The Athletic has live coverage of Knicks vs. Spurs in Game 2 of the 2026 NBA Finals.
SAN ANTONIO — Imagine having a long NBA career, shooting with the same line of vision to the rim, the same arc on the ball and the same muscle memory mapped out. Then imagine a 7-foot-4 alien being dropped in front of you, destroying all senses that helped you get to the sport’s highest stage.
That’s where the New York Knicks found themselves Wednesday night. A team that breezed through the Eastern Conference with elite shooting was now in the NBA Finals facing the San Antonio Spurs and Victor Wembanyama, an extraterrestrial being capable of altering everything you think you know about the human body.
It made sense to approach Game 1 with the idea of tracking how well New York’s jump shooters could perform when Wembanyama was either the closest defender or somewhere in the picture. The Oklahoma City Thunder had struggled to make jump shots late in the Western Conference finals when Wembanyama was nearby, whether within inches or 5 feet away, and jumping just to force a shooter into an unnatural recalibration on how to deliver a shot over such an elongated human. The thought was that the Knicks’ success, or lack thereof, in these opportunities could determine the outcome of the game.
That proved correct. New York’s jump shooters were terrible when Wembanyama was around.
The Knicks won the game, 105-95.
“The biggest thing, you want to get shots up,” Josh Hart said. “It doesn’t matter what shot you get up, just get it on the rim. With Wemby contesting it, now he’s out of the play and someone like (Mitchell Robinson) is down there by themselves.”
Unofficially, New York shot 2 of 16 from the floor on jumpers when Wembanyama was either directly contesting or close enough to make the shooter stop and think. So how did that benefit the Knicks and play a part in New York taking Game 1 of the finals? The Knicks had 23 second-chance points on the night and, again unofficially, scored 10 points directly off second-chance points that came from Wembanyama contesting a shooter.
The Spurs star is the best defender on the planet, largely because his ability to deter any shot at the rim is unmatched. San Antonio will often put Wembanyama on the opposing team’s most unassuming scorer, allowing him to roam around the paint and near the rim to put fear into anyone thinking about driving. In such scenarios, Wembanyama sometimes has to run out and contest the man he’s covering, leaving a 7-foot-4 gap in the paint. On Wednesday, these Wembanyama contest opportunities allowed the Knicks to take advantage and put players such as Karl-Anthony Towns, who had a game-high four offensive rebounds, and Hart, who grabbed a pair of offensive boards, in position to swoop in and create closer looks.
One of the best examples of this came in the first quarter, when New York’s 14-7 start vanished and turned into a 27-17 deficit. To stop the bleeding, Towns found a curling Jose Alvarado, who caught the ball going toward the basket. The issue was that Wembanyama was hovering in the paint, playing off New York shooter Miles McBride. Wembanyama cut off Alvarado’s path, but the guard made the right play by swinging the ball to McBride, who was all alone for a 3 on the wing. Wembanyama darted from the basket when McBride caught the pass, jumping high in the sky as if he was doing a belly flop into the Gulf of Mexico and forcing a miss with the late contest. But that allowed Mikal Bridges to dart in from the 3-point line and grab an offensive rebound for a layup with the game’s tallest player nowhere to be found.
“If you’re able to pull him out of the paint, you have to take advantage,” McBride said.
New York wasn’t going to come into this series and shoot with the same efficiency that propelled it from being down 2-1 in the first round of the playoffs to winning 11 straight games in a moonwalk to the finals. The Spurs’ defense is too good. However, capitalizing on those missed shots by creating extra attempts can be just as impactful. It’s as debilitating to a defense as it is energizing for an offense.
If the Knicks are going to win their first championship in 53 years, they have to pounce when Wembanyama is off the court or away from the basket. They did well with the latter in Game 1, a continuation of what they’ve done all playoffs: New York ranks first in second-chance points per game (18.1) in these playoffs. On the other end of the spectrum, the Spurs rank second-to-last in opponent second-chance points (18.3), largely because opposing teams can swoop in when Wembanyama is out of the way.
The Knicks’ offense is too good for the Spurs to allow them multiple cracks at putting the ball in the basket on a single possession. Yet, they might not have any other choice if they want to best utilize the world’s best defender.
“They’re going to put a small guy on KAT quite a bit, and when they do that, we want KAT to hang out in the dunker spot,” Knicks coach Mike Brown said. “We don’t want him around the 3-point line. We’d rather have Josh there. We know Wemby is still going to be hanging around, but KAT is hopefully going to have a chance at offensive rebounds. Josh has to shoot the ball if he’s open or make a quick decision with the ball. … We’re trying to keep it as simple for our guys as possible.”
The Knicks’ ability to counter what makes the Spurs most special defensively — with the offensive rebounding of Towns, Hart and others — bodes well in their pursuit to end this championship drought.
