Breathe.
At 9:07 PM Eastern time this evening, late in the first quarter of Game 1 of the NBA Finals, the Spurs’ Harrison Barnes went flying into Jalen Brunson’s lower leg. The Knicks captain grimaced, and limped, and asked off. He doesn’t ask off. He went to the locker room in obvious pain.
And, just like that, back it all came. All those years, all the heartbreak, the intermittent head-fakes towards glory and the ultimate resignation to cruel, unrelenting fate. Starks can’t hit a jumper. Reggie can’t miss one. Half the team leaps off the bench in Miami. Ewing’s body finally quits on him. Melo can’t share the spotlight. The whole team gets hurt in the spring of 2024. That damn Halliburton shot goes in the year after.
Of course. Of COURSE. It wasn’t just over, it was over IMMEDIATELY. Shame on us for thinking we could have nice things. We weren’t even going to get to watch our actual team lose. And they weren’t just “going to lose.” We were never even going to get to find out whether they could have won.
In the couple of hours since I resigned myself to the inevitability that the Brunsonless Knicks were about to be swept in four games, those selfsame Knicks took a 1-0 lead in the NBA Finals, via a 105-95 win powered in significant part by the captain’s 13 fourth quarter points, 30 overall. His knee is fine. The ankle he appeared to turn in the second quarter? Also fine. My man was spinning, twirling, stutter-stepping death in the fourth quarter. Same as it ever was. Mitch Robinson’s notoriously broken hand? Didn’t seem to limit him. OG Anunoby’s hamstring? A mere footnote to history. What’s that? KAT goes clattering to the floor, looks to hit his head, gets called for an offensive foul in the process? Merely a flesh wound. Dominates the rest of the quarter, keeps us in the game.
This is simply not how things go for us, friends. Or at least not how they used to go. The fundamental essence of this franchise is two parts bluster, one part blunder, one part snake venom. Or at least it was.
What is it now? I don’t know yet. There’s still a long way to go here. It’s still entirely possible that this is the biggest setup of them all, a team that checks all the boxes, the ur-Knicks as we’ve flattered ourselves to see them, lo these many years. Passing, defense, togetherness. Swagger, but an earned swagger. Emotional connection to the crowd and to the city. Is this all just building to one final bait-and-switch? A rug-pull that hurts all the more because of how unprecedentedly well the rug ties the fuckin’ room together?
Or, OR…is this it? I wrote earlier today that I have felt all season like I’m watching the middle of a story and have a sense for how it’s going to end. Is this how it feels when it’s truly about to happen? Because if it is, drink it in. Feel it, remember it. Journey over destination and all that. If it happens, it will be over in a moment. Gotta savor all the other moments along the way.
The performance itself was a story of too many heroes. Karl Towns — 18, 12, and 4. Stretches of offensive dominance. Pulled Wemby away from the rim, ran around Luke Kornet when the Spurs tried that brilliant idea. Do not put Luke Kornet on this man, Mitch Johnson, you can have that one for free. KAT played mostly excellent on-ball defense against the big Frenchman, whose 26 points came on 6/21 shooting. A clip of him shouting at the team to maintain defensive intensity during a first half timeout. Again, this is Karl-Anthony Towns. We forget how young these guys are, how incredible it is to truly see one of them grow up before your eyes.
Josh Hart. Josh HART, man. 3 fouls in his first 7 minutes, looked like bad Josh. Only 1 in his final 20 minutes. +22 and it felt like it. The Most Josh Hart Statline Imaginable: 3 points, 15 rebounds, 6 assists, and 4 steals. Everywhere on the glass, active in the passing lanes, on every loose ball. He couldn’t hit a shot and we lose this game by 15 without him.
Ogugua Anunoby. This guy. I haven’t been hanging around this parish lately so you might not know that I have been calling this guy the most underrated player in the league since basically the moment he showed up. I can’t believe people don’t see him as an out and out star. Tonight he came out…weird? Pressing? Erratic? No matter. A couple massive threes as the Knicks formally seized control of the game. Again, the passing lanes. If we win this series we’re going to win it in transition and it will be him, and it will be Hart, and it will be Deuce and Bridges. This is Stephon Castle’s nightmare. That dude is going to be an All-NBA player but he needs to tighten that stuff up fast because these guys are coming for him. He might be able to. He might not, and if he doesn’t then we’ll be dancing in a couple weeks.
Jose Alvarado. The guy completely stabilized the situation while Brunson was in the locker room; it could have gotten away right there. Ran the offense well, hit some threes. Was fearless. Went right at them, went right to the rim, let them know we can take a punch. We truly don’t win this game without the shift he put in right in that moment. That’s the season with this team — next man up, give us 10 great minutes, thanks for your service, back to your plougshare. We’ll let you know when we need you again Jose Alvarado, Tyler Kolek, Landry Shamet, Mo Diawara. That doesn’t just happen. That takes time, takes leadership, takes the kind of team- and culture-building that can’t be shortcutted. That’s not just a hoops thing, it’s a life thing. I love this team.
We got a loud DEEEEEEEUCE chant 1,800 miles from Madison Square Garden. This fanbase, man. He was +11 in 19 minutes. Didn’t shoot particularly well but got a couple of high leverage triples. Swung the ball, compressed the defense, didn’t turn it over. Knicks had 8 total turnovers on offense and 8 steals on defense — it’s tough to beat a team that washes those two numbers out.
And then there’s Jalen Brunson. He was not our best player tonight, he was not our most important player tonight. He shot 12 for 31, turned the ball over 4 times, was vulnerable on defense, refs weren’t really buying what he was selling in traffic either. The middle of the sandwich was pretty rough.
And yet:
12:00 – 1st: Karl-Anthony Towns vs. Victor Wembanyama (Josh Hart gains possession)
11:45 – 1st: Jalen Brunson makes 26-foot three point jumper (Karl-Anthony Towns assists)
Tone: set.
And yet:
7:22 – 4th: Jalen Brunson makes 3-foot two point shot
6:52 – 4th: Jalen Brunson makes free throw 1 of 2
6:52 – 4th: Jalen Brunson makes free throw 2 of 2
6:34 – 4th: Jalen Brunson makes running layup
6:07 – 4th: Jalen Brunson makes 4-foot two point shot
That’s a personal 8-0 run out of an 86-86 tie to pull ahead in the fourth. Looked to my eyes like he’d won it but then they all went cold for four minutes, gave it away, went down by 1 with 2 minutes left. Exhausted. Lid on the basket. A game that felt like a nice-to-have for a couple of hours had become a must-have, and had just as quickly been lost.
And then:
1:50 – 4th: Jalen Brunson makes 23-foot three point jumper (Mikal Bridges assists)
97-95 Knicks. Spurs didn’t score another point.
One more moment for Cap, a pull-up victory cigar with 38 seconds on the clock. 101-95. Nothing left after that but half-hearted fouling and the start of the party for the ample away contingent in the crowd after that.
It’s so tempting to look at those heroics and let it wash away the fact that the guy was 7-for-26 on the shots that I haven’t just cherry-picked above. To me, though, that would misunderstand it. These guys have each other’s backs, the Nova guys have had each other’s backs for a decade. This is what this team is, and this part of it is Brunson’s job. And it’s more than that. I don’t know if clutch is a thing, I don’t know if this man can possibly be this reliable in these moments forever.
But do you know who I would wager thinks he can? The Spurs. And the Cavs. And the Sixers. And the Hawks. And everybody else who sees the clock ticking down, sees him across the way, and thinks we gotta be PERFECT or else this Braided Babadook is going to do it again. We’ve played against these guys forever. Jordan and Reggie and Pierce and Trae, say what you will about them, you watched those games and you thought we better build a lead because if we don’t, then it’s coming.
I’ll tell you who else thinks he can: the Knicks. The story of this season has been that if you outplay them in the first half, you better finish the job. Cut off the head, settle family business. Because if you let these guys who would follow their captain to the mouth of hell believe that they can stick around, that if diving for that one loose ball, rising for that one rebound, making that one extra pass, getting that one stop, if they can just do THAT, then they’re going to give their captain a chance? And he’s going to take it? Then those things happen. And then he does it again, and they believe even more, and the next thing you know you’ve just gotta win three more of these things against a team of mega-talented 22-year-olds who are probably wondering how he did it again.
This is not over. This is so, so, SO not over. We aren’t sweeping these guys, Wemby isn’t going 6/21 again, Luke Kornet won’t be allowed to even look at KAT again. Dylan Harper won’t get weirdly marginalized again (although, if they want to, be my guest). But then, we’ll shoot better too. We’ll make our own adjustments. We’ll go home to an absolutely electric Garden, a Garden that knows that all we have to do is win our home games now and the job is done. What a thought.
Is this it? Is this how it feels?
Three to go.
See you Friday.
8 replies on “2026 NBA Finals Game 1 Recap: Knicks (1) 105 – Spurs (0) 95”
Beautiful. The game. The recap. Life. All of it.
Alan, was the TV Good tonight?
Now THIS… I can fap to!
I just want to say that when Mike Kurylo asked us to do this and told me the comments were still active and I came and looked and saw how true that was. Damn. You guys.
My heart feels extremely full tonight.
The after game walk out of the stadium with my fellow Knicks fans was euphoria and bedlam as usual. But then leaving the stadium and walking through the parking lot was totally whack, compared to leaving MSG and being in the mosh pit of seventh Avenue. These bitch ass cities cannot compare to New York. The one great thing was passing by the Knicks team buses. And seeing Kurt Thomas. Yeah that’s right crazy eyes was there. He dapped myself and my son up! But nothing matches the energy of Manhattan and New York City. Rest of the country is so pathetic. Thats probably why they hate New York so much. Oh yeah and one last thing- fuck Scott Foster.
Watched this one during my graveyard shift by a cellphone between 3:45 to 6:15.
Time is now 8:56 and my eyes are still wide open as fuck!
Adrenaline is Up!
One more time on a proper Tv before the 2nd game is inevitable!
Like watching a favourite movie for one more time!
Omg I love this place
I’ve seen some coaches have some bad games against the Knicks before, but I don’t think I’ve seen a coach actively fuck over his own team in an NBA Finals game as much as Mitch Johnson tonight.
He was running some absolutely astonishingly bad lineups out there, and the way that he chose Fox over Harper despite Harper having a great game, and Fox playing terribly…I just couldn’t believe how poorly he coached this game, especially the third and fourth quarters.
But fuck it, this team would probably have still beaten the Spurs with a coach who wasn’t actively hurting the Spurs. This team just WINS.
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