Knicks Rebound in Second Half, Top Spurs 124-113 to Capture NBA Cup
The New York Knicks outrebounded the San Antonio Spurs 59-42--including 34-18 in the second half--en route to winning the NBA Cup Championship Game, 124-113. OG Anunoby scored a game-high 28 points on 10-17 field goal shooting, and he also grabbed nine rebounds. Jalen Brunson--who received the NBA Cup MVP--had a quiet game by his lofty standards, finishing with 25 points on 11-27 field goal shooting plus a team-high eight assists as he amassed a game-high tying +15 plus/minus number. Karl-Anthony Towns added 16 points and 11 rebounds. The Knicks would not have won without strong performances by bench players Jordan Clarkson (15 points, game-high tying +15 plus/minus number), Tyler Kolek (14 points, five assists, five rebounds, +14 plus/minus number), and Mitchell Robinson (four points, game-high 15 rebounds, +9 plus/minus number).
Dylan Harper led the Spurs with 21 points off of the bench, and he also had a team-high tying seven rebounds. Victor Wembanyama, playing in just his second game after missing 12 games due to injury, had 18 points, six rebounds, and two blocked shots in 25 minutes off of the bench, but he had a game-worst -18 plus/minus number. Wembanyama has said that he modeled his game after several French
players--including Tony Parker and Boris Diaw--and that his NBA role
model is Russell Westbrook; his versatility is an asset, but in this game the Spurs would have benefited most if he had been a dominant rebounder instead of tying for third on his team in that category. De'Aaron Fox added 16 points and nine assists, but he shot just 5-13 from the field. Stephon Castle contributed 15 points, a game-high 12 assists, and seven rebounds while committing only two turnovers, but he also shot poorly from the field (5-15). The Spurs lost because of inefficient offense combined with an inability to complete defensive possessions with rebounds; they shot just .414 (41-99) from the field, and they barely grabbed half of the available defensive rebounds, controlling 24 defensive rebounds while giving up 23 offensive rebounds.
The Spurs never trailed in the first half, but they also never led by more than seven points before settling for a 61-59 halftime edge. Devin Vassell paced the Spurs with 12 first half points before going scoreless in the second half. Luke Kornet, who started at center because Wembanyama is still playing restricted minutes, had 10 first half points and a +9 plus minus number in 14 minutes before scoring just four points in 10 second half minutes. Wembanyama had a gaudy +21 plus/minus number in San Antonio's 111-109 NBA Cup semifinals win versus the Oklahoma City Thunder, but he only found his footing in spurts in this game, and he had a quiet first half (four points on 2-6 field goal shooting, four rebounds, -7 plus/minus number). Anunoby (20 first half points) and Brunson (15 first half points) did most of the damage for the Knicks in the first 24 minutes.
Castle's free throw at the 5:50 mark of the third quarter pushed the Spurs' lead to 82-71, but the Knicks trimmed the deficit to 94-89 by the end of the stanza before taking their first lead of the game, 97-94, on Clarkson's three pointer with 10:27 remaining in the fourth quarter. That shot capped off a 10-0 Knicks' run spanning the end of the third quarter and the beginning of the fourth quarter. The Knicks led the rest of the way, but did not enjoy a double digit advantage until Kolek made a pair of free throws to put them up 120-110 with just 33.4 seconds left.
I picked the Knicks to win the Eastern Conference, but I underestimated the Knicks in the NBA Cup Championship Game, picking the Spurs to beat the Knicks in a close contest. Perhaps I fell victim to recency bias after watching the Spurs end the Thunder's 16 game winning streak, but I think that there should be high expectations for the Spurs. In my 2025-26 Western Conference Preview, I wrote, "There are no more excuses for missing the playoffs. The Spurs have a
generational talent--the 2024 NBA Rookie of the Year Victor
Wembanyama--plus they have veteran former All-Star guard De'Aaron Fox,
and they also have 2025 NBA Rookie of the Year Stephon Castle."
Robinson seized 10 offensive rebounds, including six in the fourth quarter when the Knicks took control of the game. Despite all of the talk about "range shooting" and "gravity," defense and rebounding are still essential elements for winning basketball games. Amazon Prime's announcing crew of Ian Eagle, Dwyane Wade, and Stan Van Gundy acknowledged Robinson's impact and they also praised Kolek's contributions as a scorer, playmaker, and secondary ballhandler who took pressure off of Brunson. After Brunson received the MVP trophy, he mentioned that the team win and the individual award would not have been possible without the contributions from OG Anunoby, Tyler Kolek, Jordan Clarkson, and Mitchell Robinson. Anunoby and Robinson provided elite defense and rebounding, while Kolek and Clarkson contributed supplementary scoring.
This was a competitive and entertaining NBA game, but I still have mixed feelings about the NBA Cup because it should not be necessary to provide over $500,000 per player in bonus money to extract maximum effort and focus from these very highly paid professionals. It also is not necessary to keep telling fans how great the NBA Cup is as a concept and how well-played the NBA Cup games have been; fans can see with their own eyes, and make their own judgments.
Van Gundy is very knowledgeable about basketball, but it has become difficult to listen to him call a game because of his not so thinly veiled political commentary that no one requested or needs (regardless of whether you agree or disagree with him), and because of bombastic statements such as, "If you're not a fan of the NBA Cup then you just don't like basketball." Not only is that a self-serving statement--he is being paid by the NBA to like and promote the NBA Cup--but it is a ridiculous statement. I have loved basketball for my whole life, and I have very good, logical reasons for not being a fan of the NBA Cup. The NBA Cup quarterfinals, semifinals, and Championship Game were competitive, but by putting extra emphasis on these games--and by offering bonus money for these games--the NBA is implicitly saying that non-NBA Cup games are not as important. It is strange for the NBA to devalue the vast majority of its regular season games, and to admit that the league's multimillionaire players will not play hard without being offered more money on top of the lavish, guaranteed sums that they are already paid.
To the extent that NBA Cup games are better than regular season NBA games, that could be interpreted as an indictment of the attitude that players have toward the regular season more than as a recommendation for the NBA Cup. A cynic could suggest that if the players' effort and attention is affected to this extent by money then perhaps the NBA should get rid of guaranteed contracts and directly connect compensation to performance; most of us who have real world jobs outside of the fantasy worlds of sports/entertainment are evaluated every year based on our performance, and our compensation is impacted by how well we perform. I understand that due to the nature of collective bargaining there is a 0.00% chance that guaranteed contracts will be eliminated, but Van Gundy's relentless politicking about the NBA Cup's greatness did not resonate with me at all.
Van Gundy is at his best when he analyzes team strategy and the skill sets of individual players, and he is at his worst when he ventures beyond his expertise to become a shill for the NBA. The excellent Amazon Prime studio crew of Taylor Rooks, Dirk Nowitzki, Steve Nash, Blake Griffin, and Udonis Haslem interviewed NBA Commissioner Adam Silver before the game, and it was interesting to hear Silver criticize unnamed commentators who he claimed talk badly about the NBA instead of just analyzing the games; it does not take a conspiracy theorist to figure out that he was most likely referring to Charles Barkley and Shaquille O'Neal, not does it take a conspiracy theorist to contrast Van Gundy's gushing praise for the NBA Cup and Adam Silver with the way that the NBA managed to largely remove the very popular--and very candid--NBA on TNT crew from the regular broadcast rotation. As the kids would say, Van Gundy understands the assignment; he is keenly aware of Silver's views about both politics and about the league. I did not agree with everything that the NBA on TNT guys said--or sometimes failed to say--about basketball and about social issues, but I always felt that they were being honest as opposed to reciting the company line.
The NBA and its media partners promote the NBA Cup as if it is very significant, but the NBA Cup Championship Game is not included in the regular season standings, nor does it not confer any advantage for playoff seeding, and the game's statistics do not officially count. The NBA Cup Championship Game is all about the money; that does not change the fact that this particular game was competitive most of the way, but it should be noted that each NBA Cup Championship Game has been decided by double digits: in 2023 the L.A. Lakers dominated the Indiana Pacers, 123-109, and in 2024 the Milwaukee Bucks routed the Oklahoma City Thunder, 97-81. We have not come close to seeing an NBA Cup Championship Game being decided on a buzzer beater.
I enjoyed watching and writing about the NBA Cup games, but I would enjoy the NBA even more if the league got rid of tanking and load management while also figuring out how to have a competitive, entertaining All-Star Game instead of the travesty that the NBA All-Star Game has become for the past several years.
Labels: Dylan Harper, Jalen Brunson, Mitchell Robinson, New York Knicks, OG Anunoby, San Antonio Spurs, Stephon Castle, Tyler Kolek, Victor Wembanyama
posted by David Friedman @ 2:20 AM
Knicks Make Magic Disappear and Spurs Silence Thunder in NBA Cup Semifinals
The New York Knicks defeated the Orlando Magic 132-120 to reach the NBA Cup Championship Game, which will be played next Tuesday night in Las Vegas. Jalen Brunson authored yet another virtuoso performance, scoring a game-high 40 points on 16-27 field goal shooting while also dishing for a game-high eight assists and committing just two turnovers in 39 minutes. Brunson has now scored at least 30 points in 88 regular season games as a Knick, surpassing Hall of Fame guard Richie Guerin for third place in franchise history. Carmelo Anthony's second place total (108) is well within reach, but it will take Brunson a while to top Patrick Ewing (203). Karl-Anthony Towns (29 points on 9-11 field goal shooting, eight rebounds) and OG Anunoby (24 points, six rebounds, four assists, three steals) also had strong games as all five New York starters scored in double figures. Former New York coach Tom Thibodeau was criticized for allegedly playing his starters for too many minutes, but in this game--with NBA Cup bonus money on the line--current New York coach Mike Brown played four of New York's five starters at least 37 minutes, while the banged up Josh Hart battled through 31 minutes. Mitchell Robinson only scored five points, but he was a force in the
paint, compiling a game-high nine rebounds and a game-high four blocked
shots in just 17 minutes off of the bench.
Jalen Suggs led the Magic with 26 points on 10-16 field goal shooting, but he had 25 of those points in the first half before injuring his left hip in the third quarter. He limped through nine scoreless third quarter minutes and scored just one point in a cameo appearance in the fourth quarter before the Magic shut him down. Suggs, who had a team-high +8 plus/minus number, will be reevaluated after the Magic return to Orlando from Las Vegas. Paolo Banchero added 25 points and eight rebounds, but he shot 0-7 from three point range and he committed a game-high five turnovers; that is a lot of empty possessions created by the team's best player. Banchero is a strong and talented player who should must improve his decision making in general and his shot selection in particular. Desmond Bane scored a game-high 37 points when Orlando beat Miami 117-108 in an NBA Cup quarterfinal game, but he had just 18 points on 7-17 field goal shooting versus the Knicks.
This game was physical and well-contested but also very fast-paced, which resulted in the high scoring totals for both teams. Each team had 41 rebounds, but the Knicks shot .607 (51-84) from the field while holding the Magic to .464 (45-97) field goal shooting. The Magic led by as much as six in the first quarter, but the Knicks rallied to take a 71-64 halftime edge. The third quarter featured two lead changes and four ties, but the Knicks did not trail in the fourth quarter.
The Magic have a faster paced, more efficient offense than they did last
season, but the goal is not to lose while scoring 120 points; the Magic
pride themselves on their defense, so this performance is very
disappointing, and below their usual standard. Perhaps the Magic would
have fared better if the injured Franz Wagner had been able to play
and if Suggs had not gotten injured during the game, but defense is
about effort and execution, not just personnel. If the Magic are at full strength during the playoffs, a New York-Orlando playoff series could be very competitive and interesting.
In the second game of Amazon Prime's NBA Cup semifinals doubleheader, the San Antonio Spurs rallied from a 16 point second quarter deficit to stun the Oklahoma City Thunder 111-109, ending the Thunder's 16 game winning streak and handing the 2025 NBA champions just their second loss this season. Victor Wembanyama dominated the game despite a minutes restriction that limited him to 21 minutes off of the bench. He scored 22 points on 6-11 field goal shooting and 9-12 free throw shooting while grabbing a game-high tying nine rebounds, notching a game-high two blocked shots, and posting a gaudy team-high +21 plus/minus number. This was his first game back after missing the last 12 games because of a left calf injury. The Spurs went 9-3 without Wembanyama, but in this game they looked vastly superior with him on the court compared to when he was not on the court. Devin Vassell scored a team-high 23 points while collecting five rebounds and four assists, while De'Aaron Fox and Stephon Castle scored 22 points each.
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander scored a game-high 29 points on 12-23 field goal shooting, but his teammates managed to produce just 80 points on 26-69 (.377) field goal shooting as the Thunder's vaunted strength in numbers vanished. The Spurs forced Gilgeous-Alexander to play in a crowd, and they denied him access to his favorite midrange areas. He responded by willingly making the right passes, but his teammates did not make enough shots. Jalen Williams (17 points on 5-16 field goal shooting) and Chet Holmgren (17 points on 3-8 field goal shooting) both had subpar games. Isaiah Hartenstein was solid (10 points on 5-9 field goal shooting, game-high tying nine rebounds), but the Thunder player who performed the best other than Gilgeous-Alexander was Alex Caruso, who had 11 points, eight rebounds, three assists, three steals, and no turnovers in 24 minutes off of the bench. Caruso had a game-high +22 plus/minus number, including +6 in a tightly contested fourth quarter.
The Spurs won the rebounding battle 52-51, and they only lost points in the paint 44-40. In a game where the outcome hung in the balance until the final buzzer sounded, the best thing that the Spurs did was remain composed through both the highs and the lows; the Thunder attack their opponents in aggressive waves of relentless pressure defense leading to high percentage shots, but the Spurs weathered each storm after a bumpy first quarter. The Thunder do not have many weaknesses or vulnerabilities, but the best
recipe to beat them involves (1) controlling the pace, (2) limiting
turnovers, and (3) attacking the paint. Controlling the pace does not necessarily mean only playing fast or only playing slow, but rather not letting the Thunder speed you up to force turnovers and bad shots; the Spurs did a great job of pushing the ball when they had an advantage in numbers and running a half court offense when they did not have an advantage in numbers.
When the Thunder led 14-4 at the 8:18 mark of the first quarter, it seemed like this would be yet another double digit Thunder win with Gilgeous-Alexander watching the fourth quarter relaxing on the bench. The Spurs stabilized themselves for the rest of the first quarter, and even though they did not cut into the margin they also did not plummet into a 20 point deficit. The Thunder led 31-20 heading into the second quarter. Wembanyama did not play at all in the first quarter, and it soon became evident just how significant his absence was; he had five points and five rebounds in seven minutes in the second quarter, but his +20 plus/minus number just hinted at his impact at both ends of the court. The Spurs trimmed the lead to 33-29 at the 8:35 mark with Wembanyama in the game, but after he took a break the Thunder surged to a 47-31 lead with 3:52 left before Wembanyama returned. The Spurs closed the second quarter with a 15-2 run with Wembanyama seemingly everywhere at once at both ends of the court as he altered shots on defense and forced the Thunder to account for his presence on offense.
The Spurs took their first lead of the game, 57-56, on a Fox fast break drive at the 8:45 mark of the third quarter. Neither team led by more than six points the rest of the way. One might expect that a championship team would have the advantage in a nip and tuck game versus a young and inexperienced team, but that was not the case in this game. Wembanyama's jump shot with 2:32 remaining in the fourth quarter put the Spurs up 102-101, and they never trailed again; down the stretch, the Spurs played excellent defense and they made enough free throws to hold off the Thunder.
In my December
3 NBA Cup article, I correctly picked each of the four quarterfinal
game winners before picking Orlando and Oklahoma City as semifinal game
winners; since I was wrong about both semifinal game winners it is time for me to make a new prediction about the NBA Cup Championship Game.
It does not make much sense to call Knicks versus Spurs a rematch of the 1999 NBA Finals because many of the participants in the upcoming 2025 NBA Cup Championship Game were not even born yet in 1999. More relevant is that the Knicks reached the 2025 Eastern Conference Finals while the Spurs missed the playoffs; the Knicks began this season with championship aspirations while the Spurs entered this season intent on proving that they can be the first San Antonio team to qualify for postseason play since 2019. Both teams are 18-7 now, and both teams are on the upswing, with the Knicks 9-1 in their last 10 games and the Spurs 7-3 in their last 10 games (nine of which they played without Wembanyama).
The matchups are fascinating. Will the Knicks try to muscle Wembanyama, or will they try to harass him by swarming him with pesky small defenders? How will the Spurs try to exploit Brunson's subpar defense, and how will the Knicks try to hide Brunson on that side of the court? The coaches who will make those decisions are Mitch Johnson, who is in his first full season at the helm in San Antonio, and Mike Brown, who led the Cleveland Cavaliers to the 2007 NBA Finals and has won four NBA titles as an assistant coach, including one with the Spurs (2003) and three with the Golden State Warriors (2017-18, 2022). Johnson's father John was the starting small forward for Seattle's 1979 NBA championship team. Brown has the edge on paper by virtue of his long resume full of NBA championships and NBA Finals appearances, but Johnson has shown a lot of promise in his short time on the job while presiding over the development of not only Wembanyama but also other young players on the roster.
If this were a seven game series, I would pick the Knicks, much like I would have picked them over the Magic in a series but thought that the Magic would prevail in a one game winner take all scenario (never mind that I ended up being wrong about that!). Wembanyama has not proven that he can stay healthy for a whole season, let alone dominate during an extended playoff run--but he has shown that in just 21 minutes he can be a force even against the dominant Oklahoma City Thunder, so I will pick the Spurs to win a game that I expect (and hope) will be as closely contested and well-played as their victory over the Thunder.
Labels: Jalen Brunson, Jalen Suggs, Karl-Anthony Towns, New York Knicks, Oklahoma City Thunder, Orlando Magic, San Antonio Spurs, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Victor Wembanyama
posted by David Friedman @ 2:49 AM
