By TIM REYNOLDS AP Basketball Writer
SAN ANTONIO — The road to the NBA Finals was not exactly smooth for the San Antonio Spurs.
They had – and lost – home-court advantage in Round 1 against Portland, before recovering to win the series. In Round 2 against Minnesota, the same thing happened. In the Western Conference finals against Oklahoma City, they trailed 2-1 before finding a way to oust the defending champion Thunder in seven games.
And now, the Finals. They had home-court advantage and lost it in Game 1 against the New York Knicks. Adversity, hello again.
“We’ve been consistent in that regard,” Spurs coach Mitch Johnson said Thursday as his team prepares for Game 2 on Friday night. “I think one thing we have learned in our three series is that series are long. Games are long. Things shift quickly, whether that’s health, who’s playing well or hot, quote-unquote, at the time. Teams at this stage typically have shown the ability to evolve on the fly and improve within a series.”
That’s what will be required if the Spurs are going to head to New York with this series knotted at a game apiece.
They shot poorly in Game 1 (36%), extremely poorly from 3-point range (26%, missing 32 of 43 tries), had 16 assists (nowhere near enough), got outscored in the paint 50-42 and couldn’t hold a 14-point third-quarter lead. The Knicks deserve credit for creating a whole lot of those issues, but the Spurs know they’re capable of much better play.
“I think the reason we lost that game isn’t even technical (or) tactical,” Spurs star Victor Wembanyama said. “We need to approach the game with a better mental state. We just need to play our game. We just need to be normal.”
Normal?
“‘Normal’ means trusting each other, trusting the basketball gods, trusting the game plan, executing, and not relying on talent so much to make shots or to save the day,” Wembanyama said. “We’ve been playing a certain way all season. We’ve been successful this way. There’s no reason to change the day the Finals start.”
It was easy for the Spurs to find areas to clean up.
For the Knicks these days, that’s considerably tougher.
They’re 12-0 in their last 12 games, the third team to do that in a single postseason. The other two – San Antonio in 1999 and Golden State in 2017 – were NBA champions. The Knicks are certainly playing like a championship-capable team, but star guard Jalen Brunson insists that New York can’t subscribe to any sort of thinking that suggests the job is done and a parade is inevitable.
“It’s all about just getting better every single day, keep chipping away, keep chipping away, being 1% better,” said Brunson, who led all scorers with 30 points in his Finals debut Wednesday. “When you take steps back, how can you improve? … Having that mentality and focus and approach I think allows us to still be students of the game and still find ways to learn, even through wins, and I think we need to continue to do that.”
The Knicks were coming off their second nine-day break between series – an unintended consequence of sweeping Philadelphia in the second round and Cleveland in the Eastern Conference finals – and handled it just fine.
But New York’s Mikal Bridges knows Game 2 will be better.
“I don’t think our Game 1s, even though we won, have been great at all,” Bridges said. “It’s tough to assimilate the emotional aspect, how physical it’s going to be when you’re in practice every day, besides being in those games. It’s tough. … Now, we kind of got a rhythm. We’ve got to be better and I know we will be Game 2.”
The Spurs hope they will as well.
It’s not must-win time for San Antonio, but going to New York in a 2-0 hole would make the challenge of winning the Finals considerably more daunting. The Spurs have handled all the adversity that has come their way so far in the playoffs, and now have to answer that bell again.
“It’s very reassuring,” Wembanyama said. “We know we’re not here by chance. We’ve been through some weird – what do you call it? – weird situations, whatever. Yes, it’s reassuring to know that these guys, the 18 guys we got, are built this way. They are resilient.”
NBA BANS 2 FANS FOR LIFE
The NBA banned two people for life from its arenas on Thursday, after one of them was arrested shortly after running onto the court during Game 1 of the NBA Finals and appearing to take a selfie next to Wembanyama.
The incident occurred midway through the fourth quarter of Wednesday’s game. The NBA did not disclose what role the second banned person, who did not run onto the court, played in the incident.
“The individual who entered the court area during Game 1 of The Finals was arrested and will be banned for life from all NBA arenas,” an NBA spokesman said in a message sent to The Associated Press and other outlets. “A second individual will also receive a lifetime ban for his role in the incident.”
The person who was arrested after running onto the court is a juvenile, according to a person with knowledge of the matter who spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity because that detail – first reported by the San Antonio Express-News – was not revealed publicly.
That fan appeared to enter the court from the sideline opposite the team benches, starting from behind the play and running into San Antonio’s offensive end. The person was quickly pulled from the court by two security guards and it did not appear the person made any physical contact with Wembanyama or any New York players.
“I even hesitate to describe that person as a fan,” NBA commissioner Adam Silver said Thursday. “They seemed to have some ulterior motive for doing so.”
Wembanyama did not appear bothered by the incident, either as it was happening or afterward.
“I’ve never been in that situation,” Wembanyama said. “I didn’t know how to act.”
He compared the moment to a game in January 2024 when a bat got into the Spurs’ arena and flew around the court, stopping a game against Minnesota for a couple of minutes.
Play on Wednesday was stopped for 89 seconds before the game resumed with a jump ball. The fan who entered the play was taken out of the court area through a baseline tunnel.
“I don’t think it was an event at all,” Johnson said. “I thought security got him out of there. I think everybody moved on to the next play.”
Silver lauded crew chief Scott Foster and the game’s officiating crew for handling the incident quickly, not disrupting the game for any longer than necessary.
“It’s unfortunately part of all sports,” Silver said. “There’s lot more security, much more apparatus in place than we needed maybe in the old days. I think the other side of the coin of global attention is that somebody realizes that there’s this enormous platform to do stupid things. So, we learn from every incident.”
LEAGUE INVESTIGATING FAN’S WORDS TO BRUNSON
Another incident involving fan behavior occurred in the final minute of Game 1, when Brunson appeared to be upset by something said to him by a patron in a courtside seat.
Silver confirmed Thursday that the league is looking into what was said to Brunson. Asked about that incident, Brunson declined to comment.
“To be honest, I didn’t even see what happened,” Knicks forward Josh Hart said. “I heard something about it. I didn’t really see it. I don’t know. He’s always pretty calm, pretty composed. I’m sure the fans probably said something crazy to kind of get him going.”
Fan behavior and conduct has been a point of emphasis for the NBA in recent years, and the league sent a memo to all 30 clubs at the start of this season saying it wants “consistent and vigilant enforcement of the NBA Fan Code of Conduct … to deter and address fan misconduct at NBA games and events.”
The NBA, in that October memo, told teams that arena staff “must be trained to identify behavior that violates NBA rules and to respond proactively.” The NBA, like many leagues, also has a video detailing a code of conduct for fans played in every arena before each game.
“It is critical that teams and arenas vigorously enforce the Code of Conduct and not tolerate any misconduct that impacts our players, fans, or otherwise disrupts the game,” the league said.
NBA FINALS GAME 2
Who: New York Knicks (up 1-0) at San Antonio Spurs
When: Friday, 5:30 p.m. PT
Where: Frost Bank Center, San Antonio
TV: ABC (Ch. 7)