{"id":1982152,"date":"2026-06-10T09:30:50","date_gmt":"2026-06-10T06:30:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1982152"},"modified":"2026-06-10T09:30:50","modified_gmt":"2026-06-10T06:30:50","slug":"whether-knicks-or-spurs-win-nba-finals-the-league-can-run-with-a-compelling-narrative","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1982152","title":{"rendered":"Whether Knicks or Spurs win NBA Finals, the league can run with a compelling narrative"},"content":{"rendered":"
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NEW YORK \u2014 The Knicks were last atop the NBA in May 1973, just a week before the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities, chaired by an avuncular old owl of a senator named Sam Ervin, who happened to revere the U.S. Constitution, began its televised hearings to find out exactly what had happened nearly a year prior \u2014 when a bunch of nincompoops broke into the national headquarters of the Democratic Party at the Watergate Hotel.<\/p>\n

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The Spurs were last atop the NBA more than a decade ago, in 2014, having developed a young two-way player not known for his offense<\/a> into a finals Most Valuable Player. That once-young player, all these years later, is still in the news<\/a>. Hmmm.<\/p>\n

Either New York or San Antonio will be the next NBA champion \u2014 the eighth different one the league has had since the end of the Warriors\u2019 dynasty. This warms the cockles of Adam Silver\u2019s heart.<\/p>\n

Two more victories by the Knicks, whose 115-111 Game 3 loss to the Spurs on Monday was their first in 46 days, and Silver will have a fever dream fulfilled, bookend championships in the last 12 months \u2014 the first by the team in the league\u2019s smallest market, Oklahoma City, the second by the team in its largest. What better evidence could the commissioner summon up that all is well \u2014 forget tanking and Aspiration; the NBA is, again, faaaaantastic<\/em>! \u2014 by having such polar opposite organizations rise up to claim the Larry in successive years?<\/p>\n

The Thunder have rebuilt painstakingly through multiple swings in the draft over the last few years, though with few lottery picks. The Knicks assembled their current roster mostly through free agency and timely trades.<\/p>\n

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The Knicks, having won the first two games in San Antonio, are still up a break in the series, even after Monday\u2019s home loss at the Garden. If New York ultimately prevails, the league will have a ratings and social media monster going into next season for its still-new rights deals with Amazon Prime, NBC\/Peacock and ESPN\/ABC \u2014 a legacy franchise, again a champion, built around a relatable superstar in Jalen Brunson and multiple exceedingly likable guys in its rotation. The intoxicant of being in proximity to a winner has unified most of the five boroughs to Reggie Jackson in 1977 and Mark Messier in 1994 levels.<\/p>\n

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But if the Spurs come back and pull off what would be a shocking reversal, after losing back-to-back home games to kick things off, it might be even better, long term, for Olympic Tower.<\/p>\n

Because Victor Wembanyama is waiting in the wings to run this league.<\/p>\n

Like all prodigies, he\u2019s impatient. He\u2019s not trying to hear about why he has to wait, like most of the greats had to wait, to go get his first ring.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will see,\u201d Wembanyama said Tuesday. \u201cBut my bet would be yes, it\u2019s possible (to win without waiting). What we\u2019ve learned? I mean, many things over these playoffs. Many things. Brace with your hands and not with your chin<\/a>. Hit below the head, if you do. Many other things. But most importantly, be relentless.\u201d<\/p>\n

You better beat him now, U.S. Olympic team<\/a>. Gotham, you better take his candy while you can<\/a>. The 22-year-old is coming for everything.<\/em><\/p>\n

And the league will giddily jump on his slender frame as he takes the NBA around the world, helping the league establish more international footholds than ever. Silver\u2019s pet project, NBA Europe, will certainly be turbocharged if Wemby, the darling of Le Chesnay, France, becomes the best player on earth \u2014 but so, too, could the league\u2019s collaborations elsewhere, like the Basketball Africa League. Wembanyama\u2019s father, F\u00e9lix, born in Belgium, is of Congolese descent.<\/p>\n

There are patterns in greatness, but each individual story, like Wembanyama\u2019s, resonates at a different timbre in different places. It brings the occasional notoriety, but just as often, it fosters hope \u2014 frequently, where hope rarely abides.<\/p>\n

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As with Giannis Antetokounmpo, who grew up in Greece but whose family is Nigerian, Wembanyama could become a citizen of the basketball world \u2014 a man definitely with a home country, but who can inspire people all over with his personality and one-of-one play. Wembanyama seems perfectly at home with the world watching his every move. He does not speed up on the floor or in the interview room. He speaks on everything with thought, rarely devolving into cliche. He could be, then, the perfect bridge to the NBA\u2019s post-LeBron James\/Stephen Curry era.<\/p>\n

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But you, first, and always, have to earn that perch by playing great when greatness is most required. Wembanyama did so Monday, in Game 3. He unifies, even if it\u2019s in vulgarity,<\/a> almost always reserved for only the great opponents to come into Madison Square Garden. Going to cussing an opponent means the opponent has gotten under your skin, made you nervous. They still chant Trae Young\u2019s name around here because Trae Young came into the Garden and came out with a 2021 playoff win.<\/a><\/p>\n

Curry made his name here<\/a>, even in defeat. Kobe shined under the lights on Broadway;<\/a> two nights later, James left his calling card with the basketball cognoscenti here, dropping a sublime 52-point, nine-rebound, 11-assist triple-double<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Mike? You want the Double Nickel,<\/a> or Block-Strip-Block-Block<\/a> or the 50-burger in \u201986?<\/a><\/p>\n

To establish yourself as one of Them, then, you need to have a signature moment at the Mecca.<\/p>\n

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Wembanyama came into as hyped a Garden as there\u2019s been in some time Monday night. You may have heard the president was in attendance<\/a>. So was the city\u2019s new mayor. So, too, were the likes of Jay-Z and Larry David and Dave Chappelle, along with the celebs who frequent Knicks games more regularly. (Alas, it does not appear that the great Edie Falco was among them.)<\/a> This was to be a final rendering of judgment on the young but still green Spurs, facing the white-hot Knicks.<\/p>\n

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What You Should Read Next<\/div>\n
\n \"Victor<\/p>\n
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\n Victor Wembanyama achieves New York sports villain status with dominant Game 3\n <\/div>\n
\n Wembanyama’s performance in Game 3 stunned the Knicks home crowd and vaulted him into lofty company among New York sports opponents.\n <\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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And then Wemby dunked on their beans.<\/a> Again and again and again, to the tune of 32 points, eight rebounds, six assists and three blocks in Game 3. The Spurs helped their young star by using different sets than the ones the Knicks had short-circuited in the first two games, creating more spacing for their guards to get two feet into the paint. But Wembanyama also did more. He didn\u2019t accept the contact that had stymied him as New York defenders tagged him, over and over, in Games 1 and 2. Monday, he pushed through the Knicks\u2019 physicality, demanding space deep in the paint.<\/p>\n

This was not the Wemby who seemed gassed at all the wrong moments in the first two games in San Antonio. This was the poised Wembanyama, the one who renders opposing fanbases mute when he splashes a deep 3 in the same game he goes vertical, touching air molecules about which the rest of us can only speculate.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI don\u2019t think I\u2019ve seen a player at his age handle the platform and pressure that he\u2019s been able to, with the grace that he\u2019s been able to,\u201d said veteran Spurs forward Harrison Barnes, who won a ring with Curry in Golden State in 2015 and played alongside Dirk Nowitzki in Dallas.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe feels very natural in those moments,\u201d Barnes said. \u201cI think, coming into (Monday) night, in 14 years, that was one of the craziest atmospheres I\u2019ve seen for a playoff game. Especially a finals game. I feel like he was extremely comfortable in that moment, just to embrace that and be who he was.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Knicks still have the inside track to a title 53 years in the waiting. They can still finish the fairy tale with the appropriate ending \u2014 not barriers and barricades and bulletproof glass, but with their crazy fans going mad, both inside and just outside of the Garden, a parade in the offing down the Canyon of Heroes in the next week or so. But with a second win up here Wednesday, San Antonio would set this series on its head. At some point, Dylan Harper and Devin Vassell and Julian Champagnie might all get hot at the same time. And that\u2019s all Wembanyama might need to bend these finals, and this league, to his will.<\/p>\n

Either way, the NBA can sell it.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NEW YORK \u2014 The Knicks were last atop the NBA in May 1973, just a week before the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities, chaired by an avuncular old owl of a senator named Sam Ervin, who happened to revere the U.S. Constitution, began its televised hearings to find out exactly what had […]<\/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-1982152","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\/1982152","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=1982152"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1982152\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1982152"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1982152"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1982152"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}