Knicks lead NBA Finals 3-1. Game 5 tonight at Frost Bank Center, San Antonio, 8:30 p.m. ET on ABC.
Wembanyama doesn’t flinch
On the eve of the biggest game of his young career, Victor Wembanyama stepped in front of reporters and left no room for doubt. “Everybody on the Spurs thinks, everybody knows, we’re going to do it,” the 22-year-old center said, per Joe Vardon of The Athletic. “I feel like we need to isolate that one game and take it one game at a time. It would be a mistake to waste our energy on multiple games.”
Bold words from someone staring down a 3-1 deficit in the NBA Finals – a hole only one team in history has ever climbed out of. The 2016 Cleveland Cavaliers remain the lone exception: teams up 3-1 in the Finals have won 37 times. For this series to continue, New York would have to lose three straight.
A different kind of 3-1 series
De’Aaron Fox is holding onto the same math. The Spurs guard pointed out that San Antonio’s three losses – by 10, then by 1, then by 1 – don’t read like a team being dominated. “We still have this belief because we’ve seen it,” Fox told reporters Friday. “I think even with those series, the games that they lost, they were losing by double digits. The games that we’re losing have all been close games.”
He’s right about the margins. What he didn’t mention: two of those one-point losses ended on OG Anunoby game-winners. In Game 4, the Spurs squandered a 29-point halftime lead – the largest blown in NBA Finals history – before Anunoby (33 pts, 7 reb) tipped in Jalen Brunson’s missed three with 1.2 seconds left. Fox made a baffling decision in the final seconds that set up the play.
“It’s not like people have my phone number,” Fox said Friday, brushing off the criticism. “I don’t watch those shows. It doesn’t matter.”
The Knicks and the weight of 53 years
Jalen Brunson (36 pts in Game 4) and the Knicks are one win away from ending the longest title drought in franchise history. New York hasn’t lifted the Larry O’Brien Trophy since 1973. The Garden is not the venue tonight – thousands of Knicks fans have reportedly bought tickets and are making the trip to Texas.
Frost Bank Center won’t be the home fortress San Antonio needed. The Spurs won Game 3 at Madison Square Garden, so they know road wins are possible. But winning three straight from this position, starting on their own court against a Brunson-Anunoby tandem riding historic momentum – that’s a different ask entirely.
Kornet a question mark
San Antonio is also dealing with a personnel wrinkle: backup center Luke Kornet is listed questionable for Game 5 due to illness. Kornet, 30, has been Wembanyama’s primary frontcourt support. Losing him would leave the Spurs short in the paint against a Knicks team that has leaned on physicality throughout these Finals.
Wembanyama himself didn’t waver. None of the setbacks – not the blown lead, not the Fox controversy, not Kornet’s condition – appeared to crack his conviction. “I think it would be a mistake to waste our energy on multiple games,” he said. “It’s one game at a time.” If San Antonio wins tonight, Game 6 heads to Madison Square Garden on Tuesday. If not, New York claims the championship in Texas – a first title since 1973, won on the road.
Bottom line
- Series: Knicks lead 3-1. Game 5 tonight, 8:30 p.m. ET, ABC, Frost Bank Center, San Antonio.
- Key stat: Teams up 3-1 in the NBA Finals are 37-1. The only exception: the 2016 Cavaliers over Golden State.
- Watch for: Luke Kornet’s availability and Wembanyama’s response after the Game 4 collapse.
