New York's agonizing 53-year wait for a third NBA championship is finally over, while Victor Wembanyama and the young Spurs will spend the next year rueing the Finals wins they left on the table.
The Spurs blew it, but Jalen Brunson's Knicks also ripped it from their trembling hands. Here are the big takeaways worth considering in the immediate aftermath of an all-time series.
Brunson is the king of New York
Brunson emerging as New York's long-awaited savior is as inspiring as it was improbable.
Undersized and overlooked for most of his career, Brunson arrived in New York without an All-Star appearance and joined a Knicks team that had won one playoff series over the previous 22 seasons. They've now won eight series (and a championship) in the four years since.
Along the way, Brunson - now a three-time All-Star and Finals MVP - sacrificed tens of millions of dollars to help his team. That's the guy who finally dragged the Knicks to the promised land. Not LeBron James, Kevin Durant, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Donovan Mitchell, or any other 21st-century superstar the Knicks have chased. Not Patrick Ewing, Carmelo Anthony, Bernard King, or any other Hall of Famer who's suited up for New York in the five-plus decades since their last title. Jalen Brunson, a New Jersey native who spent part of his youth growing up at Madison Square Garden while his father (current Knicks assistant Rick Brunson) played for New York.
What a story, capped off by an unforgettable 45-point performance in the championship-clincher.
Towns rewrites narrative
Karl-Anthony Towns had a shaky series on the offensive end and got into the kind of foul trouble that plagued him in previous playoff runs, but the star big man still proved valuable in the Finals.
Towns, a supremely talented offensive big whose defense and composure have been questioned for years, stood tall on the defensive end all series. Towns proved most effective guarding Wembanyama, presenting the Spurs' phenom all sorts of challenges. Towns used his strength to make life difficult for Wembanyama - to push him off his spots, challenge him for rebounds, and slowly wear him down.
After Towns successfully pulled Wemby away from the rim early in the series, New York's starting center struggled to take advantage of offensive mismatches later in the Finals, then ran into foul trouble. But every time Towns was forced to sit for long stretches, I found myself thinking, "The Knicks really need Towns out there ... for his defense." Who would've thought?
All that after Towns spent the first three rounds playing the most complete basketball of his decorated career. The big man's first-round suggestion that he serve as more of a playmaking hub proved to be the turning point in New York's postseason run.
OG a certified star
OG Anunoby had a real chance to win Finals MVP until Brunson unquestionably secured the honor in Game 5. The do-it-all forward was also one of the league's most valuable players all spring. Anunoby was New York's second-leading scorer in the playoffs, averaging 20.1 points on 56-49-85 shooting while playing his usual All-World defense, guarding everyone from Wembanyama to star guards.
His game-winning and series-tilting putback at the end of Game 4 assured his 2026 postseason performance will go down in basketball lore, and with good reason. Anunoby's playoff true shooting percentage of 72.1% is the highest mark ever for a player who averaged 20-plus points on a championship team. The previous record was Kevin Durant's 68.3% mark in 2017.
Knicks were indestructible
Brunson, Towns, Anunoby, Josh Hart, Mikal Bridges and a solid bench coalesced perfectly and peaked at the right time. The Knicks won 15 of their final 16 games and put together one of the most dominant postseason runs in NBA history.
The first team to capture the NBA's version of a double - a championship and NBA Cup in the same year - New York had a gritty, resilient, two-way spirit about it for most of the season. Head coach Mike Brown deserves a ton of credit for maximizing the talent at his disposal, being receptive to change, and figuring out how the impressive but flawed pieces fit together.
As for team president Leon Rose, no one can ever again question the hefty price paid for Bridges or the fact he built a team around two defensive liabilities in Brunson and Towns. Whether such a strategy will work for others in the future is irrelevant. Rose built the Knicks team that finally got over the hump. No one can take that away from him.
Back in December, just as the Knicks were hitting their stride and preparing for the NBA Cup semifinals, Brown mused that his then 17-7 team still had plenty of room to grow on both sides of the ball. "It will be interesting when we get there," Brown said of New York's eventual two-way ceiling.
It sure was.
What's next for the Spurs?
The Spurs trailed for less than 24% of the Finals and held double-digit leads in all five games, yet won only a single contest.
San Antonio is still ahead of schedule, but the lights proved too bright for the inexperienced squad on basketball's biggest stage. Wembanyama wore down as most of the five games wore on, the Spurs' offense looked out of sorts every time things got dicey, and head coach Mitch Johnson didn't help matters with some confounding lineup decisions and play-calls.
Can they simply run it back and hope that another year of seasoning and the lessons learned from playoff heartbreak will get them over the hump? Perhaps, but the Thunder aren't going away and the Western Conference will continue to be unforgiving. Nothing should be taken for granted. Remember, LeBron James' reign as the best player on the planet began around the time he dragged Cleveland to the 2007 Finals, but King James had to wait another five years - and had to switch teams - before claiming his first title.
Then again, James' Cavs weren't set up like Wembanyama's Spurs currently are. Few teams have been. Wemby will enter next season as the MVP favorite (and deservedly so). Dylan Harper is ready to explode into superstardom. Stephon Castle is already one of the league's best two-way guards. Youngsters like Carter Bryant will get better. Johnson, still an impressive young coach, will continue to learn on the job. The Spurs have the financial flexibility to significantly upgrade over veteran free agent Harrison Barnes and own a ton of surplus draft capital.
In short, the Spurs are built to sustainably contend better than any team outside of Oklahoma City. But that doesn't mean they should rest on their laurels. General manager Brian Wright should sniff around every prized trade and free-agent target around the Association.
If there's one long-term concern the Finals highlighted, it's De'Aaron Fox's contract. The two-time All-Star and former Clutch Player of the Year was arguably the least trustworthy Spurs guard, which isn't exactly what you want to see months before a four-year extension worth roughly $222-million kicks in. The Spurs are young enough and cheap enough to overcome one big negative-value contract for now. But Fox's albatross of a deal could seriously complicate things for San Antonio down the road.
Big-spending Knicks will be tough to topple
Three teams (Spurs, Thunder, Celtics) already have better 2027 title odds than the newly-crowned champs, but don't be quick to brush off New York as a one-year wonder. Brunson, Towns, Anunoby, Bridges, and Hart are all under contract for at least two more seasons (if you include player and team options). Starting this summer, the Knicks can also trade control of three first-round draft picks (2033 outright plus swaps in 2030 and 2032).
Much of the team's bench is headed for free agency, and the Knicks will almost surely go from tax team to second-apron club if a couple important reserves are retained (like Mitchell Robinson and Landry Shamet) or if New York shores up its bench with external upgrades. Either way, it will be worth it. The roster-construction restrictions and the future-limiting consequences of the apron can be devastating, but the Knicks already have a championship-winning core in place. Sacrificing some of their future while sticking owner James Dolan with a heftier bill is a small price to pay to give New York's first championship team in more than half a century a chance to do it again.
Joseph Casciaro is theScore's lead NBA reporter.
