Victor Wembanyama revealed Thursday that Gregg Popovich delivered a characteristically direct assessment after the San Antonio Spurs' 105-95 Game 1 loss to the New York Knicks. The legendary former Spurs coach communicated his verdict by text.

"In the big lines, it was that I've been bad and played a lot better than this," said Wembanyama.

Wembanyama posted 26 points, 12 rebounds and three blocks but shot just 6-for-21 from the field and 2-for-9 from three-point range. Wembanyama was candid in his own self-assessment immediately after the game

"I was bad tonight. It's not more complicated than that," said Wembanyama.

The Spurs surrendered a 14-point third-quarter lead and were outscored on second-chance points 23-14 while recording only 16 assists. Wembanyama was primarily defended by Knicks center Karl-Anthony Towns throughout.

Wembanyama maintained the defeat was not rooted in strategy or tactics, and called on his team to reset mentally ahead of Game 2 Friday at 8:30 p.m. ET.

"We need to approach the game with a better mental state, and we just need to play our game, to be normal," said Wembanyama. "We don't need to do anything incredible.

"'Normal' means trusting each other, trusting the basketball gods, trusting the game plan, executing and not relying on talent so much to make shots or to save the day. We've been playing a certain way all season. We've been successful this way. There's no reason to change the day the Finals start."

Mitch Johnson acknowledged the Knicks effectively eliminated lob opportunities for Wembanyama near the rim and said San Antonio must capitalize on what New York leaves open as a result.

"I think we gave ourselves a lot of aspects of the game where we need to improve," said Johnson. "We can be much sharper on a lot of game-plan-execution stuff."