The New York Knicks have been the hottest team in these NBA playoffs. After going down 2-1 to the Atlanta Hawks in the first round, the Knicks, who are on an 11-game win streak in the postseason, would win the final three games of that series and sweep the 76ers and Cavaliers in their next two series.
At this point, the Knicks, who are looking to win their first NBA title since 1973, look unbeatable. However, as well as they have played, they might have to play even better to defeat the San Antonio Spurs in the NBA Finals.
Game 1 of the NBA Finals is Wednesday night in San Antonio.
The last time the Knicks were in the NBA Finals was in 1999, where they lost to the San Antonio Spurs in 5, and in those Finals, Jalen Brunson’s dad and Knicks assistant, Rick Brunson, was a member of the Knicks; the two will become the first father-son duo to play in the NBA Finals for the same franchise.
This week, Jalen Brunson, who was two years old in 1999, was asked if he remembered anything from that series.
“Definitely don’t remember,” Brunson said. “It’s pretty surreal. I’m not going to lie. It’s something I haven’t really thought about. I feel like once the season’s over, once the career’s over, there will be times to think about the stuff that we’ll be able to go through together.”
The Spurs have home-court advantage in this series, and many believe the real NBA Finals were the Spurs against OKC in the Western Conference finals, which the Spurs won in 7.
Coming into the NBA Finals, San Antonio will probably have the best player in the series in Victor Wembanyama, who was named the Western Conference finals MVP, but the player who could play the best in these Finals is Brunson, who, like Wembanyama, won a conference finals MVP.
In the playoffs, Brunson is leading the Knicks in scoring with 26.9 points per contest, and despite the 11-game win streak, the Spurs are the favorites in this series, which is nothing new according to Brunson, who feels New York has been doubted all season long.
“I think we’re a focused group,” Brunson said. “I think we’re a hard-working group. I feel like we’ve been doubted a lot. There’s been a lot of noise on the outside that we could obviously talk about, complain about, do something about. We’ve always just went back into the gym, worked on our game individually. When it came to practice, now we’re focused; when it came to games, we kept getting better and better. I think our mentality is in the right place at the right time. We just got to stay focused and keep learning. Even today, we can’t be satisfied because we’re here, we have to keep learning.”
Prediction:
The Spurs and Knicks are both very good teams, and the talent gap is close. You could argue that the Spurs had a harder road to the Finals (Blazers, Wolves, Thunder) than the Knicks (Hawks, 76ers, Cavs), which is probably true. However, this series will come down to which team plays the best, and right now, the Knicks are playing their best ball and the best ball in the NBA. New York has everything flowing right now. The Knicks are a little more battle-tested than the Spurs, which will be enough to win this series 6.
Wemby and San Antonio will win a title at some point, but not right now. It’s all about orange and blue skies.
Leave a Reply