The San Antonio Spurs have spent four games building impressive first-quarter leads. The Knicks have spent four games proving those leads don\u2019t tell the whole story.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s the strange thing about this series entering Game 5 on Saturday night in San Antonio. The Spurs keep hitting first. The Knicks find a way to rally. The series score says the Knicks lead 3-1. But even with the Knicks one win away from securing a championship, things could\u2019ve easily gone the other way.<\/p>\n
The Knicks are minus-47 in first quarters through four Finals games. They\u2019re plus-24 in second quarters, plus-16 in third quarters and plus-15 in fourth quarters. San Antonio has owned the first quarter, then they gradually lose steam.<\/p>\n
The Spurs know the pattern. Their problem hasn\u2019t been building leads. It\u2019s been protecting them.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have to figure out how to sustain those leads,\u201d De\u2019Aaron Fox said. \u201cWe have to figure out how to finish games.\u201d<\/p>\n
Stephon Castle saw the same thing after Game 4, like everyone else inside Madison Square Garden. He said the Spurs have had a 10-plus point lead in every game, then stopped playing the same way that built those leads in the first place. The issue, Castle said, started with defense.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey were able to generate a lot of open shots, whether they made them or missed them, and eventually they started to fall for them,\u201d Castle said. \u201cI feel like that\u2019s how their comeback started.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Knicks produced a 180 offensive rating in the second half, or 1.80 points per possession, on plays with Victor Wembanyama defending in isolation, pick-and-roll or closeouts. The Knicks used his drop coverage, over-help and late closeouts against him. It worked beautifully.<\/p>\n
Wembanyama can erase shots with ease. He changes spacing just by standing near a ball handler. But the Knicks kept making him choose. Drop, and Jalen Brunson had room to work. Help too far, and the Knicks had release valves. Close late, and the Spurs were chasing from behind.<\/p>\n
\u201cSometimes it feels like if they\u2019re going to spend so much energy trying to put us in a certain position, at the end of the day there is still no mismatch,\u201d Wembanyama said. \u201cIt\u2019s not necessarily bad. I don\u2019t think it was a reason why we lost the game.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Knicks have continued to find ways to respond to slow starts throughout this series. However, Josh Hart knows they can\u2019t keep relying on it.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe can\u2019t keep getting into a hole and trying to dig ourselves out of a hole,\u201d Hart said. \u201cWe were fortunate to do that last game, actually, all three games, all three of our wins, but we\u2019ve got to do a better job of starting games off.\u201d<\/p>\n
DOWN TO THE WIRE<\/p>\n
Each of the first four games between the Knicks and Spurs has been within four points in the final minute of regulation. Per the NBA, the last Finals series to begin with four such games was in 1973, when the Knicks faced the Los Angeles Lakers.<\/p>\n
The Knicks won Game 2 by one point. They lost Game 3 by four. They won Game 4 by one. The whole series has has been nothing but late-clock possessions, missed box-outs, one extra pass, and Wednesday night, one hand above the crowd.<\/p>\n
Knicks head coach Mike Brown has tried to keep his players tied to the next play, not the ultimate prize.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve been preaching all year it\u2019s about the next possession, the next possession, the next possession,\u201d Brown said.<\/p>\n
Brunson traced it to something less complicated.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur mentality,\u201d Brunson said. \u201cOur belief and our confidence within each other I think helps us in that aspect. It starts with our mental approach.\u201d<\/p>\n
HOLD IT!<\/p>\n
New York has found plenty of ways to measure this run. NYC Water found another.<\/p>\n
As the Knicks rallied Wednesday night with a game-winning tip, New Yorkers held their No. 1, according to NYC Water. At the final whistle and for the next seven minutes, the city saw a water-use spike equal to 368,697 toilet flushes.<\/p>\n
It is a ridiculous detail. New Yorkers didn\u2019t just watch Game 4. They waited. Apartments, bars and living rooms across the city paused at once, everyone too locked into one final stop to leave the screen. This Finals series has altered sleep, routines, flights, bar tabs and, apparently, bathroom timing<\/p>\n
NYC Water put it best: \u201cAs the Knicks surged, we fought the urge\u2026 because we knew the team was on the verge\u2026 OF HISTORY!\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The San Antonio Spurs have spent four games building impressive first-quarter leads. The Knicks have spent four games…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":760030,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3797],"tags":[7,304,6,1220,969,474,4075,4074,534,93301],"class_list":["post-760029","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-antonio-spurs","tag-basketball","tag-knicks","tag-nba","tag-nba-finals","tag-san-antonio","tag-san-antonio-spurs","tag-sanantonio","tag-sanantoniospurs","tag-spurs","tag-spurts"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116743129244316805","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/760029","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=760029"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/760029\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/760030"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=760029"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=760029"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=760029"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}