Jalen Brunson drives to the basket while against Victor Wembanyama in the second quarter of the championship game of the NBA Cup at T-Mobile Arena on December 16, 2025 in Las Vegas. | Ethan Miller/Getty Images
The NBA Finals are upon us and, if you haven’t noticed, this one’s a little more hotly anticipated than usual. The president and the pope are getting involved.
Key takeaways
The New York Knicks and the San Antonio Spurs will meet in the NBA Finals on Wednesday.
The Spurs feature a generational giant in 22-year-old Victor Wembanyama, and they just beat the defending champions. The Knicks are on an 11-game winning streak led by their much smaller star Jalen Brunson.
The Knicks were terrible for decades and haven’t won a championship since 1973; a win would cap off their incredible resurgence. For the Spurs, Wembanyama could enter conversations about the all-time greats early in his career.
Why? There’s the New York factor, with the Knicks back in the finals for the first time since 1999 after years of struggles. And then there’s their opponent, the San Antonio Spurs, whose young star, Victor Wembanyama — an out-of-this-world talent and the league’s tallest player — is rapidly becoming the face of the NBA.
The best-of-seven series kicks off Wednesday night. Viewership is expected to be way up this year because of the high-stakes matchup, so don’t feel bad about joining the action late. You won’t be the only one.
Here’s everything you need to enjoy it – even if you aren’t the kind of basketball obsessive who’d consider ponying up $100,000 for tickets to Madison Square Garden.
What are the San Antonio Spurs like?
The biggest story for the Spurs is their biggest player, Wembanyama, who stands between 7-foot-4 and 7-foot-7 tall, depending on who you ask.
The Frenchman has quickly become one of the league’s top ratings draws with his unique play-style, magnetic personality, and quirky behavior (he trained with Shaolin monks in the offseason).
This year, he became the first NBA Defensive Player of the Year to be selected unanimously as well as the youngest player ever to receive the award; he blocked a record 12 shots in a single game this playoffs. But he’s also a gifted offensive player with a deep bag of tricks who can shoot from anywhere — he hit a pull-up three from the logo to tie Game 1 of the Western Conference Finals late in the fourth quarter.
VICTOR WEMBANYAMA TIES THE GAME FROM THE DAMN PARKING LOT pic.twitter.com/NP5W2AvJm9
— Jake (@SuperiorNBA) May 19, 2026
Wembanyama is only 22 years old and the Spurs’ youthful roster of recent lottery picks, led by an also-young coach in Mitch Johnson, is the other major theme here. They have two tough guards in Stephon Castle (age 21) and Dylan Harper (age 20), a speedy veteran point guard in De’Aaron Fox (a comparatively venerable 28), a hustling Sixth Man of the Year in Keldon Johnson, and an assortment of helpful complementary pieces.
Who are the big players for the New York Knicks?
The Knicks have a deep team filled with brand-name playoff veterans, but their unquestioned superstar is 29-year-old Jalen Brunson, a point guard known for his unreal scoring, crunch-time heroics, and exemplary leadership.
Narrative-wise, he’s the perfect contrast to Wembanyama. Brunson is generously listed as 6-foot-2, and while Wembanyama was the most celebrated draft pick since LeBron James, Brunson was a second-rounder who was considered a high-end role player before he joined the Knicks as a free agent in 2022.
Wembanyama is such an athletic freak that people suspect he might be an alien; Brunson is neither a high-flying dunker nor a quick-twitch sprinter. Instead, he relies on complex footwork, controlled spin moves, and deceptive ball fakes to throw defenders off balance. A typical shot for him would be a highlight play for anyone else.
The team’s second NBA All-Star is center Karl-Anthony Towns, a former top draft pick with a hulking frame and soft shooting touch whose career has reached new heights in New York after a long and uneven stint as a franchise player for the Minnesota Timberwolves.
The rest of the lineup was built to maximize Brunson and Towns’s offensive abilities and cover for any defensive liabilities. Two starters were championship college teammates with Brunson at Villanova University — glue-guy Josh Hart (who hosts a buddy comedy podcast with Brunson) and two-way stud Mikal Bridges. OG Anunoby is one of the best defensive players in the league and an underrated scorer. Backup center Mitchell Robinson, the longest tenured Knick, is the NBA’s top offensive rebounder and provided the defining image of their playoff run so far: a thunderous dunk over the Philadelphia 76ers’ even-bigger star, Joel Embiid.
This shot of Mitchell Robinson dunking on Joel Embiid 😱
(📸: Jesse D. Garrabrant/ Getty Images) pic.twitter.com/TjlaKS1a78
— Yahoo Sports (@YahooSports) May 9, 2026
How did the teams get here?
The Spurs dispatched the Portland Trailblazers and Minnesota Timberwolves without too much trouble before taking on the opponent they’d been gearing up to face all year: the defending champion Oklahoma City Thunder, who started the season as major favorites to repeat.
Silencing doubts about their lack of experience, the Spurs finished the seven-game series on the road with inspired performances up and down the roster, including a LeBron-like chasedown block by backup center Luke Kornet.
The Knicks haven’t faced a team of the Thunder’s caliber on their way to the Finals, but they’ve made their opponents look like high-school squads during a historically dominant playoff run.
After losing two one-point games to the Atlanta Hawks, the Knicks have won 11 straight — their last loss was in April — and swept the Sixers and Cleveland Cavaliers. During the streak, they’ve won their games by an average of 23.8 points, which is a record for any comparable stretch in the playoffs or regular season. And as insane as that sounds, they’ve won their elimination games by even more: They defeated the Hawks by 51, the Sixers by 30, and the Cavs by 37, with Brunson happily sitting on the bench for the fourth quarter each time. Each of those games was on the road, where Knicks fans have been traveling long distances to pack opposing arenas.
Heroes abound: In addition to Brunson’s clutch play — he led a 22-point fourth-quarter comeback in their lone competitive game against the Cavs — Towns has thrived in a new role as a pass-first playmaker while Anunoby and Bridges have been molten-hot shooters while neutralizing the other teams’ best players on defense. If the Knicks win the Finals, this will be remembered as one of the greatest playoff runs of all time, full stop.
BRUNSON SHINED IN NEW YORK’S 22-POINT COMEBACK WIN!
🏀 38 PTS (17 in Q4/OT)🏀 5 REB🏀 6 AST🏀 3 STL
KNICKS TAKE A 1-0 SERIES LEAD IN THE EASTERN CONFERENCE FINALS 🍿 pic.twitter.com/e7JFHK20B3
— NBA (@NBA) May 20, 2026
Wait, weren’t the Knicks bad?
Bad doesn’t even begin to describe it, which is maybe the single biggest storyline of this finals.
The Knicks were perennial title contenders through the 1990s behind center Patrick Ewing and came agonizingly close to a championship in 1994 against the Houston Rockets. They made one last gutsy finals run in 1999 with a beloved lineup that included Brunson’s father on the bench, but lost — to the Spurs! — in a series that was never considered winnable. After trading an aging Ewing in 2000, the franchise fell on hard times that seemed like they would never end.
How hard? Heading into 2021, the Knicks had more losses than any team this century. Owner James Dolan, a cable-company scion who often seemed more devoted to his blues-rock band, presided over a series of disastrous quick-fix attempts, over-the-hill star trades, overpriced free-agent signings, and dysfunctional managers, with former player Isiah Thomas generally considered the worst.
At one point in the mid-2000s, the Knicks had the league’s highest payroll, the league’s highest-paid coach, and a 23-59 record. Apart from some brief bright spots — a phenomenal three-week run by Jeremy Lin in 2012 (who Dolan declined to re-sign), a 54-win season with Carmelo Anthony in 2013 — it was nonstop misery.
But the Knicks also became a story in how even flawed institutions can learn from their mistakes with enough time. In 2021, Dolan smartly brought in veteran agent Leon Rose to run the organization, a quiet leader who eschewed flashy star-chasing trades and instead focused on building a winning culture, adding versatile high-character players, and patiently looking for opportunities to improve.
They were already on the rise when Brunson signed in 2022 (whose father, Rick Brunson, was Rose’s first client and is currently a Knicks assistant coach), but have been a strong playoff team every year since then. Expectations for the Knicks are now so high that they nearly made the Finals last year — and still fired their longtime coach Tom Thibodeau, replacing him with Mike Brown.
What about the Spurs?
They’re the exact opposite of the Knicks: a small-market team that does seemingly everything right.
While the Spurs missed the playoffs the last few years during a rebuild, they’ve been arguably the league’s best-run franchise for decades and won five championships between 1999 and 2014. They’ve benefited from incredible luck — in addition to winning the draft lottery to select Wembanyama, prior Hall of Fame legends Tim Duncan and David Robinson were both No. 1 picks — but also have an unmatched reputation for identifying and developing talent to complement their stars. Booooooring.
What are the stakes for each team?
The Spurs don’t have much to prove as a franchise, though this team would buck the conventional wisdom that young players need to lose in the playoffs before winning it all. The real story here is Wembanyama: He’s maybe the first player since LeBron James to be discussed as a potential contender for the greatest-of-all-time title. If he wins a championship this early, those conversations are going to be very loud for the rest of his career.
For the Knicks, though, this would be one of the biggest victories by any team in any sports league in recent memory. They’re one of the the last iconic “cursed” franchises — their most recent championship was in 1973 — and the city is famously (sometimes infamously) wild about its basketball team, even in the lean years. Just ask lifelong superfan Timothée Chalamet.
The players from the 1970s teams have been treated as legends by New Yorkers for over five decades; a win this time would mean the entire starting lineup, and possibly bench players like Robinson, get their jerseys retired in the World’s Most Famous Arena. And Brunson would go from a beloved local star to the greatest folk hero in NBA history. No pressure, guys!
Okay, so who’s going to win?
The betting odds favor the Spurs — but not by much, and it’s easy to see how either team could win.
For one, the Knicks have played well against the Spurs in the past. In fact, they won this season’s NBA Cup (a midseason tournament with a cash reward) against the Spurs, with Brunson taking the MVP trophy. And while it sounds counterintuitive given his size, Brunson’s been an effective scorer against Wembanyama for years, even notching a career-high 61 points against the Spurs in a narrow overtime loss in 2024. Not that Wembanyama’s been a slouch in their matchups either.
WHAT. A. BATTLE. 🤯
Jalen Brunson: 61 PTS (career high) | 25 FGM | 5 3PM | 6 AST
Victor Wembanyama: 40 PTS (career high) | 20 REB | 7 AST
Spurs top the Knicks in an overtime THRILLER. pic.twitter.com/SSF1NOUDWp
— NBA (@NBA) March 30, 2024
There’s a bit of a rock-paper-scissors story here: The Spurs have been the Thunder’s toughest matchup all year, while the Knicks have been the same for Wembanyama’s Spurs. The Knicks have more shooting and playmaking than the Thunder (who were missing key players in their series), which could help them when Wembanyama is clogging the paint, and they have some big bodies who can bang with Wembanyama on both ends of the court (he previously turned the Thunder’s lanky All-Star Chet Holmgren into a nonentity).
On the other hand, Wembanyama is playing out of his mind on a regular basis, and he and his teammates are gaining experience and growing in confidence with every game. The Spurs of June are not the same Spurs as the regular season, and neither are these newly dominant Knicks. It should be one hell of a fight.
What about the non-basketball storylines?
President Donald Trump, who is friendly with Dolan, has said he may attend a game to root for the Knicks in New York City, though no firm plans have been announced. If he does, it would be somewhat of a surprise: While he used to attend games as a local celebrity, Trump has largely ignored the NBA in his political career, except to attack its players for being too left-wing. Not coincidentally, if he does attend, there’s a pretty strong chance he gets booed. Meanwhile, the governors of New York and Texas are in a cringe-off ahead of the game.
But politics are earthly matters: The more important question is which side the Lord will be on. The Spurs’ most famous longtime fans are a group of nuns, who blessed one of their players before a game last round. Pope Leo, meanwhile, is an alumnus of Villanova, whose championship teams have supplied three current Knicks and two recent ones, and New Yorkers are confident he’s in their corner.
If you’re looking for more supernatural elements, the spooky wrestling star Danhausen is taking credit for the Knicks’ run after he ”uncursed” the team and cursed their opponents. And Spurs fans are hoping that “Air Corgi’s” prediction of Spurs in seven for the Finals is as accurate as her prediction for the conference finals.
