Can Knicks win Game 2 of NBA Finals and return to MSG with 2-0 lead?
SAN ANTONIO — As the Knicks readied for Game 2 of the NBA Finals on Friday night, it seems hard to imagine them losing. They have not lost a game since April 23, and if they had managed to pull out the two one-point losses in which they had the ball for a final shot against Atlanta, along with the end-of-the-regular-season skeleton-crew game, that winning streak would stretch all the way back to March 31. As it is, between the regular season and postseason, they have won 18 of their last 21.
Crazy, but it has put the Knicks in position to try to steal a two-games-to-none lead over the Spurs before heading home for Game 3 on Monday.
Change of plans
In the regular season, the Knicks used OG Anunoby more than anyone else as a primary defender on Victor Wembanyama, but in Game 1, the Knicks opened with Karl-Anthony Towns taking on the assignment. His stellar performance on that end of the floor — Wembanyama shot 2-for-11 and had five turnovers when Towns was the closest defender — allowed the Knicks to keep it in place.
“Just try to make it difficult,” Towns said. “He’s an amazing player, one-of-a-kind player in this NBA, that the league has ever seen, and you just try to make it as difficult as possible.”
Don’t stop believing
It’s getting weird now. The Knicks battled back from a 14-point deficit midway through the third quarter in Game 1, and after they saw their own eight-point lead disappear, they scored the last 11 points of the game to post a 105-95 win — the 11th double-digit victory in their 12-game postseason winning streak.
You can chalk it up to fatigue for San Antonio, but you’d be wrong. The Knicks have done this repeatedly, including in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals, when they wiped out a 22-point fourth-quarter deficit against Cleveland and ended the overtime victory with a 44-11 run. Pin that on top of the comebacks in Boston last year in the playoffs, and it’s not unexpected.
“I don’t want to say calmness, but I think we know what we have to do,” Brunson said. “I think we are a pretty together group. Be able to trust each other and still have each other’s back and know that we just have to keep chipping away, chipping away. It’s just a credit to the mentality that we have as a team.”
Home away from home
It gets odder the deeper the Knicks get into the playoffs and the farther from New York, but Knicks fans again crowded into a road arena, this time Frost Bank Center, and their loud chants echoed through the arena.
It’s understandable; it might be cheaper to get a flight from New York to San Antonio, secure a hotel room and buy tickets than to try to purchase tickets for the Knicks’ home games in the NBA Finals. It does provide a slight feeling of a home-court advantage even on the road.
“It’s huge,” Mike Brown said. “During these games against good teams, especially on the road, you want to find places where you can get energy or a little boost of energy at any given time. To have the type of fans that we do that not only bring the energy in the city of New York, on the streets, at MSG, but to have them come and take over a town, take over a hotel, take over an arena and hear them chant ‘Let’s go Knicks!’ or Jalen shooting a free throw, ‘MVP!’, that gives you a boost that you know you have people here supporting you at a pretty high level.”
Steve Popper covers the Knicks for Newsday. He has spent nearly three decades covering the Knicks and the NBA, along with just about every sports team in the New York metropolitan area.
