The Bounce: 5 pressing questions about the Knicks-Spurs NBA Finals matchup

NBA Finals

LIVE Game 1 Updates

Mega Preview

NY Brotherhood

Frustrating Reminder

Knicks Subway Entrance

MSG Watch Parties

The Bounce: 5 pressing questions about the Knicks-Spurs NBA Finals matchup

OG Anunoby could play a crucial role in the NBA Finals. Ethan Miller / Getty Images

By Zach Harper

June 2, 2026 Updated

The Bounce Newslette r

| This is The Athletic’s daily NBA newsletter. Sign up here to receive The Bounce directly in your inbox.

Today is the 50th birthday of Earl Boykins, the second-shortest player in NBA history. He stands just 5 feet 5, but he managed to play 652 games in 13 NBA seasons. Boykins averaged 8.9 points in 19.9 minutes for his career. His career best was 14.6 points per game in the 2006-07 season. He played for 10 different teams. He was incredible to watch. He’s a testament to heart and determination.

Finals preview

Pressing questions ahead of Knicks-Spurs

Tomorrow at 8:30 p.m. ET, the NBA Finals will tip off on ABC between the San Antonio Spurs and the New York Knicks. We’re previewing this matchup today and tomorrow. The Knicks getting back to the finals for the first time since 1999 is a massive deal. The Spurs getting to the finals with Victor Wembanyama is gargantuan.

This isn’t the first time these two teams have played for a championship this season. That’s right! Remember the NBA Cup final? That happened back in December in Las Vegas, with the Knicks walking away with a 124-113 win, an extra $500k per player, a banner in the rafters of Madison Square Garden and the NBA Cup itself.

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (now hilariously) once said he has the answers to the test but needs to know the questions. Well, I had some immediate questions about this finals matchup once we knew the Spurs were joining the Knicks, and we’re going to try to figure out the answers together. By together, I mean I’m going to talk to myself here, and you might read some of it!

Can the Knicks actually win it all? Yes, absolutely. It doesn’t take a lot of mental gymnastics either. I’ve mentioned this before, but usually once we start getting three or four “what ifs” deep into The What If Game, then it’s pretty difficult to take a team’s chances seriously. Barring massive injury, of course. That’s not what the Knicks are dealing with here. They’ve established themselves as a legitimate title contender during these playoffs. It’s not just because they’re in the finals. It’s because of the way they dominated on their way to the finals.

Easy road or not, they’re doing stuff no other team has done in NBA history. The Spurs have Wemby, and he’s a nearly impossible player to plan for. But the Knicks have Jalen Brunson, a great offense, and more-than-capable role players playing peak basketball right now. Their offense is clicking. Their defense is stifling. And they’ve made over 51 percent of their shots and 40 percent of their 3-pointers in the postseason so far. Now you just have to do it against Wemby.

What do the Knicks have to throw at Wemby? I’d expect a rotation of three different defenders to guard Wembanyama, with lots of help running over to take away driving lanes. Karl-Anthony Towns is the easy option up front. His size and strength should keep Wemby relatively off-balance, but he’ll need to stay away from the quick, dumb fouls. OG Anunoby will see a lot of time on him with KAT in help. Anunoby is strong and has incredible hands. He could force Wemby into some turnover situations, but the second Wemby gets a stop on him and Anunoby can’t swipe the ball, it’s going to be a shot attempt in the paint.

Top League Content

Third up is Mitchell Robinson. He’ll play sort of the Isaiah Hartenstein role but with slightly less physicality and more athleticism. Speaking of …

How big of a deal is Robinson’s pinie injury? As long as Robinson plays, it’s manageable. You’re not looking for a lot from him offensively when it comes to skills. It’s not like he will cross over his defender or pull up from 25 feet to knock down a jumper. He has to guide the ball in on alley-oops. He mostly just has to be a force on the boards, especially on offense. He’s one of the best offensive rebounders in NBA history, so his presence matters.

Maybe he can just tape up the surgically repaired pinkie finger to the ring finger and gut through the pain. But they’ll need him out there against Wemby for sure. The Knicks may have a Wemby answer Esfandiar Baraheni

What do the Spurs have to throw at Brunson? There are a lot of potential defenders to try to wear down Brunson as he brings the ball up and gets the Knicks into their actions. Stephon Castle will spend a lot of time on Brunson. Castle is bigger, faster and more athletic than Brunson. Castle can hassle him quite a bit.

The Spurs can also put De’Aaron Fox and Dylan Harper on the job at times. Those guys have good size, great hands and can pressure the ball. With Wembanyama behind them, they can get even more aggressive on the perimeter. However, they have to keep themselves out of foul trouble, because Brunson is an expert at capitalizing on mistakes.

We have one more question, coming up after a few links …

The last 24

🏀 The pick is in. Our John Hollinger makes his pick for the finals. It was a close call.

📺 Under the spotlight. ESPN shook up its main NBA announcing team. Is it ready to meet this finals moment?

💰 Steph signs. Steph Curry has been an intriguing shoe free agent this year. He just signed a new 10-year sneaker deal .

🧑‍⚖️ Aspiration sentencing. Remember the guy alleged to have helped funnel money to Kawhi? He was sentenced to 14 years in prison .

🚧 New digs? The Mavericks have settled on their site for the new arena. It’s going to be in North Dallas .

🔊 “NBA Daily.” Writers Jared Weiss and Fred Katz join the show to break down the finals matchup.

Stream the NBA on Fubo ( try it for free!) and catch out-of-market games on League Pas

One more question

Knicks’ offensive staple vs. Spurs’ alien

Let’s get to our final pressing question about this finals matchup!

Can the Knicks run this high-post offense against San Antonio? The Knicks may have had this in their back pocket to run so exquisitely at some point, but in their series against the Atlanta Hawks, they went to a deadly high-post offense. They’d have Towns at the 3-point line on the wing. Then they’d have Brunson come around Towns’ hip on a fake handoff so he could set a backscreen on Anunoby in the corner. From there, immense problems existed.

Granted, this is horrendous help defense by Atlanta, but it’s not much easier to defend when the guy is in proper weakside help. You’re either leaving the far corner shooter open or getting a swing-swing from the paint to the corner to the right wing for a 3-point shot. This action could create big problems for the Spurs.

To be fair, though, it will look a little different when Wembanyama is on the court to defend it. Here’s a pretty sophisticated rendering:

I’ll remind you that graphic design is my passion. Some will say it’s AI, but there’s no way AI is comprehensive enough to create that.

We’ll continue to preview this series in tomorrow’s Bounce!

Saying goodbye

The NBA loses another legendary coach

Rick Adelman was the second coach I ever covered during my (now) 19-year career writing about basketball. I moved to Minneapolis in the same year that he took over the Minnesota Timberwolves. I still had no idea what I was doing (some of you would argue that’s continued to this day), and I was constantly trying to absorb as much as I could about the NBA game. Everybody “knows basketball” until they start trying to discuss it with the professionals who live it.

Whenever I was in a media scrum with Adelman, I learned. In those brief moments I had a one-on-one exchange with him, I learned. As I watched how he navigated a severely detrimental general managermeddling with his ego as a hurdle to actual basketball, I felt like I was taking a masterclass in the BS of the NBA. Adelman was always frustrated with anything that wasn’t basketball-related, and he’d often be irked by basketball played below its potential.

Daily Pick'em In Progress NBA

Game has started, picks are locked!

NYK

SAS

51% Picked 49% Picked

4654 votes

He used to echo an old coach saying, “potential gets coaches fired,” as he tried to get a solidly talented Wolves team to break its playoff drought from 2011-14. The Wolves managed just a 97-133 record in his three-season tenure, which included a lockout-truncated campaign. But Adelman is a Hall of Famer after winning 1,042 games and 58.2 percent of his regular-season contests.

Adelman made his biggest impression on the NBA during his tenures with Portland and Sacramento. He had the Trail Blazers knocking on the door of a championship in 1990 and 1992. With the Kings from 1998 to 2004 (when they were contenders or working toward it), he created a beautiful brand of hooping with the help of Pete Carril and Elston Turner.

Adelman died yesterday at the age of 79. His son, David, is the current coach of the Denver Nuggets. I appreciated Adelman’s dry wit, his incredible basketball acumen and his disdain for the stuff that didn’t pertain to getting better on the court. The task of fixing a horribly run and highly flawed franchise is one of the tallest tasks you can undertake. Maybe he didn’t fix the Wolves, but he left his imprint on guys such as Kevin Love, Ricky Rubio and dozens of players throughout his career. Over the years, his contemporaries have spoken highly of him as a coach and as a human.

I’m so grateful to have gleaned a small amount of basketball understanding from watching him coach and listening to him explain the game. Rest in peace, Coach

Zach Harper is a staff writer for The Athletic, covering the NBA. Zach joined The Athletic after covering the NBA for ESPN.com, CBS Sports and FRS Sports since 2009. He also hosts radio for SiriusXM NBA and SiriusXM Mad Dog Sports Radio.

Tagged To: NBA Finals The Bounce Jalen Brunson Victor Wembanyama NBA

07 Days 17 Hours 56 Minutes 58 Seconds

THE ATHLETIC

The Countdown is On

Our comprehensive tournament coverage ensures you’re prepared with expert analysis from every host city.

Discover more

Your Next Read

Latest League Stories

Latest headlines

Jun 4, 2026

Connections: Sports Edition Spot the pattern. Connect the terms

Find the hidden link between sports terms