Twenty-seven years ago, the best young big man in the NBA led the San Antonio Spurs against the New York Knicks in the NBA Finals. Tim Duncan and the Spurs won that 1999 series, which ended up being their first of five titles in the Duncan era. Today, it’s starting to feel like déjà vu all over again, with Victor Wembanyama and this new-look San Antonio team heading to its first championship series.
The 2026 NBA Finals offer a historic matchup between the best Knicks team in a generation and basketball’s biggest and brightest young star. It’s a fascinating rematch of this season’s NBA Cup final in Las Vegas, which saw New York’s cast of cohesive vets dominate the young Spurs down the stretch. Can they do it again? Let’s dive in and look at the keys to victory for both sides.
Key 1: Jalen Brunson vs. Area 51
Jalen Brunson is the single most important scorer in this series. If he’s able to blend volume and efficiency as a scorer, the Knicks can win. If he struggles, it’s hard to imagine how New York’s offense will yield enough points to beat San Antonio four times.
I’m skeptical. The Spurs enter this series as the best shot defenders in these playoffs, having effectively contained Anthony Edwards and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander in the previous two rounds. Against OKC, the Spurs’ defense on SGA was particularly awesome. With Stephon Castle on the ball and Wembanyama at the rim, the two-time reigning MVP put up some of the worst numbers of his postseason career.
This dynamic duo has been dubbed “Area 51” for their tendency to connect on alley-oops, but it’s beginning to look like their most impactful collaboration is on the defensive end of the floor. It’s hard enough to get buckets on Castle alone, but when the league’s first unanimous Defensive Player of the Year is lurking behind him, the task is next to impossible.
Here’s the crux. Like SGA, Brunson is one of the world’s finest attacking guards. And like SGA, Brunson prefers to do his damage inside the 3-point line. In the East finals against Cleveland, 89 percent of Brunson’s 38 field goals came in the 2-point area. He ran wild, getting to his favorite spots and converting over 60 percent of 56 2s in those four wins. Look at this.
But these are the exact shot types that the Area 51 bros just took away from the best guard in the world.
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander 2-Point Scoring
When asked about this discrepancy after the series, SGA didn’t mince words: “There’s a guy on their back line that’s a little bit different from everyone else’s.”
That guy is Wembanyama. He’s the best interior defender on planet Earth, and the biggest reason SGA’s 2-point shooting numbers suddenly collapsed. But he’s not alone. At 21, Castle is already one of the league’s most stout perimeter defenders. In the team’s previous two matchups versus New York this season, he’s not only guarded Brunson the most by far—but he’s also done the best job. This season, Brunson’s averaged only 15.6 points per 100 matchups against Castle, a figure significantly lower than the numbers he’s logged against De’Aaron Fox and Julian Champagnie.
Brunson is the Knicks’ MVP, but SGA is the NBA’s MVP, and if Castle and Wembanyama can repeat their defensive masterclass in the NBA Finals, they’re gonna be in great position to win the team’s first title since 2014.
Key 2: The Space Race
In the modern NBA, more and more games are being decided from downtown. Just ask the Spurs, who won their biggest game of the season in part because they outscored OKC by 15 points on 3-pointers in Game 7. That surplus was decisive, and it was driven largely by the sharpshooting of Champagnie, who made six enormous buckets from beyond the arc. Champagnie is a native New Yorker whom the Spurs picked up off the scrap heap, and he has blossomed into arguably their most important 3-point shooter—which his hometown team learned the hard way back on New Year’s Eve, when Champagnie broke the Spurs’ franchise record by hitting 11 3s as the Spurs beat the Knicks 134-132.
But New York has also been red hot from downtown in these playoffs. The Knicks have made 40 percent of their 3s this postseason, far and away the best such mark in the Association, and with the exception of Mitchell Robinson, every player in their rotation is a real threat from deep. With Wemby patrolling the middle, in a defensive framework that The Ringer’s Zach Lowe coined the “one-man zone,” the Knicks’ ability to make their 3s will be especially important. If New York wants to win this thing, it’s imperative that players like Josh Hart, OG Anunoby, Mikal Bridges, Deuce McBride, and Landry Shamet are reliable when they get open looks from downtown.
Against San Antonio, reliable shooters on the edges are worth a lot more than just points on the scoreboard. In the West finals, the Spurs were able to key in on SGA because they weren’t afraid of the Thunder’s spot-up options. But the Knicks’ shooting threats are good enough to make the Spurs’ help defenders think twice about swarming Brunson in the paint. When New York subs Shamet in for Hart, it boasts a five-out lineup with plus shooting at each position that can pull Wembanyama away from the rim. Unlike for the Thunder and SGA, the mere threat of the Knicks’ range could help spring Brunson loose.
Key 3: The Rebounding Battle
The biggest reason New York won the NBA Cup final against the Spurs was Mitchell Robinson’s rebounding. In the finest moment of his career, Robinson put on one of the most dominant performances on the glass we’ve seen in a long time. This dude collected a stunning 15 rebounds in just 18 minutes of action, including a flurry of 10 offensive rebounds that repeatedly enabled New York to turn missed shots into second-chance points.
Call it the Mitchell Effect, because as soon as this guy checks in, the Knicks become the scariest offensive rebounding team in the league. In his 184 minutes of action this postseason, New York has collected a stunning 40 percent of available offensive rebounds, a rate that would lead the league in both the regular season and playoffs.
Which brings us to the single most important digit of this series: Robinson’s pinkie finger. Robinson had surgery to repair a broken pinkie last Friday, and the Knicks say he plans to play in Game 1 on Wednesday night.
The Spurs will say what happened in Vegas, stays in Vegas. Wembanyama played less than 25 minutes in the NBA Cup final, thanks to a strict minutes restriction due to a calf strain that sidelined him for much of the team’s surprising run in that tournament. That’s a distant memory now—Wemby has been playing nearly 38 minutes per game recently, and when he’s on the floor San Antonio has gathered a majority of available rebounds in these playoffs despite playing against massive frontcourt players in OKC and Minnesota.
Regardless, Robinson led an old-school rebounding triumph that would’ve made Charles Oakley proud. The Spurs will have their hands full.
Key 4: Wemby the Scorer
Among the many hats (berets?) he wears, Wembanyama is also his team’s most important scorer. In the West finals, he bounced back and forth between dunking on Chet Holmgren’s head and sinking face-melting, off-the-bounce 3s.
Here’s the good news for New York: Among the 23 players who have matched up against Wembanyama at least 100 times in the half court throughout the French superstar’s three-year career, no defender has been more effective than Anunoby, who has held Wembanyama to just 18.3 points per 100 matchups.
Here’s the bad news: That sample includes data from games that seem irrelevant now, and Wembanyama enters this series on a heater. He was just the leading scorer in the West finals, racking up 191 points in San Antonio’s seven-game triumph, while shooting an absurd 40 percent from beyond the arc, and 90 percent at the free throw line against the best defense in the league.
This video shows his absolute masterpiece in Game 1 of that series, when he racked up 41 points in a way that only he can. Apart from his most iconic shot of that game—a majestic 3 late in the first overtime—Wembanyama did all of his damage in the paint.
New York needs to find ways to keep this dude away from the rim, or he will thrive on dunks and layups like he did here against the Thunder’s normally stout defense. And if Wembanyama is once again the top scorer in this series, over Brunson and Karl-Anthony Towns, San Antonio will be in great shape.
Key 5: Wemby the Observer
Since February 1, Wembanyama has played 47 total games. The Spurs have won his minutes in 43 of them, including Games 6 and 7 of the OKC series.
This fact casts a big, bright light on the 10 or so minutes Wemby gets his rest in each game. When the Spurs hold their own during those stretches, they are very tough to beat. If the Knicks can dominate these stints, they can win this series.
Spurs Big Men in the 2026 Playoffs
Wembanyama was the clear choice for MVP of the West finals for many reasons, but if there’s one stat that really captures his impact, it’s these incredible splits.
Make no mistake, Luke Kornet has been a massive upgrade in that backup center slot for San Antonio this season, and he made arguably the single biggest play in their Game 7 win over OKC with his chase-down block of Isaiah Hartenstein. He’s also been here before; he played over 10 minutes per game as a member of the 2024 Celtics championship squad. But he’s no Wembanyama on either end. In OKC’s three wins last round, they feasted in Kornet’s limited action; Kornet was minus-10 in the Spurs’ Game 2 loss; a minus-18 in Game 3; and a minus-6 in Game 5.
Key 6: KAT
Karl-Anthony Towns has played some of his best, most disciplined basketball in this postseason, and that’s a massive reason New York has made the Finals. But, with all due respect to the Cleveland Cavaliers, analytically, the Spurs are a much tougher beast. New York’s path to victory in this series absolutely demands Towns play well on both ends.
On offense, Towns has been among the most efficient scorers in the playoffs, yielding 17 points per game while making over 57 percent of his shots, including an eye-popping 48.9 percent of his 3s. Like Jerome Bettis with a finishing package, his signature move in this postseason has been his driving layup, and his unique ability to put his head down, power his way through the paint, and finish at the rim will be fascinating to watch against this Spurs squad.
But as the Cavs learned, KAT is much more than a typical bruising big. This chart shows that his impressive blend of interior buckets is complemented by one of the most dangerous 3-point shots of any big man in the league; he hit 50 percent of his 3s in the East finals, and this element gives the Spurs another wrinkle to worry about in this series.
But as vital as Towns’s offensive production will be, his performance on the other end might actually be more important.
Towns has a notorious fouling problem, and the Spurs bring two of the postseason’s most fouled players directly into his airspace. Only three players have drawn more than 100 total fouls in these playoffs, and two of them start for San Antonio: Wembanyama and Castle.
Wembanyama has drawn 6.8 fouls per game this postseason, while Castle has drawn 5.7. Taken together, that’s enough to foul two players out per game, and that puts a lot of pressure on Towns, who ranks fourth in the postseason by racking up 54 foul calls. Add in Dylan Harper and De’Aaron Fox, and the Spurs will be sending a fleet of attackers toward Towns early and often.
It’s almost inevitable that Towns will be in foul trouble in this series. The question is how often it will happen. The Knicks are a lot easier to guard when Towns is on the bench—their offensive rating in the playoffs has dropped by over 10 points per 100 possessions as soon as he sits down, and as good as Robinson is on the glass, he’s a bona fide wild card in this series considering his recent hand surgery and his lack of floor spacing. Towns has to be disciplined on defense to give his team its best chance to win.
My Prediction
No matter which team wins, something historic is about to happen. For the first time in NBA history, the league will crown its eighth different champion in an eight-year span.
Since the Raptors won it all in 2019, an unprecedented era of parity has set in. In a league whose history is marked by dynasties, decade after decade, the defining trait of the 2020s may be the specific lack of any such team.
Despite the fact that New York has beaten San Antonio two out of three times this season, I’m picking the Spurs to win these Finals for one simple reason: Victor Wembanyama is now the most dominant force in pro basketball. At 22, he just led the Spurs past well-coached teams led by Anthony Edwards and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, and with all due respect to Jalen Brunson, I think the Spurs defense will effectively contain him enough to win four times.
In 1999, the best young big man in the world led San Antonio past the Knicks for what turned out to be the first of five titles in 15 years. Twenty-seven years later, it’s Wembanyama’s turn to jump-start a new era of Spurs dominance.
Spurs in seven.
