The New York Knicks have a significant rest advantage over the San Antonio Spurs in the NBA Finals.
Those fresh legs, however, aren’t enough to convince basketball fans that New York can knock off San Antonio for the franchise’s first NBA title since 1973.
Kalshi prediction markets currently give the Knicks a 36% chance of winning the 2026 NBA championship. And while those odds aren’t great, they aren’t impossible.
I dissect the NBA Finals matchup and highlight the five things New York has to do – and do well – if it’s going to shock the Spurs and hoist the Larry O’Brien trophy.
1. Next-up scoring
Jalen Brunson shoulders the scoring load for the New York Knicks, but their postseason push has enjoyed balanced efforts across the starting lineup.
All five starters are averaging more than 11 points, and New York has watched players step up when Brunson struggles, be it Karl-Anthony Towns, OG Anunoby, or Josh Hart. Even super-streaky Mikal Bridges has been constant the past two rounds.
The X-factor for New York will be bench production.
The Knicks need guys like Miles McBride, Landry Shamet, and Mitchell Robinson to contribute when the starters need a blow. The San Antonio Spurs have a couple of capable bench players in Dylan Harper and Keldon Johnson, and New York’s reserves need to at least counter that.
2. Mitchell Robinson healthy
Unlike an Oklahoma City squad falling apart at the seams versus the Spurs, New York comes in relatively healthy – save for center Mitchell Robinson.
Robinson enters the NBA Finals with a broken right pinky finger and is questionable for Game 1.
Kalshi is offering prediction markets on Robinson’s next game and whether it will be before June 4 (with Game 1 scheduled for June 3) or after June 4. They’re giving him an 80% chance of playing in Game 1 even though he’s been spotted wearing a splint ahead of the series.
Having Robinson in the lineup is vital to defending Victor Wembanyama. The Knicks don’t have much size beyond Karl-Anthony Towns, and with Robinson in, the defense can roll out different matchups between him, KAT, and Hart to see what bugs the Spurs’ 7-footer the most.
In two meetings versus San Antonio, Robinson averaged four points and five rebounds with a +10.0 plus/minus rating over 33 total minutes. New York won both of those games.
3. Josh Hart hitting shots
Playing against big, bad opponents is nothing new to the Knicks. They just took down Cleveland’s twin towers of Jarrett Allen and Evan Mobley, thanks in large part to Hart’s solid shooting.
Hart isn’t known for his offense, so Cleveland opted to assign rim protector Allen to the 6-foot-5 guard. The Cavs hoped Hart’s poor outside shooting would allow Allen to sag off and stick to patrolling the paint.
However, Hart made Cleveland pay by shooting 45% from the floor, including 35% from beyond the arc for the series. He shot the ball 49 times in the four ECF games, and 25 of those FGAs were graded as “wide open” without a defender within at least six feet.
Hart needs to do the same with Wembanyama, expected to check him on the defensive end, as San Antonio wants to keep the shot swatter in the key. But if Hart stays hot and makes those open looks, the Spurs either have to move Wemby out or switch up things defensively.
Getting the French 7-footer away from the rim is vital to the Knicks being able to break down San Antonio’s guards, get inside, and either score at the rim or find open shooters. It all starts with Hart.
4. KAT scratch fever
A big part of the Knicks’ offensive success has been the emergence of Towns as a “point forward” for New York.
Towns is operating out of the high post on many possessions, dragging a bigger defender away from the hoop and finding cutters to the rim and shooters coming off screens. The 7-footer is averaging almost six dimes on 6.6 potential assists – nearly double his regular season passing production.
On top of that playmaking, KAT can hit the outside jumper and make big defenders pay for not closing out. Towns hit at a 50% clip from deep versus the Cavaliers and went 2-for-5 from outside in two of the three meetings with the Spurs this year.
Towns could also find himself attacking inside should San Antonio toss smaller players at him. If Wembanyama is on Hart, the Spurs will have to use 6-foot-7 Julian Champagnie or 6-foot-5 Johnson to stop KAT – or reach down the bench to Luke Kornet, Harrison Barnes, or Kelly Olynyk.
Towns is behind Brunson and Wembanyama in the NBA Finals MVP prediction markets, with Kalshi giving him a 5% shot at taking home the individual hardware. A $1 investment pays $100 at KAT’s current price.
5. Disrupt Spurs’ transition
San Antonio wants to force deep misses, grab long boards, and push the ball in transition to beat the Knicks down the floor.
The Knicks’ best line of defense is simply making their shots and forcing the Spurs to start their possessions off the inbounds more often than not.
When it does miss, New York can’t just watch and needs to get bodies back, pick up the ball handler, and slow the Spurs down. A little pressure on the ball handler could go a long way for New York.
We’ve seen San Antonio get sloppy – albeit with injuries to PGs – but the Knicks have tenacious on-ball options and solid defenders off the bench. They’ve forced more than 15 turnovers per contest, generating an average of 20 points from those mistakes in the postseason.
The Knicks have done a much better job of slowing down transition attacks in the postseason than in the regular season, when they allowed the eighth-most points per possession to transition teams. In the tournament, that metric has been trimmed from 1.17 to 1.05.
