Spurs-Knicks looks like a shockingly compelling title game. Will the return of Victor Wembanyama tilt the balance?
So, the NBA Cup! How about that? After Saturday night’s undeniably thrilling semifinal matchups, which saw the Oklahoma City Thunder and Orlando Magic go down swinging, we’re now fortunate enough to get an incredible title game between the San Antonio Spurs and New York Knicks, two deep, poised, and balanced 18-7 teams. Here are a few questions about both Victor Wembanyama’s and Jalen Brunson’s squads heading into what should be another awesome battle on Tuesday night.
Can the Spurs win the title, like, right now?
When Stan Van Gundy repeatedly referred to San Antonio as a title contender during Saturday night’s broadcast, I didn’t flinch. Is it? Sure! Why not? If I learned anything from watching San Antonio go 9-3 without Wembanyama over the past few weeks, it’s that age may be nothing but a number in today’s NBA. Composed, resilient, and bold, the Spurs are sure of how they want to execute on both ends, immediately learn from mistakes, and don’t at all look like a team whose primary contributors have little to no playoff experience.
(Even that statement is worth a little interrogation, given that Luke Kornet and Harrison Barnes have both won a championship and that De’Aaron Fox—who’s about to face his former coach Mike Brown for the first time—was awesome in the one series he’s played in. But I digress.)
When Wembanyama plays, the Spurs’ net rating is plus-10.7, and they have an elite defense that allows 9.7 fewer points per 100 possessions than league average. Scary stuff that gets even more terrifying when you learn that about only 30 percent of Wemby’s minutes this season have come with Fox also on the court. And when the Spurs plug Kornet in for Wemby, they’re still very good, outscoring opponents by 2.4 points per 100 possessions.
It’s borderline impossible to beat the Oklahoma City Thunder on a normal night this season. It’s even harder than that to top them when they’re at full strength, which is what they finally were in Las Vegas on Saturday, for the first time all year. And still, the Spurs prevailed in what, to date, is by far the most significant and impressive win of Wembanyama’s NBA career.
All this is to say that if I were San Antonio, I wouldn’t be shaking this core up for pretty much any reason. Period. For the foreseeable future, Stephon Castle, Dylan Harper, Devin Vassell, and Fox should all be staying put. But a win-now move could still make sense. Despite all this talk about the Spurs as a Giannis Antetokounmpo trade candidate, maybe they should have their eyes on a different Milwaukee Buck instead (albeit a consolation prize by comparison). What would it take to pry away Gary Trent Jr. Jeremy Sochan and the top-1 protected swap the Spurs own from Boston in 2028? You can never have enough shooting from a player who won’t immediately get run off the floor in a playoff series. Saddiq Bey, Quentin Grimes, Simone Fontecchio, Nicolas Batum, and Svi Mykhailiuk are other sensible targets around the league.
Regardless of how aggressive it is in seeking help from the outside, this team is showing growth on a nightly basis. Here’s an example from Harper. During its demolition of the Los Angeles Lakers last week, it was clear that San Antonio really didn’t want to foul Luka Doncic And then Harper got caught with his hand in the cookie jar. You can see how upset it made the Spurs’ Keldon Johnson and coach Mitch Johnson:
Then, against Shai Gilgeous-Alexander on Saturday, there were several occasions when Harper could’ve fallen for a different magician’s tricks, but he didn’t take the bait:
Whether it beats New York or comes up short, San Antonio’s tremendous upside on both sides of the ball makes it a formidable opponent right now. It has a singular top-five player who distorts how basketball is normally played, incredible dynamism in the backcourt, and a level of maturity that can’t be taught. I wouldn’t pick it over OKC, Denver, or Houston in a series, but the gap isn’t that wide today, and who knows what it will look like a few months from now? Don’t sleep on this team.
How will New York guard Victor Wembanyama?
The Thunder might have the greatest defense in basketball history, but on Saturday night, in limited minutes after he took a three-week layoff, Wembanyama made them look like ants. OKC normally exudes a good kind of desperation. The Thunder scramble and swarm and poke and slap and ratchet the game’s tempo up to an uncomfortable speed. Against the Spurs, though, desperation slid into recklessness. They were over-helping back-pedaling, and trying to wrap their arms around a player who’d shown up to the arena in a UFO. Wemby was plus-21 in 21 minutes, and his impact seemed even more substantial as you were watching the game.
Now, the same challenge falls to the Knicks, who have weaker individual defenders. Should they do as the Thunder tried to with Jalen Williams and Alex Caruso and stick a smaller man like OG Anunoby or Josh Hart on Wembanyama, denying him the ball with help from the backside?
Or should they go big, play Mitch Robinson and Karl-Anthony Towns together more than they normally do, and go all out to control the defensive boards and crash the offensive glass? What if they go in a completely different direction and just “let” Wemby get to his spots against single coverage? There are no right answers. Like all transcendent players, Wembanyama demands strategic conformity from whoever is trying to slow him down.
If Wembanyama stays on some kind of minutes restriction, Brown’s tactical decisions here will affect only 20-ish minutes of action. But as Wemby showed against the Thunder, the guy doesn’t need a ton of time to single-handedly flip an entire game on its head. There’s simply nothing like him right now.
How will the Spurs deal with Jalen Brunson?
Conversely, Brunson is his own type of matchup nightmare, albeit one who is a foot and a half shorter and whose great strength—ridiculous shotmaking from inside the arc—still allows disciplined teams with elite one-on-one defenders to stay home and live with his death-by-1,000-cuts MO.
On Saturday night, the Magic did a pretty good job of executing this strategy, which is convenient enough, considering that they do the same thing every night. With no one leaving their man, the Knicks attempted a season-low 20 3s
The only problem was, well, Brunson scored 40 points (33 of which were unassisted), assisted 18 of his teammates’ points, and really enjoyed inflicting pain after Jalen Suggs got hurt.
For the Spurs, whose defense already limits 3s and forces a bunch of long 2s, game-planning for Brunson won’t be much of an adjustment. They have the personnel to switch 1-4 and can live with a deep drop when Brunson engages Kornet or Wembanyama. (Sochan has fallen out of San Antonio’s rotation, but maybe it’s worth dusting off a mobile big for this matchup.) The Spurs don’t have a defensive liability like Tyus Jones, either, and they will make Brunson work for everything.
He will hit contested jumpers that seem impossible and immediately demoralize whoever has a hand in his face, but even worse than watching him go on a solo tear is letting him get his teammates involved. The Spurs will be dead in the water if they deviate from their game plan:
Even though Brunson has had the ball in his hands more than everyone except Doncic and James Harden this season, the Knicks have shown that they can even out their attack.
One fun example was this stagger pick-and-roll with Mikal Bridges (who’s quietly averaging more assists now than when he was the primary option in Brooklyn) that had Brunson and Towns as the screeners
But another benefit to keeping the ball in Brunson’s hands is that he basically never turns it over. New York’s transition defense was shredded by Orlando on Saturday, and, for the season, it ranks dead last in transition frequency after a steal. The Spurs, meanwhile, turned every single steal against OKC into a transition opportunity, one game after making the Los Angeles Lakers look like a team that had been recently exhumed from a crypt.
Wemby wasn’t available for that game, but he will be on the floor to help on Brunson. Most of it will be indirect, whether that means limiting the impact that teammates like Towns or Hart can have when setting ball screens (i.e., if Wemby is guarding them, they probably won’t be setting any ball screens for Brunson), turning the paint into a no-fly zone, or limiting second-chance opportunities by snatching New York’s misses 9 feet in the air.
Stopping Brunson goes hand in hand with the need to make him work, constantly, on the other end. This isn’t a regular game where it’s understandable to go through the motions and run normal offense. It’s more of a matchup-specific battle in which each coaching staff has enough time to prepare and really exploit the other team’s weakness.
Offenses go at Brunson, for sure, but usually not at the cost of disrupting their own rhythm. Expect some inverted pick-and-rolls with Wembanyama, and expect San Antonio to bring whoever he’s guarding (be it Vassell, Harper, Julian Champagnie, or someone else) up with a screen to make Brunson hedge or switch. The Knicks have smart, rangy defenders behind the ball, but they’re also closing just about every first and third quarter with Brunson and Jordan Clarkson together, which, against an offense with so many physical, athletic ball handlers, may not be the wisest decision.
The Knicks have cooked basically every defense this season. But if the Spurs follow Orlando’s blueprint—with a splash of Wembanyama hanging around to clean up any mistakes on the inside—they may, for one game, have an answer to one of this season’s most challenging problems.
Michael Pina
Michael Pina is a senior staff writer at The Ringer who covers the NBA.
