These are the NBA Finals. For all the marbles, ya dig? Before the first tip-off, you can script a rough outline: the loser of the first game will come back harder in the second. If they didn’t rise to the occasion, how the hell were they able to reach the final boss?
The San Antonio Spurs clearly came out with a mandate to play more aggressively against the Knicks, and it showed all game long. A friend messaged during the first half, “This is barely a basketball game. It’s WWE.”
Once again, the hosts
racked up a double-digit first-half lead, but only briefly. From there, Mikal Bridges and Karl-Anthony Towns went on a bucket-bonanza—so much so that New York was up by 14 midway through the final quarter. Victor Wembanyama—a four-shot taking ghost in the first half—rallied his troops to a two-point lead with 57 seconds left. But behold, Captain Clutch! Even though our star attraction struggled all night, he swished the tying bucket. Two costly mistakes by the Frenchman (a 16-foot miss and a pass into Stephon Castle’s back) led to Jalen Brunson taking two free throws. He made one, and that was enough. Final score: 105-104.
Quoth Thisisbaddddd: “That might be the best game I’ve ever seen.” No argument here, friend (unless the Knicks had lost….)
San Antonio made the Knicks work hard for their shots and forced them into three first-quarter turnovers. Brunson, in particular, received more of the rough, smothering treatment he enjoyed in Game One. Tonight, rookie Carter Bryant untucked and climbed up into his jersey, and even Luke Kornet applied extra sauce when laying him flat on a screen. Brunson sweated to make eight points on 25% shooting through the first 12 minutes.
Rookie Dylan Harper played feisty defense off the bench, harassing Deuce McBride into dribbling out of bounds. Julian Champagnie made his first two shots from deep and had a quick eight points. De’Aaron Fox looked better than he did in Game One, leading his team with nine points through the quarter.
The Knicks may be the older team, but they continued to push the pace, throwing lobs downcourt for breakaways. They answered the Spurs’ defensive pressure with more passes, swinging the ball one or two more times until an open man was found.
Each team crashed the boards with ferocity. Of the first 21 rebounds in the first quarter, only one was offensive. In the first game, the Knicks won the paint by eight. Tonight, the Spurs quickly doubled whenever a player stepped into the lane, and only two of New York’s first 13 points came close to the rim.
Foul calls were optional, with Tony Brothers and the crew mostly letting these two clubs duke it out. Notable among those that were called: San Antonio tried the Hack-a-Mitch strategy, but our man made 3-of-6 from the stripe, even with his pinky splinted.
The Spurs pieced together a 10-point lead late in the period. At the break, New York, shooting 38%, trailed 34-25.
To start the second frame, Castle hit from deep to make the deficit 12. From there, New York mounted a 7-0 run, all by Towns. That cut the differential to five, but Fox rode Deuce to the cup for an and-one at the other end.
After more magic from Josh Hart—a steal, endless rebounds—the Knicks trimmed the hole to three when Towns, draped by three defenders under the rim, somehow threaded a pass to Bridges in the corner for a bucket.
The physical play went both ways. The Spurs definitely felt the Knicks when they charged the lane, too. OG Anunoby went step for step with Harper and somehow, beautifully, blocked him cleanly at the rim. Castle fumed after a bump by Jose Alvarado put him on his ass.
There were two non-basketball fouls assessed during that stretch. One was deserved, the other B.S. Crashing to the floor and getting tangled up with Devin Vassell in pursuit of a loose ball, Hart reached out to trip the Spur and received a flagrant 1 for his trouble. Moments later, Mitchell Robinson and Wembanyama shoved each other a little too forcefully while grappling for position. Mitch received a tech, yet somehow the Frenchman didn’t. Huh!
Watching a player get into the zone is still a sight to behold. Towns had more points in the half (17), but Bridges hit the bigger shots. He went 4-of-5 from the field and made all three attempts from downtown for 11 points in 17 minutes (plus four boards and three dimes), and there was such an assurance to his form every time he left the floor that we just knew the shot would hit the bottom of the net.
When Bridges hit a runner from 25 feet, the score was 44-42. And when he made his third three-pointer—on his third attempt—the Knicks were down by one. At 3:30, Bridges fed a cutting Landry Shamet to net the first lead of the game. The Knicks fans in attendance shook the shingles off the building.
Right after that, Brunson’s hand grazed Vassell’s braids, giving him a four-point play and handing back the lead. But the good guys would not be contained, scoring six unanswered points to wrap up the half.
Superstar players should attempt more than four shots in a Finals half, no? Wemby committed two turnovers in the second quarter, and that’s two fewer than his total field-goal attempts in the half. He can be forgiven for his fantastic fadeaway—Towns ate his lunch all half and led all scorers at the break.
With a 16-point turnaround, our heroes limited the Spurs to 18 points in the second quarter and went into intermission ahead, 56-52.
Through the first half, the Knicks won most of the categories that decide games. They outshot the Spurs from the field (43% to 41%) and from deep (40% to 33%), had more assists and steals, fewer turnovers, and a 12-4 edge in fast-break points. After a slow start in the paint, they finished the half with 20 points there.
The centers traded scores to start the half, with a putback by Towns and a mid-range chip shot from Wemby. From there, Hart got a rebound and a block, Anunoby and Brunson swished triples, and Mitch Johnson called a timeout. His team was down 10 and looked mighty discombobulated less than three minutes into play. The timeout didn’t help—Bridges promptly forced Fox into a backcourt violation.
After Fox managed a three-point play, Bridges answered with another—you guessed it—swished three-pointer.
Everything was going great as the Knicks went up by 11. To slow their momentum, all that was needed was to call back-to-back questionable fouls on Towns. That gave him four and sent him to the bench. While Robinson covered for him, the Spurs cut into the lead. Wemby bricked an alley-oop, but then he and Castle drilled triples. New York clung to a four-point lead with just about three minutes left in the period. Thanks a lot, Tony Brothers!
McBride turned the ball over after a timeout, but redeemed it with a 12-footer. Then Bridges hit another eyes-closed, straight-money, contested-by-Castle shot from around the free-throw line. Oh, and then he did it again. After missing his first shot of the night, Mikal made eight in a row. Quoth ZMAN7, “Wow, Mikal.”
Once again stifling the Spurs (they managed just 23 points in the quarter), New York entered the final quarter with an 84-75 advantage. The Knicks have not lost a third quarter through all 16 playoff games.
Bridges came back to earth with a miss, but two offensive rebounds led to Shamet swishing for a 12-point lead, their largest yet. From there, a Wemby block plus buckets by him, Castle, and Harper cut New York’s lead to five. With eight minutes on the clock, we were still a good distance from clutch time. Jalen hung back, letting Shamet swish his third from deep and crush any rumors of a rally.
Hart’s rebounding and minutes were limited by foul trouble. He picked up his fifth before the midway point. He wasn’t alone, with Anunoby and Towns both carrying four fouls. No sweat. Hart got to have his heroics in the first game, and no matter how the game was officiated, the Knicks would not be stopped. Castle got picked off, then missed a shot, while Brunson dropped a finger roll and McBride hit a three. There were still six-plus minutes to go, but every time the Spurs cut, the Knicks cut back.
The camera caught Wemby giving a long, impassioned plea to his teammates. But out of the timeout, it was he who missed at the rim, and an Anunoby dunk (on guess who?) at the other end stretched the score to 97-83.
Then things got hairy. Two freebies for Harper and triples for Fox kicked off a 14-0 run. At three minutes to go, Harper floated his team to a 97-97 tie.
The refs tried to pull one over, but a coach’s challenge reversed a call and put Anunoby on the charity stripe for three. Wemby dunked, and the game entered the final two minutes with New York ahead 100-99.
Brunson scored, but Harper hit a running layup, and Wemby made an and-one to give the Texans a two-point lead.
A 13-footer by Brunson tied it with 40 seconds left. With 10 seconds left, Wemby grabbed a Jalen miss and passed it ahead—into Castle’s back. Brunson grabbed the ball and was fouled.
The Captain made one, but missed the second. With 7.5 seconds left, the Spurs called timeout. Fox got the ball to Wemby, who missed an open jumper with two ticks on the clock. Ballgame!
Up Next
I’m delirious. Two wins to go. Now the series gets on a jet and zips back to NYC for Game Three on Monday. Safe travels,
