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Before the NBA Finals began, Jeremy Sochan, the former San Antonio Spur who joined the Knicks midway through the season, said that the way to beat Victor Wembanyama was to make him run, to tire him out.
New York seems to be heeding that advice early on. The Knicks have been hustling up-and-down the court, and it’s led to some early buckets. We’ll see if New York can keep up this pace, and how it’ll affect Wembanyama throughout the game.
Dan Devine On X: After what feels like a month of everyone projecting Victor Wembanyama would come out guarding Josh Hart in ghost coverage, he’s instead guarding Karl-Anthony Towns mostly straight up. Knicks have opened with 12 points on nine possessions, and lead 12-7 at the first timeout.
The Knicks are getting out in transition and looking to attack the basket before Victor Wembanyama gets there. The result is a 12-7 Knicks lead at the first timeout.
Karl-Anthony Towns beat Victor Wembanyama for the opening tip, and Game 1 is underway with a Jalen Brunson 3.
Despite undergoing surgery last week to address a broken pinky finger, New York center Mitchell Robinson will play in Game 1 tonight, the team told reporters.
Robinson might not draw the primary defensive assignment guarding Spurs star big man Victor Wembanyama, a job that could fall to the Knicks’ fleet of wings, but Robinson’s offensive rebounding will be critical in not allowing second-chance opportunities.
Key Knicks big man will play despite injury
Three years ago, Julian Champagnie thought his NBA career might already be over at age 21.
On Feb. 14, 2023, the Philadelphia 76ers waived Champagnie from his two-way NBA contract. Why? The 76ers never told him. However, his exit created a two-way contract spot that was filled by Mac McClung, who not-so-coincidentally was about to represent the 76ers in the All-Star Saturday Night Dunk Contest.
Three years later, as a starter for the San Antonio Spurs, Champagnie is headed home to play in the NBA Finals in New York City — and it’s hard for him to get his head around it.
Spurs’ Julian Champagnie, Brooklyn kid, will live his dream and play in NBA Finals in Madison Square Garden
Mike Tirico, Jamal Crawford, and Reggie Miller discusses why San Antonio could be a contender for years to come, highlighting Victor Wembanyama, the Spurs’ chemistry and its long-term outlook.
Spurs proving they can be special after Game 7 win
But the French superstar requires a different plan because he is “different,” Anunoby said. “He’s taller. Just being aware of where he’s at all over the floor. He can do everything. Super talented.”
The task of guarding the 7-foot-4 Wembanyama has often fallen to New York forward OG Anunoby, who has done as solid of a job as any defender in the league, according to some advanced analytics. Anunoby said there were “little things” he has taken from guarding other 7-footers from Nikola Jokic, Kristaps Porzingis and Joel Embiid and applied to guarding Wembanyama.
Said Knicks wing Josh Hart: “I don’t know if you can really prepare for that because there’s not a situation that’s similar in that situation.”
As an opposing player, it’s something you constantly have to be on watch for. You just never know the things that he’s capable of doing. That’s why game planning and our game-planning discipline, our attention to details are so important when it comes to playing because he’s pretty incredible.
After making the NBA Finals in his first postseason in the league, Spurs big man Victor Wembanyama has “pretty unbelievable,” Knicks guard Jalen Brunson told reporters Tuesday in San Antonio. “Things he’s able to do on both sides of the ball, people have never really seen before, for a person of his size. It’s incredible to watch from a player’s perspective.”
Nicks say Wembanyama has been ‘incredible to watch’
Silver on tanking: ‘This is not what we wanted to see in the NBA’
Here’s a look at the odds as the clock ticks down:
Point spread: Spurs -4.5
Moneyline odds: Spurs -188, Knicks +158
Adam Silver said the league continues to talk with groups in Seattle and Las Vegas about expansion and reiterated that the NBA will make a decision about one or both cities by the end of the year.
The Jackals, Baseline Bums and other dedicated Spurs fans have to spend a significant amount of cash to attend a game in person, but there are a couple of free options to watch the winner of the series raise the Larry O’Brien trophy.
Here’s a quick statistical breakdown of the Knicks and Spurs as head to tipoff of Game 1 of the NBA Finals…
New York enters with a 123.3 offensive rating and 103.5 defensive rating for a net rating of 19.8. T he Knicks’ leading scorer is Jalen Brunson, who is averaging 26.9 points per game in the playoffs. As a team, New York is shooting 40.0% from 3-point range. San Antonio enters with a 115.4 offensive rating and 104.4 defensive rating for a net rating of 11.0. The Spurs’ leading scorer is Victor Wembanyama, who is averaging 23.2 points per game in the playoffs. As a team, San Antonio is shooting 36.5% from 3-point range.
Ron Harper can offer Finals experience, but Dylan has also learned plenty from his mother, Maria, who coached Dylan from elementary school through high school. Now that she’s no longer his coach, his talks with his mom involve “regular mom stuff with a little mix of basketball here and there,” Dylan said.
He just tells me, like everyone else tells me, but I think coming from him it’s more of, ‘Be you, you don’t have to switch who you are in this situation. Just do whatever you’ve got to do, do whatever you did to get here. Just keep doing it.’ That’s been the biggest thing.
San Antonio’s roster, meanwhile, features another son of a longtime pro in Dylan Harper, whose father, Ron, won five NBA championships in the span of six seasons with Chicago and the Lakers. Dylan Harper, 20, wasn’t even alive the last time his father played in the Finals in 2001.
There are Knicks fans in the concourse but nowhere near the majority, like in their previous three series.
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