Welcome to the NBA Finals! We've watched three rounds of playoffs, 1,230 regular-season games and one NBA Cup finale (conveniently enough between tonight's foes), and that has left us with two teams standing: the San Antonio Spurs and New York Knicks.
New York spent years building for this moment. The Knicks have not made the Finals since 1999 and have not won a title since 1973. The Leon Rose-led front office took over in 2020, signed Jalen Brunson in 2022 and meticulously acquired supporting players that fit around him. They reached the Eastern Conference Finals a year ago, fired head coach Tom Thibodeau and replaced him with Mike Brown, and now, with virtually the entire roster in its prime, this rebuild culminates with a trip to the NBA Finals.
San Antonio is here far earlier than expected, and it's not unfamiliar ground for the recently dynastic Spurs. San Antonio's first ever Finals run came in 1999 against these very Knicks, and it has been to the Finals five more times since. In total, the Spurs won five championships with Tim Duncan, but the Victor Wembanyama era was supposed to take longer to reach this point. He's only 22, and many of San Antonio's other core players are in that same age range. It didn't matter. These Spurs are a juggernaut we should expect to see here plenty in the years to come.
So what can you expect in Game 1? Here's what you need to know:
Game Info
- Time: 8:30 p.m. ET | Date: Wednesday, June 3
- Location: Frost Bank Center -- San Antonio, TX
- TV channel: ABC | Live stream: fubo (Try for free)
- Odds (via FanDuel): Spurs -4.5 | O/U: 218.5
Prediction
There are two big questions leading into Game 1. The first, as of this writing, does not have an answer. We don't know whether or not Mitchell Robinson, dealing with a fracture to his fifth metacarpal on his right hand, will play. Even if he does, we don't know how effective he'll be. We'll table this one for now.
The second is the persistent question of rest vs. rust. This was a big question leading into New York's last series, in which the Knicks had to wait more than a week after sweeping the Philadelphia 76ers for the Cleveland Cavaliers to join them in the Eastern Conference Finals. Before that series, the 65 instances of one team bringing a five-day rest advantage into a playoff series resulted in a 48-17 record for the team with such a rest advantage, according to Sportico. Knicks-Cavaliers Game 1 was the 66th such game. Cleveland led most of the way. New York shook off the rust to win at the end with a 22-point fourth-quarter comeback.
But there are a few key differences here. First, Cleveland was only two days removed from a Game 7. San Antonio has had a four-day gap between its series-clinching win over the Oklahoma City Thunder. The Spurs are more rested, but the Knicks are just as rusty, and it's hard to imagine San Antonio choking away the sort of lead Cleveland did. Second, the Knicks were at home for that game. Now, they're on the road. And then, of course, they had a healthy Robinson in that game. Now, we're not sure.
New York's rest advantage could easily manifest over the full series. They've taken far less punishment over the course of the playoffs, and everyone in their core has been through several extended playoff runs, whereas many Spurs are doing this for the first time. But in Game 1, specifically, I'd give San Antonio the advantage. The Pick: Spurs -4.5
