Knicks-Spurs set for cinematic new millennium rematch in 2026 NBA Finals
- Jake C
- 1 day ago
- 8 min read
Updated: 4 hours ago
Shawshank. The Godfather. Pulp Fiction. Schindler's List.
Feature films are subjective. But if you polled any number of individuals, you would probably get a consensus on a few of the aforementioned being in the running for the top movie in history.
They come in many formats, genres, storylines. Comedies and action films. Dramas where the hero saves or perishes. Wholesome endings where the family gets back together. Satisfying conclusions where the antagonist meets his demise.
Charlie Chaplin made his living as a silent film star. Some people fancy that. Some do not.
Whatever the motion picture though, the viewer at the end of the day has the final say on how it was for them. Subjectivity is at the core of the movie-goer.
What cannot be of varying opinion though, is that over the course of the new millennium, the New York Knicks' story has mostly unfolded like a great American tragedy. At times an ending not conclusive, but one that rather fades to black without resolution, a la the final scene of the timeless television series The Sopranos.
Since 1999, the Knicks had been coached by two Hall of Fame head coaches - Larry Brown and Lenny Wilkens - and a Hall of Fame player, Isiah Thomas. Wilkens went 17-22 in 2004-05 after 23-19 the previous season. Brown managed 23 wins in his lone season of 2005-06, and Thomas in his two campaigns - 2006-07 and 2007-08 - yielded just 33 and 23 wins. The Knicks during this time had talent - at one time or another future or past all-stars in Zach Randolph, David Lee, Stephon Marbury, Steve Francis, and multiple Sixth Man of the Year winner Jamal Crawford. But the pieces never fit. There was Jerome James' $30 million, five-year deal in 2005 that turned into an average of 3.0 points per game in the 2005-06 season.
Mike D’Antoni came in in 2008-09 and managed 29 wins before 42 in the following season of 2009-10. Whether the possibility of LeBron James and Dwayne Wade teaming up in New York in the summer of 2010 was legitimate or not became null when it was forward Amare Stoudemire whom the Knicks signed at five years and $99.7 million. Stoudemire averaged 25.3 points and 8.2 rebounds (78 games) in 2010-11, and 17.5 points and 7.8 rebounds (47 games) in 2011-12. His pairing with Carmelo Anthony - traded for at the 2011 deadline - was a peculiar one. The season where Stoudemire played just 29 games due to injury in 2012-13, Anthony averaged 28.7 points (first in the NBA) and finished third in MVP voting for a 54-win Knick team. That season, under former Knick player Mike Woodson, produced the highest win total for the franchise since a 50-win campaign under Jeff Van Gundy in 1999-00, the season after the Knicks won the Eastern Conference for, up until last Monday night, the last time.
After Woodson, the franchise went through a time of directing B-rated films that included a period from 2014-17 of a failed experiment with 11-time champion head coach and former Knick Phil Jackson as president. One starting lineup during that time, from the 2014-15 season, featured Langston Galloway, Tim Hardaway Jr., Lance Thomas, Lou Amundson, and Jason Smith. With apologies to Hardaway Jr., who has carved out a nice niche for himself as a high quality role player in the league, that five is not exactly the cast that was Frazier-Monroe-Bradley-Lucas-DeBusschere.
Jackson's biggest contribution was drafting Kristaps Porzingis, who in fairness before knee injuries derailed him looked a little bit akin to what Victor Wembanyama is now. Jackson fired Woodson and brought in his former Laker point guard Derek Fisher, who went 17-65 in his lone full season and never received another head coaching opportunity. Kurt Rambis (9-19) and Jeff Hornacek (60-104 in two seasons) also failed under Jackson. Then there were Mike Miller and David Fizdale, who went a combined 38-110 from 2018-19 to 2019-20, in the Steve Mills era. The days of Pat Riley and Patrick Ewing and Anthony Mason and Charles Oakley seemed like a lifetime ago, never mind the days of Holzman, Frazier, and Reed and the Springfield-laden groups of the early 70s. A yearning for a return to those days was at the core of every Knick fan.
In 2020-21, the franchise landed on Tom Thibodeau, who had led the Chicago Bulls’ renaissance nearly a decade earlier with a 22-year-old MVP in Derrick Rose. Four of Thibodeau’s seasons leading the Knicks ended in 41-plus wins, all of which were playoff berths.
The 2024-25 Knicks lost the Eastern Conference Finals to the Indiana Pacers in six games - a painful defeat not just because of how far they had gotten, but because of who they faced, an old 90s nemesis. It was the Pacers who played the villain to the Knicks also in the 1994-95 Eastern Conference Semifinals series that went the distance. That Knick team won 55 games. Ewing had a finger roll chance to tie the seventh game against the Pacers and send it into overtime, but the lofted ball hit the back rim and came out. Heartbreak in New York. The season prior, 1993-94, the Knicks ran into Hakeem Olajuwon in the NBA Finals and lost in seven games. The team had a 3-2 series lead, but the Rockets prevailed in Game 6 by an 86-84 score and in Game 7 by a 90-84 count. John Starks’ 2-for-18 shooting (0-for-7 from beyond) in the winner-take-all game was horror flick stuff. Olajuwon - 26.9 points, 9.1 rebounds, and 3.9 blocks - bested Ewing’s 18.9 points, 12.4 rebounds, and 4.3 blocks.
Back to how the current squad was built. Thibodeau was fired after the 2024-25 season and replaced by former Cleveland Cavaliers (2005-10, 2013-14), Los Angeles Lakers (2011-13) and Sacramento Kings (2022-25) head coach Mike Brown, who from 2016-2022 served under Steve Kerr with the Golden State Warriors.
In February of 2023, the Knicks traded for forward Josh Hart, who at 6 feet, 4 inches tall is a rebounding dynamo - he averaged 9.6 in 2024-25 and broke Frazier’s previous franchise record for most 10-rebound games in a season by a player 6 feet, 4 inches or under.
On December 30, 2023, the Knicks traded swingman RJ Barrett and guard Immanuel Quickley to the Toronto Raptors for a package centered around forward OG Anunoby. In 2024, the team traded four unprotected first-round picks to the Brooklyn Nets for forward Mikal Bridges. Double two-way forwards acquired with those deals. On October 3, 2024, all-star big man Karl-Anthony Towns was acquired from the Minnesota Timberwolves for forward Julius Randle and guard Donte Divincenzo.
Knicks president Leon Rose, who assumed that duty in March of 2020, had swiftly changed the makeup of his team. A new cast of characters. He had signed Jalen Brunson in 2022 from the Dallas Mavericks for $104 million over four years. Brunson’s current deal with the Knicks is $156.5 million over four years.
Brunson is the heartbeat of the group, while the auxiliary pieces provide exactly what the teams of the past embodied and what the city's attitude embodies - toughness, grit, and no quit. It is the closest that they have come to Ewing, Starks, Mason, Oakley et al in the 32 years since that 1994 Finals appearance.
The Knicks will meet the San Antonio Spurs in the 2026 NBA Finals that tips off Wednesday night, June 3, at San Antonio's Frost Bank Center. It is a rematch of 1999, a series which the Spurs won in five games. In Game 2 of the Eastern Conference Finals that year, against the Pacers, Ewing tore his achilles, so the Knicks did not have his services against David Robinson and a young Tim Duncan. Instead, Van Gundy was reliant on a 24-year-old Marcus Camby. While Camby would eventually blossom into one of the NBA’s premier defensive centers, he was at this point severely outmatched. He managed 7.8 rebounds per game in the series. Duncan, 27.4 points and 14.0 rebounds, dominated. Robinson posted 16.6 points and 11.8 rebounds. Surely, the veteran star Ewing would have helped.
Since those 1990s days, Knick fans have been painfully, patiently, and prayerfully waiting for a team of the same identity. This team’s identity is from a similar cloth. Not since the title days with Frazier leading them has the franchise had as steady a hand at the point guard position as they do now with Brunson. He is fearless and makes big shots. At 81 years old, Frazier still does color commentary for MSG Network. He is still a fixture at all of the big games, as are a host of Knicks alumni - Ewing, Starks, Marbury, Larry Johnson, Tim Thomas, Latrell Sprewell, and others.
They do not call New York City the mecca of basketball for nothing. The tradition of the Knicks is unique, their alumni nights at the Garden bringing together stars of the past to the current day. It is a fan base that knows their basketball, with a pure, genuine nature about it.
For the Spurs, it's all been about best pictures and Academy Award runaways since that 1999 matchup. The franchise had its 2000s run, with five titles courtesy of Gregg Popovich, Duncan, Tony Parker, and Manu Ginobili. Popovich, sadly afflicted by a stroke in November of 2024, still hangs around the team. He was replaced by 39-year-old Mitch Johnson, who you can tell had a listening ear under the Popovich learning tree. General Manager Brian Wright and the front office have carefully and steadily rebuilt the team into an ahead-of-schedule contender. The Spurs this season won 62 games, second in the west. The Knicks won 53, third in the east.
This Finals is a clash of a young and hungry Spurs team against a Knicks team that has more experience, wing defense, and a big man in Towns who has the ability if he desires to have a dominant series. With the Spurs though, you get the feeling that the group of child actors are impervious to pressure - it sure did not look like they were feeling it in the fourth quarter of Game 7, when they scored 31 points and held on on the road. They were ready for their close-up.
Wembanyama's long heave that sent Game 1 into overtime oozed confidence. Stephon Castle, the 2024-25 Rookie of the Year, is a multiple-time all-star in waiting. Keldon Johnson was this season's Sixth Man of the Year. De'Aaron Fox is a steady point guard with defensive and mid-range capabilities. Dylan Harper, a star rookie, is wise beyond his years. The group talks stuff, and has a fearless nature for such a young group. Devin Vassell can make big shots. All are ideal complements to the superstar Wembanyama, and veterans Kelly Olynyk, Bismack Biyombo, and Mason Plumlee provide the phenom with a 24-hour hotline for advice.
On the flip side, Brunson is built for big moments, too. The Mavericks not electing to re-sign him when they could have paired him long term with Luka Doncic will likely have an Oklahoma City Thunder-Durant-Harden-Westbrook ripple effect, although 2026 Rookie of the Year and super talent Cooper Flagg may play the role of Lisa Fischer and ease the pain.
With Brunson landing in New York, he found a home. And the Knicks found their new star. While the Spurs got through a grueling seven-game conference finals battle against the Oklahoma City Thunder that had all the makings of a classic western film, the Knicks easily disposed of the Philadelphia 76ers and Cleveland Cavaliers in sweeps. The hero lived.
When people say that things will “be a movie”, they are equating an anticipated event to a marquee. A can’t miss. Memorable. An all-timer.
It is very apropos then that the 2026 NBA Finals will partly take place at Madison Square Garden, in a city home to luminous film figures like De Niro and Pacino. Denzel Washington was born 40 miles north. Superfan and super director Spike Lee grew up in Brooklyn. Re-sale ticket prices are about as lofty as Wembanyama's career expectations, as nutty as the Mavericks awarding the Knicks with Brunson. Or as maddening, to local diehard fans who may be priced out of tickets, as the up-to-interpretation ending that was The Sopranos' final scene when the entry door dinged and Tony Soprano may have or may not met his fate for all the wrong that he had done as a Jersey mob boss.
But then again, it is New York City. It is the future of the NBA, with his running mates that are blossoming into wondrous talents before our eyes, facing the league’s preeminent franchise. Spurs vs. Knicks. Wembanyama in The Mecca. Has a good ring to it.
The stuff movies are made of.