2026 NBA Finals Mega-Preview: Spurs vs. Knicks

Tilting the map, Hart vs. Wembanyama, Towns' fatal flaw, and much more

28 teams are sipping beach margaritas. Two still have to go to work.

San Antonio and Victor Wembanyama have already skipped several steps in the traditional contender roadmap, and they’re poised to become one of the youngest champions ever.

On the other hand, the New York Knicks have unleashed their full arsenal on a hapless Eastern Conference, annihilating foes so thoroughly and so quickly that it’s almost a detriment to their standing; we simply haven’t had enough time to watch their greatness, let alone appreciate it.

Someone’s gotta give, but who? For the last time this season, let’s work through four Key Questions and four X-Factors for…

2) San Antonio Spurs vs. 3) New York Knicks

Season series: 2-1 Knicks

I love that we’re getting our first-ever NBA Cup Final rematch here. Out-of-conference foes typically only play twice per year, so it’s fun that we’ve actually gotten to see these teams battle thrice already.

The Cup Final and a rematch a few weeks later both featured limited Wemby minutes (he came off the bench in one and left early with a knee tweak in the other) and several players we likely won’t see much of this series (Mo Diawara! Harrison Barnes! Tyler Kolek!). However, the near-full-strength Knicks did whoop a healthy Spurs team on March 1st, 114-89. If scoring just 89 points doesn’t raise your eyebrows, well, it should.

Only two teams beat San Antonio in the regular season after my Far Side calendar flipped to February: Denver (three times! What a rock-paper-scissors matchup we had in the West’s top three this season) and New York, in this game. The Knicks put on a defensive clinic, forcing Wemby into seven turnovers and flying around on the perimeter guys. It helped that the Spurs also missed 74% of their three-point attempts.

Re-watching that game was particularly instructive for understanding how these two teams will initially try to match up. Unless stated otherwise, that’s the game I’ll refer to most often below.

Before we begin, I wanted to spare a moment for the coaches, Mitch Johnson and Mike Brown. Johnson was my pick for Coach of the Year over real-life winner Joe Mazzulla and JB Bickerstaff. I’ve been so impressed with his ability to maximize his players’ strengths and mitigate their weaknesses all year long. He deserves immense credit for alchemizing this hodgepodge of odd players into a top-five halfcourt offense.

Brown has bathed himself in glory-colored Gatorade since reinventing the Knicks’ offense on the fly during the Atlanta series. He’s had the Midas touch with every play call and every rotation change. The controversial switch from Tom Thibodeau to Brown could not have gone better, even if there were some bumps along the way.

Both coaches have been phenomenal, and I wanted to make sure they received their flowers before we spend two weeks criticizing them for every micro-decision that went wrong.

X-Factor 1: Josh Hart

Every conversation about New York circles back to Josh Hart eventually, so let’s just get it out of the way. Victor Wembanyama will spend large chunks of this series “defending” Hart so that he can protect the paint; the up-and-down wing has to make the big man pay.

It’s a strategy the Knicks have seen countless times, and Hart knows what to do. Set a million screens on and off the ball, attack the offensive glass, cut constantly, sprint out in transition, and, yeah, shoot a few long ones.

Hart’s impact waxes and wanes on a nightly basis, but the Knicks are unbeatable when he’s at full moon. Of course, Wembanyama isn’t your typical rim protector. He can sag off of Hart without fully ignoring him, guarding both man and space. It is at least a little interesting that Hart had a plus/minus of zero in 30 minutes despite the Knicks winning by 25 points in that March meeting.

Coach Mike Brown had a few nifty tricks up his sleeve to take advantage of Wemby’s inattentiveness, including this gorgeous play:

But bad Josh Hart still showed up plenty:

The Knicks have options if Hart is benched, but none are perfect. Deuce McBride is a heck of a shooter, but his short stature will leave him vulnerable to the bruising drives of Steph Castle and Dylan Harper. Landy Shamet went 11-for-12 from deep against Cleveland, but coaches haven’t always trusted his defense. Mitchell Robinson’s broken hand could limit his viability (more on that below).

Hart’s defensive size and versatility are crucial to containing the Spurs’ guards. He must stay relevant offensively.

Key Question 1: Can the Knicks keep tilting the map?

I wrote about how a key part of the Knicks’ remarkably hot shooting has been their dramatic increase in attempts at the rim in these playoffs, which has gone hand in hand with the shift to a KAT-as-hub offense focused on backdoor cuts and north-south actions.

But Victor Wembanyama is the ultimate force field. Against the Spurs, just 25.6% of OKC’s shots came at the rim, down from 31.6% in the regular season overall. That’s a very meaningful difference. And the Thunder made only 55.5% of those shots, a whopping -13.1% drop!

So OKC took fewer layups and made way fewer. That’s brutal. We saw Wemby’s effect against the Knicks, too. Look at poor Mikal Bridges freeze up like a mouse caught in an eagle’s shadow:

(Note, again, the way Wemby is comfortable playing off of Hart.)

New York actually does have some advantages here over the Thunder, though. The Knicks are a much more dynamic jump-shooting team — they can make the Spurs pay for gapping too heavily into the passing lane by bombing threes, and they can draw Wembanyama and Luke Kornet out of the paint with a barrage of 15-footers. Hart will have moments when his passing, cutting, and sheer activity open up opportunities.

Against Cleveland, New York also showed an ability to toggle between the Towns offense and their traditional heliocentric Brunson attack. That’s already more variety than the Jalen Williams-less Thunder could muster.

Outside of Alex Caruso turning into the sun for a few games, the Thunder didn’t have the horses to make SA consistently pay for over-indexing on the paint. New York does. Softening up the Spurs’ defensive shell from the outside should make it easier to pry open and get to the tasty meat in the middle.

X-Factor 2: Devin Vassell

I love when players make me look smart.