor Wembanyama needs to seize the moment. After his historic performance in Game 1, The Athletic declared him the best player in the world. The Thunder and Gilgeous-Alexander told everyone to hit pause, stringing together a pair of elite defensive performances while the actual MVP strung together a pair of textbook Shai performances.And that’s the key. SGA is overwhelmingly consistent. He doesn’t have many out-of-this-world performances. He is just very good, constantly, persistently, endlessly.Wembanayama is not … yet. He is majestic and paradigm-defying. That’s not enough right now. It’s time to deliver, always. That’s the challenge the Thunder have handed down to him and which he must embrace.“I feel like I have trouble making my teammates better right now,” Wembanyama said after scoring 26 points, but with just four rebounds, three assists and two blocks. “That’s what I should do better. My shooting splits aren’t terrible. I need to be more of a team player.”