{"id":1967787,"date":"2026-06-02T09:00:36","date_gmt":"2026-06-02T06:00:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1967787"},"modified":"2026-06-02T09:00:36","modified_gmt":"2026-06-02T06:00:36","slug":"the-knicks-can-win-the-nba-finals-but-i-still-like-the-spurs-barely","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1967787","title":{"rendered":"The Knicks can win the NBA Finals, but I still like the Spurs \u2026 barely"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Is it possible for a team from New York to be underrated<\/em>?<\/p>\n

I would have thought this impossible, given the sheer gravitational pull of virtually anything New York-adjacent in the media landscape, but this year\u2019s Knicks have me wondering. Somehow, the Knicks are four wins from the title after having just about zero hype all season. Even during this run to the NBA Finals, while much energy has been expended talking about the excitement in the city and amongst the team\u2019s myriad celebrity fans, remarkably little focus has shifted to the actual basketball players.<\/p>\n

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Look, we\u2019ve learned more about Fat Joe in the last six weeks than we have about Josh Hart. Jalen Brunson and Karl-Anthony Towns are All-Stars but still lag on the national attention meter, especially for New York athletes. The Knicks\u2019 third-best player, OG Anunoby, is in the midst of an awesome playoff run and yet still effectively remains OG Anonymous once he leaves Madison Square Garden.<\/p>\n

These entire finals, in fact, are a tell on that phenomenon: It\u2019s basically being marketed as Victor Wembanyama vs. The New York Knicks.<\/p>\n

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This is a tremendous compliment to the way the Knicks have been built. There was no savior lottery pick like Patrick Ewing in 1985, no mildly-overrated-but-very-famous trade target to replicate Camelo Anthony. Instead, it\u2019s been a sustained build of smart trades, good (OK, awesome<\/em>) free-agent signings, and forward-thinking cap strategy. After three decades of chasing every shiny object, not to mention a few dull ones (paging Mr. Bargnani), the Knicks under Leon Rose have been a model of strategic patience mixed with timely impatience. Take that Masai Ujiri!*<\/p>\n

(*If you know, you know.)<\/em><\/p>\n

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What You Should Read Next<\/div>\n
\n \"How<\/p>\n
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\n How the Knicks built an NBA Finals team: Patience, restraint and Jalen Brunson\n <\/div>\n
\n The Knicks \u2014 a team that tripped over itself for most of this century \u2014 are going to the finals for the first time since 1999. What changed?\n <\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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Over half a decade, New York snuck up on everyone as a contender. And out of the blue in a two-year span, where few perceived them as a true threat to win the title, the Shamet-Chalamet Era Knicks have won 22 playoff games and five playoff series. They\u2019re arguably one Aaron Nesmith heater and Tyrese Haliburton miracle bounce away from consecutive NBA Finals trips.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a reason for that, of course: We equate champions with great players. Not good players, great<\/em> ones. Historically, teams without one of the two or three very best players in the league have come close several times, but have had an extremely difficult time climbing the mountain at the end. New York\u2019s team is the \u201cget a bunch of good players\u201d model more than one of heliocentric superstardom.<\/p>\n

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The \u201cbunch-of-good-players\u201d roster build has come achingly close many times (Indiana last year, Sacramento in 2002, Portland in 2000, and so on), but the only true successes since 1980 are Detroit in 2004, San Antonio in 2014 and, one could argue, Boston in 2024. (Even that San Antonio squad had two awesomely great players, in terms of their career, but neither was That Dude in 2014: Kawhi Leonard was near the beginning of his journey, and Tim Duncan was near the end.)<\/p>\n

Every other champion since 1980 can be described by one player, more or less, from the Michael Jordan Bulls to the Shai Gilgeous-Alexander Thunder. Yes, this is unfair and reductive, but it reflects the reality that a single dominant performer has been the necessary ingredient for championships much more often than not.<\/p>\n

The Spurs, unquestionably, have that ingredient in Wembanyama. The Knicks, unquestionably, do not. Brunson and Towns are very good, but literally nobody thinks they\u2019re at the Wemby\/SGA\/Nikola Joki\u0107\/Luka Don\u010di\u0107 level.<\/p>\n

The Spurs also won nine more games than the Knicks this season, had a better scoring margin, and are a jaw-dropping 39-5 in the last 44 games in which Wembanyama has played more than 20 minutes. San Antonio outlasted a team with the eighth-best scoring margin of all time to get here, even with injuries to De\u2019Aaron Fox and Dylan Harper, two key backcourt players.<\/p>\n

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Top to bottom, San Antonio has an awesome roster poised to challenge for titles for the next decade. The Knicks, meanwhile, are a No. 3 seed with 53 wins, one that barely nosed over my historical hurdle (a top-three seed and at least 52 wins) for quasi-legit championship contention.<\/p>\n

On paper, then, you might conclude this is a repeat of the Spurs-Knicks Finals in 1999 that San Antonio won in five games to kick-start the Tim Duncan dynasty.<\/p>\n

And yet \u2026<\/p>\n

As I wrote a week ago<\/a> as they were finishing off a sweep of Cleveland in the Eastern Conference finals, the Knicks have seemingly touched God over the last 11 games, not only sporting the best scoring margin in NBA history for an 11-outing stretch \u2014 playoffs or regular season \u2014 but actually bookending it with the two best 10-game<\/em> stretches.<\/p>\n

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Even allowing for the opposition, and for twice losing in the first round to Atlanta before blasting off, New York\u2019s playoff run has been impressive. As NBA.com\u2019s John Schuhmann noted<\/a>, the Knicks\u2019 offense and defense have beaten their opponents\u2019 averages by a greater margin than San Antonio\u2019s did in the first three rounds.<\/p>\n

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Knicks\u2019 offense: +9.6 per 100 vs. what their opponents allowed in the regular season.<\/p>\n

Knicks\u2019 defense: -12.3 vs. what their opponents scored in the regular season.<\/p>\n

Spurs\u2019 offense: +5.0<\/p>\n

Spurs\u2019 defense: -11.3<\/p>\n

\u2014 John Schuhmann (@johnschuhmann.bsky.social<\/a>) May 31, 2026 at 10:28 PM<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Even that part comes with a few asterisks, of course. The Knicks have had shooting luck in their favor throughout this run on offense and, particularly against Cleveland, with Jedi 3-point defense. The Knicks are also the first team in history to get an opponent who went seven games the previous round three straight times, giving them a huge rest edge, and the first team to make the NBA Finals without ever being in a series involving a top-two seed. (Other teams got to the finals without facing<\/em> a top-2 seed, but they were themselves top two seeds.)<\/p>\n

Of course, San Antonio\u2019s own playoff run has been pretty dominant, especially if you subtract the two games Victor Wembanyama left early (because of an injury against Portland and ejection against Minnesota) and the one he didn\u2019t play. With Wembanyama on the court, San Antonio\u2019s net rating in the first two rounds (plus-21.9) was the same as New York\u2019s with Brunson (plus-22.2), except this reflects a timeframe where the Knicks were playing out of their minds and the Spurs were just sort of \u2026 playing.<\/p>\n

So, let\u2019s set that as the initial conditions: On paper, San Antonio is the better team.<\/p>\n

If you had the Knicks and Spurs randomly play a series of games against the other 28 NBA teams, the Spurs would likely win more of them than the Knicks would. The Spurs also just dismissed a mighty Thunder team that owned the Knicks in two regular-season meetings and likely would have done so again.<\/p>\n

However, basketball isn\u2019t played by the transitive property. In a matchup-dependent sport, Team A beating Team B and Team B beating Team C does not necessarily equal Team A beating Team C.<\/p>\n

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There are some very specific factors that I think playing to New York\u2019s advantage against San Antonio, and played to the Thunder\u2019s disadvantage.<\/p>\n

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First and most notably, Karl-Anthony Towns can shoot. Actually, he might be the best-shooting big man ever<\/a>. This matters against every opponent, but against a 7-foot-4 human missile defense system, oh my goodness does it matter.<\/p>\n

Just look at the last round. The tell<\/a> that San Antonio was a matchup problem for the Thunder came two minutes into the conference finals <\/em>when Mark Daigneault subbed out his starting center, Isaiah Hartenstein, because he couldn\u2019t shoot 3s and draw Wembanyama away from the hoop. He went musical chairs on his rotation from that point forward, without ever quite landing on a quintet that had a sustainable advantage.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s thing that Daigneault realized: You must play five-out against Wemby, or you must have his man setting ball screens and involve Wemby in the play (not ideal). No choice. Just asking a center to hang out in the dunker spot is death, because Victor is going to make the entire paint a no-fly zone.<\/p>\n

Towns lets the Knicks play five-out, especially with one other tweak I\u2019ll note later.<\/p>\n

Second, the Knicks have a real power forward. For all the great stuff the Thunder did in building their roster, the one area they never filled was a big, starting-caliber forward like Anunoby (they tried: witness Aleksej Poku\u0161evski, Ousmane Dieng and the Gordon Hayward Experience).<\/p>\n

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That allows the Knicks to have a size advantage against the Spurs\u2019 smaller wings (Julian Champagnie \u2014 no stranger to MSG after playing three years at St. John\u2019s \u2014 likely gets the assignment), and also gives them a viable second option to guard Wembanyama when Towns inevitably gets into foul trouble.<\/p>\n

Those two advantages the Spurs had over the Thunder were baked into the cards in the regular season, when San Antonio won four of the five matchups. In total, the Thunder went 71-14 against the rest of the NBA and 4-8 against the Spurs. Wemby was their kryptonite.<\/p>\n

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The Knicks, however, had a much different experience against the Spurs this year. New York beat San Antonio in the NBA Cup final in December, narrowly lost at San Antonio 134-132 on New Year\u2019s Eve, and then pasted the Spurs 114-89 in early March \u2014 San Antonio\u2019s worst loss of the season.<\/p>\n

Two things in particular stand out about the season series. First, despite Wembanyama\u2019s awesomeness, the Knicks were able to eat on offense. Deliciously, actually. Their offensive ratings in the three games were 128, 126 and 117; the first two totals would have comfortably led the league, and the third would have ranked in the top 10. New York\u2019s five-out spacing was a clear problem as the Knicks took 100 3s over the final two meetings.<\/p>\n

One reason is that, despite the similarities in the play styles between Brunson and SGA, the Knicks have a lot more ways to hurt defenses that send too much help. The Thunder\u2019s half-court offense was stymied by Wembanyama standing on the strong side any time SGA tried to iso, and Oklahoma City didn\u2019t have enough juice away from the play to burn it.<\/p>\n

The Knicks have two things in their favor on this front. First, and I hate to be too critical, but cutting and moving and stuff still matters. As opposed to Oklahoma City\u2019s off-ball reaction to San Antonio\u2019s defense, which was to just stand there<\/em>, the Knicks typically have a lot more activity going on away from the play. They also have players such as Towns and Anunoby who demand more attention than the Thunder\u2019s did with Jalen Williams and Ajay Mitchell injured and Chet Holmgren hiding behind the stanchion.<\/p>\n

Second, the Knicks created an entire secondary offense out of thin air in Game 4 of the Atlanta series, having Towns operate as a fulcrum while the other players cut off the ball. If Wembanyama is guarding Towns at the 3-point line, this could provide an easy way to get paint catches for the likes of Anunoby or Mikal Bridges (who likely will have the much smaller De\u2019Aaron Fox guarding him) without Wemby around to swat the resulting shot \u2014 at least if Towns doesn\u2019t need to throw an eephus pitch to get a pass by Wemby\u2019s arms.<\/p>\n

Of course, that assumes Wembanyama guards Towns. The other fascinating sub-plot of his series is what happens when the Spurs put Wemby on Josh Hart and dare him to shoot. The Knicks were plus-3 with Hart on the floor in the three games against the Spurs and plus-31 with him off. In the game he missed, a two-point loss in San Antonio, New York launched 52 3-pointers. Even in the game the Knicks won easily, Hart played 29:33, shot 1 of 6 from 3 and had a plus\/minus of 0. New York won his off-court minutes by 25. Yes, partly that\u2019s because Wemby didn\u2019t play most of those same minutes, but still.<\/p>\n

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\n Can Landry Shamet help Jalen Brunson and the Knicks unlock another level on offense against the Spurs? (Brad Penner \/ Imagn Images)<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

I\u2019ve pointed this out before<\/a>, but the Knicks have been dramatically better in Landry Shamet\u2019s minutes than Hart\u2019s, both in the playoffs and the regular season, and his shooting would give the Knicks a truly devastating five-out look with no easy outs for Wembanyama to hover in the paint. I won\u2019t be surprised at all if Shamet is finishing games. By the end of the series, he might even be starting them.<\/p>\n

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If it sounds like I\u2019m waffling after 2,000 words, it\u2019s because I am. This is series is close enough that it is likely to hinge on small things, like 3-point variance or a kind bounce at the buzzer or \u2026. injuries. In fact, it might be close enough for an injury to a backup center to swing things.<\/p>\n

Look, Mitchell Robinson has his weaknesses, but for 15 minutes a night against second-line bigs, he is a problem<\/em>. He grabbed a staggering 10 offensive boards in 18 minutes in the NBA Cup win over the Spurs. Robinson is also big enough to guard Wembanyama, and his presence as an off-ball rebounder is fearsome enough that he might be an exception to the rule above about centers playing against Wembanyama.<\/p>\n

Robinson becomes doubly important because Towns will pick up two fouls just crossing Eighth Avenue on his way to MSG, let alone dealing with Wemby. Towns had 17 games this year with either five (10) or six fouls (seven), including the New Year\u2019s Eve game against the Spurs when he fouled out in 33 minutes.<\/p>\n

Robinson has a broken pinkie<\/a> that required surgery and may limit both his availability and his effectiveness. (At least it can\u2019t hurt his free-throw shooting \u2026 um, right?)<\/p>\n

His injury dovetails into the other reason I\u2019m a bit squeamish about picking New York: The Knicks dominated the bench minutes in the three meetings between these two teams. Absolutely crushed them.<\/p>\n

I have two reasons to think that might not be as impactful in the NBA Finals, even if Robinson plays. First, the thing about finals games is that the bench guys just don\u2019t get that much run, or, if they do, it\u2019s against the other teams\u2019 starters. That Tyler Kolek is better than Lindy Waters II is unlikely to matter; neither of them are playing. Even guys such as Miles McBride and Jordan Clarkson are likely to see brief shifts.<\/p>\n

Second, Harper. My goodness. The Spurs\u2019 go-to backup guard was awesome in the final two games against the Thunder, and only his injury in Game 1 briefly stalled out what has been a rocket ship to stardom in the closing stretch of the season. He\u2019s so good that he\u2019s soaking up minutes that would go to the league\u2019s Sixth Man Award winner, Keldon Johnson. A 20-year-old rookie with an 18.6 PER and plus-3.6 BPM in the playoffs<\/em> is scary stuff indeed.<\/p>\n

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So, the envelope is in. I\u2019ve gone back and forth arguing with myself (and losing) over this the last three days, but here it is: The Knicks are a worthy adversary for the Spurs, and I will not be at all shocked if they win. I think the Vegas line badly understates their chances, actually, with implied odds of a 67 percent chance of San Antonio winning.<\/p>\n

I think that number is more like 57 percent. Or less. But if you had galactic superpowers to play and replay this series 100 times, I do think the Spurs win the majority of them. If so, it\u2019s another painful, narrow defeat for the \u201cbunch of good players\u201d model.<\/p>\n

Prediction: <\/strong>Spurs in seven.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Is it possible for a team from New York to be underrated? I would have thought this impossible, given the sheer gravitational pull of virtually anything New York-adjacent in the media landscape, but this year\u2019s Knicks have me wondering. Somehow, the Knicks are four wins from the title after having just about zero hype all […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[226,241],"class_list":["post-1967787","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-crawlmanager","tag-nytimes-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1967787","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1967787"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1967787\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1967787"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1967787"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1967787"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}