Jalen Brunson scored 30 points in the New York Knicks' victory over the San Antonio Spurs on Wednesday night, leading his team to a 105-95 win in Game 1 of the NBA Finals. The victory was a crucial step for the Knicks, who are fighting both history and a formidable opponent.
It is uncommon to begin counting down after the opening game of an NBA finals, but these are uncommon times in New York. The Knicks have been waiting for a championship since 1973, when Richard Nixon was president, their coach Mike Brown was three years old, and the Spurs played in the American Basketball Association. After taking Game 1, anticipation in New York rose to yet another level.
Game 1 was not a good game, but it was a great game. The first quarter was ragged, and so was the second. Neither team could shoot from distance: the Knicks shot 31% from three-point range, while the Spurs managed just 26%. Victor Wembanyama, the sport's heir apparent, made his finals debut with six turnovers and shot 6-for-21 from the field. He was defensively alive but never transcendent. Both Wembanyama and Brunson took nine three-pointers, each making two.
In terms of beauty and efficiency, Game 1 was mud wrestling, but a game need not be artistic to be great. Its greatness was not in artistry but in its suffocating weight, its messiness the byproduct of maximum effort by both teams and the omnipresent stakes. The Knicks have not won the final game of an NBA season since 1973, and New York is waiting to finally burst. The countdown is not by game but seemingly by possession.
In 1994, when the New York Rangers played Vancouver in the Stanley Cup finals, desperate for their first championship since 1940, the energy was similar. Fifty-four years. A sizable number of the fan base wasn't alive the last time the Rangers had won. The ones who had been were middle-aged or senior citizens, convinced they would never see victory in their lifetimes. The images from 1940 seemed from another time, and it was. The United States had not yet entered World War II.
Even though these Knicks last won when the world was in color, the years are nevertheless the years. The Rangers waited 54 years for their fans to exhale; the Knicks have been waiting for 53 years and counting. The resultant feeling in Game 1 was a palpable tension reserved for playoff overtime hockey or baseball.
It could be felt by the frenetic pace of the opening minutes and the mood swings of Knicks fans on social media. The result was watching something other than basketball, where possessions aren't perceived as valuable because there are so many trips in an average game. Until the final minutes, there is very little about basketball that feels urgent.
1973 was a long time ago, almost as long ago as 1940 was to Rangers fans in 1994. The great director and Knicks superfan Spike Lee was 16. While cameras panned to fans' faces alternating between elation and indigestion, the Knicks played Game 1 with more confidence than their legions did watching it. This is appropriate, even though no Knicks team in history has played as well and been as dominant as this one. They have won six of their last 12 games by at least 20 points, four by 30 or more, and one by 51. They have not lost a basketball game since April 23, when Atlanta beat them in Game 3 of the first round. Since then, they have won 12 straight games.
On Wednesday night, the Spurs trailed 94-86 before ripping off nine straight points, led by Wembanyama, taking a 95-94 lead with 2:16 remaining. But they did not score again. The inevitability of the Knicks was shown once more, as they closed matters with an 11-0 run.
The Knicks' inevitability was again embodied by Brunson, the best player on the floor when it mattered. At one point, he missed 15 of his first 22 shots. But when it was time to take money off the table, he made five of his last nine. Brunson is the antithesis of his nervous fandom, not only unbothered by the tension but hungry for it, certain how the story will end.
In San Antonio, there is pressure of a different sort. The Spurs last won a championship 12 years ago, and they have won five in the last 27 years. No one on the Riverwalk is hyperventilating during a third-quarter inbounds play. San Antonio pressure is watching joyfully, knowing that the future belongs to them, hoping that future begins now but comfortable in the knowledge that they have arrived early.
That is the contrast of these finals: one team desperate to erase a half-century of pain, another barely scratching the surface of their potential. The basketball world watching the Spurs knows this, for Wembanyama not only threatens the NBA order but the American sense of basketball self. Every moment of his improvement lessens the nearly century-old grip America has had on international competition. The Olympics are coming, and Wembanyama is guaranteeing something no one has ever seen before: Team USA entering an Olympics as an underdog. The Americans have lost, but never have they not been favored.
On this night, however, he was human. The baby giraffe of a man expected to do something unprecedented each time he touches the ball was muscled and uncomfortable, defended admirably and effectively by Karl-Anthony Towns. While Brunson closed with a fadeaway and an offensive tip that led to a crushing corner three as part of a 13-point fourth quarter, it was Wembanyama who, with a one-point lead, recklessly drove the lane and missed, then slipped and lost the ball at midcourt.
It was only Game 1, and there is plenty of basketball to be played. But perhaps these Knicks have done enough to signal to their fans that it is finally okay to watch the rest of the series thinking like winners. The year 1973 was indeed a very long time ago, and for Knicks fans every game will feel like this until the long wait ends: chests tight, expecting dread, even as their charges twice erased double-digit deficits, responding to the Game 1 challenge as they have for the past six weeks by playing like the best basketball team in the world.
