Game 1 of the NBA Finals is here (8:30 p.m., EST), and there’s no time to waste: Here are the New York Knicks’ three keys to taking a 1-0 series lead in San Antonio.
1. Make mid-range jumpers
The Knicks have thrived at many things during a historically dominant playoff run, but the biggest key to their success is arguably their ability to generate shots at the rim.
According to Basketball Reference, New York has taken an NBA-high 32.3% of their field goal attempts from within three feet of the basket during the playoffs. They’ve also made 70.8% of those shots, ranking fourth-highest, showing that their rim attempts are not only frequent, but high-quality.
Unfortunately, the Knicks are running into perhaps the greatest rim protector in NBA history, Victor Wembanyama. Even in just his third season, Wembanyama is so dominant defensively that no matter what plays the Knicks run, they may not have a path to generating a high frequency of high-quality rim attempts in this series.
Thanks to Wembanyama, the Spurs are doing an excellent job of both preventing rim attempts and forcing misses on those attempts. San Antonio is allowing 24.5% of opponent field goal attempts to come at the rim, ninth-lowest in the playoffs, but more importantly, only 60% of those shots were made, second-best ahead of only Detroit.
As a result, San Antonio is encouraging opponents to take a high frequency of mid-range jumpers. In the playoffs, 13.6% of San Antonio’s opposing field goal attempts came from 10-16 feet out, the highest rate in the NBA.
The reality is that New York will probably be taking a ton of mid-range jumpers in this series. Not only are they facing an all-time great rim protector who will encourage mid-range shots, but the Knicks also have quite a few players who are happy to take those shots, led by Jalen Brunson, Mikal Bridges, and OG Anunoby.
As the series goes on, the Knicks may come up with creative solutions to pull Wembanyama away from the rim and generate more attempts near the basket. Perhaps it will happen if/when Josh Hart starts to get hot from downtown.
But in Game 1, the reality is that Wembanyama will likely guard Hart and camp in the paint, giving the Knicks little choice but to take mid-range shots and hopefully make enough of them to get Wemby to come out and guard those shots.
Whether or not the Knicks win tonight may just come down to how efficiently Brunson, Bridges, and Anunoby shoot from mid-range.
2. Win the turnover battle
Given how effective the Spurs’ defense is at forcing inefficient shot attempts, it may be difficult for New York to maintain the level of shooting efficiency that they accumulated against less imposing defensive teams like Cleveland and Philadelphia.
That’s why it is imperative for the Knicks to ensure they get more shots on goal than San Antonio. Even if New York’s efficiency goes down, they can still outscore the Spurs if they get more looks.
The turnover battle will be critical in that quest.
Turnovers have been a rare weakness for San Antonio in these playoffs. They rank 10th out of 16 teams with a 13.4% turnover rate, per Basketball Reference.
When the Spurs struggle with turnovers, they are very beatable. In the playoffs, they are 6-6 when turning the ball over at least 14 times. If they turn it over less than 14 times, they are 6-0 with an average point differential of +16.2.
This is an advantageous matchup for the Knicks, who rank fifth-best in the playoffs with an opponent turnover percentage of 14.2% (second-best among teams that advanced past the first round). Among teams that made it to the conference semifinals, the Knicks’ 9.0 steals per game rank second-best behind only the Thunder.
The primary culprits in San Antonio’s turnover woes have been Stephon Castle (3.7 turnovers per game) and Victor Wembanyama (2.7 turnovers per game). The two young stars, aged a combined 43 years old, have accounted for 44% of the Spurs’ playoff turnovers.
Back in December’s NBA Cup, the Knicks started out with Josh Hart guarding Castle. This is an intriguing matchup for New York going into Game 1, as Hart leads the Knicks with 1.8 steals per game in the playoffs.
As for Wembanyama, the Knicks forced him to commit 11 turnovers (3.7 per game) across three matchups this season (in just 27.6 minutes per game), including seven turnovers in the team’s most recent matchup on March 1.
New York must turn up the defensive pressure and focus on forcing turnovers to ensure they get more looks at the basket than San Antonio. Plus, it will help them stay out of half-court offense and generate easy looks in transition, avoiding the need to work around Wembanyama’s rim protection—the main weapon that got San Antonio to this point.
3. Get Karl-Anthony Towns going as a passer (by way of Josh Hart’s three-point confidence and success)
In the regular season, the Knicks saw the potential of their offense in situations where Karl-Anthony Towns was featured as a distributor. They went 11-2 when he dished out at least five assists. Despite these flashes of potential, they did not go to Towns in this role as often as it felt like they should.
After going down 2-1 to Atlanta in the first round, the lightbulb went off for New York. Towns started running the offense, and the Knicks became unstoppable. He has averaged 6.5 assists per game over the team’s nine-game winning streak, with New York going 9-0 in games where he collected at least five assists.
Overall, across both the regular season and the playoffs, the Knicks are 20-2 with an average point differential of +16.7 when Towns has at least five assists.
With numbers like that, the Knicks should be doing everything in their power to unleash Towns’ passing on basketball’s brightest stage.
The challenge is doing it against a team with Victor Wembanyama camping in the paint. Many of Towns’ assists have come on back-cuts to the rim. Those will be hard to come by against a Wemby-anchored defense.
In the regular season, Towns had just six assists across three games against the Spurs (2.0 per game).
It will be tough. But somehow, some way, the Knicks need to find ways to leverage Towns’ gravity into creating easy baskets for his teammates.
The likeliest way of accomplishing this is for Josh Hart to quickly establish himself as an outside shooting threat. Wembanyama will likely start Game 1 guarding Hart with a “ghosting” strategy, meaning he will leave Hart open behind the arc so he can roam around and guard the other four Knicks players. Until Hart punishes this approach by taking and making threes, Wembanyama will continue playing free safety to take away any potential back-cuts for Towns to hit.
Hart has to take and make threes for the Knicks to win this series—particularly in Game 1, as it could force San Antonio to rethink their strategy for the entire series. It’s not just about Hart himself putting points on the board; it’s about allowing the Knicks to maximize the greatest weapon on their entire offense, Towns’ passing.
The unfortunate reality is that there is only so much the Knicks can do schematically to accomplish this. Hart will be open. The shots will be there. It’s just up to No. 3 to confidently take those shots and hopefully drain a high percentage of them.
If Hart goes off, the Knicks can set the tone for a Game 1 victory and potentially break the Spurs’ defense for the rest of the series, just as they did the Cavaliers’ defense after Hart’s Game 2 explosion. If Hart is hesitant to shoot or launches bricks when he does, the Knicks will be unable to maximize Towns’ passing due to a 7-foot-4 demon roaming the court with free rein, which may be an unsolvable puzzle.
As usual, Hart’s three-point shooting may be the greatest X-factor for New York’s offense.
