SAN ANTONIO (AP) — No matter what, the basketball-crazed Philippines will have a champion to celebrate when these NBA Finals are over.
New York's Jordan Clarkson and San Antonio's Dylan Harper — who'll face off in the Finals that start Wednesday — were both born in the U.S., but both have links to the Philippines through their mothers. And Clarkson raved about Harper, whose rookie year has been nothing but impressive.
“He’s been really good throughout
the whole year,” Clarkson said. “I’ve been watching him, keeping up with him, as well. Him being so young and having so much poise throughout this whole playoffs, it’s a great sight to see a young star coming in this league and doing what he’s doing.”
The significance of this isn't lost on Harper either.
“I think me and him get to do something really special, representing our country, where we’re from, represent everything on the biggest stage in basketball,” Harper said. “I feel like over there in the Philippines, basketball is probably the biggest thing. I think we’re very excited for that and we’re just very blessed and grateful to be in this position.”
Only six players on the Knicks and the Spurs have appeared in previous NBA Finals games.
San Antonio’s Harrison Barnes played in 13 for Golden State, Luke Kornet played in six for Boston and Kelly Olynyk played in five for Miami.
For New York, Mikal Bridges played in six for Phoenix, Dillon Jones played in three for Oklahoma City and Jordan Clarkson played in two for Cleveland. Another member of the Knicks — OG Anunoby — was with Toronto for its run to the 2019 NBA title, but did not play in any of those six games.
Combined, those six players with past Finals experience have scored 265 points in the title round.
The last 44 NBA Finals games have all ended in regulation, the longest run without overtime in the title series in league history. There was a 34-game stretch without an overtime game from 1984 through 1990.
Of course, it's tough to have a shot at going to overtime when games aren't close down the stretch. Out of the last 81 Finals games, 50 have been decided by double figures.
An annual reminder: Division championships mean nothing anymore ... until the NBA Finals.
If San Antonio wins the NBA title, it will mark the 14th time in the last 15 seasons that a division champion has wound up winning.
The only exception in that span was Golden State in 2022. Before that, the last team to not win their division but win the NBA title was Dallas in 2011.
The Knicks were second in the Atlantic Division behind Boston this year, so they're trying to buck this trend.
It's been 19 years, but Mike Brown is back in the NBA Finals as a head coach. The New York coach took Cleveland to the title round in 2007 — getting swept by San Antonio that year.
Just by getting here this year, Brown joins an exclusive club of coaches to take multiple franchises to the NBA Finals.
Pat Riley (Los Angeles Lakers, New York, Miami) and Alex Hannum (St. Louis, Philadelphia, San Francisco) took three franchises to the Finals. Brown joins Rick Carlisle, Phil Jackson, Larry Brown, KC Jones, Bill Fitch, Gene Shue, Bill Sharman and Red Auerbach on the list of those to take two different franchises to the title round.
San Antonio star Victor Wembanyama has had a postseason like no one in league history, and his totals are only going to get more impressive.
So far in these playoffs, Wembanyama has 394 points, 183 rebounds, 100 made free throws, 60 blocked shots and 30 3-pointers.
That's just the playoffs. Only 19 players — him included, of course — had those totals over the entirety of this regular season. (No Spurs player has ever had a regular season with all those numbers, except Wembanyama.)
And since 3-pointers came into play, nobody in NBA history has ever done all that in the same postseason, until now.
If this NBA Finals goes the seven-game distance, Spurs players Keldon Johnson and Julian Champagnie might tie an NBA record.
Or break it, depending on how you count.
Johnson and Champagnie both enter these NBA Finals with 100 games played so far this season. That's seven shy of the NBA record for games played in a season — shared by Charles Oakley and Tayshaun Prince.
They both played 107. But Johnson and Champagnie also played in the NBA Cup title game, which means they would have technically played in 108 games this season — though the league doesn't recognize the Cup final in any statistics.
The Spurs and Knicks are playing for $5,157,417 in bonus money. That's the difference between winning and losing the NBA Finals out of the league's playoff pool, which topped $35 million this season.
The Spurs have already secured $6,594,508 out of that pool this season. The Knicks have clinched $6,438,024.
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