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2026 NBA Finals, Game 3
Dream On - Welcome to the 2026 NBA Finals, Spurs basketball. I think I can safely speak for all San Antonio fans in saying we are glad you finally decided to show up. Considering it came on the heels of having just endured three days of all-consuming emotional anguish, that may have been the most satisfying non-series clinching San Antonio Spurs playoff win I have ever experienced (and I have experienced all of them since 1990). Our 115-111 victory over the New York Knicks in the circus that was Madison Square Garden on Monday night was a remarkable demonstration of resiliency. Down 0-2 after squandering both of our first two home games in the series and entering the biggest city in the United States (as it was bursting with more excitement and electricity than it had experienced at any other moment in recent memory) to play in the world’s most famous arena, conventional wisdom suggested that the atmosphere inside MSG was going to be too overwhelming for the second-youngest NBA Finals team in history and we would consequently let go of the proverbial ropes and merely serve as bystanders for the coronation that was going to take place this week in basketball’s Mecca to crown the home team champions for the first time in 53 years. Instead, Victor Wembanyama and Stephon Castle became the first teammates age 22 or younger to each have at least 20 points, five rebounds, and five assists in an NBA Finals game and the San Antonio Spurs finally hit the necessary clutch shots down the stretch to win the composure battle over the veteran Knicks and send the New York faithful home stunned and spiraling. And what a gutsy display of clutch shot making it was to behold. First, Steph drained a 26-foot dagger three (after Vic threw him the ball with the shot clock running down) while we were nursing a four point lead with 1:53 left to play. After Castle’s triple extended our lead to seven, the two teams traded empty possessions before Mikal Bridges got fouled with 59.6 seconds left. Bridges went 1-2 from the line to cut the lead to six but we came up empty again after that which led to another clutch shot by Jalen Brunson in the final minute of the third consecutive Finals game when he drilled his own three with 33.7 seconds left to cut our lead three at 111-108. This led to our second clutch shot, this one courtesy of De’Aaron Fox. The 2023 clutch player of the year nailed a 15-foot step back “iceman” jumper by De’Aaron Fox to put us back up five with 12.2 seconds left to play. Somehow, New York responded again. OG Anunoby hit a corner three with 9.4 seconds left to chop our lead back down to two. This led to a timeout and a critical inbounds play. We got the ball into Fox who toed the sideline while getting it back over to Steph who received the expected foul with 6.8 seconds left. The 2024 Rookie of the Year calmly walked up to the line and drained two of the most pressure-packed free throws in franchise history to extend our lead back to four at 115-111 and effectively put the game to bed. Game 3 on Monday at MSG was a tough-as-nails gritty road victory that was as impressive (and possibly more given the spectacle) as the Game 7 road closeout victory over the Oklahoma City Thunder in the Paycom Center two Saturdays ago to dethrone the defending champs. While Victor was spectacular (as expected) in bouncing back from his colossal error at the end of Game 2 on Friday and was objectively the best player in the game for the first time during these Finals, the player of the game was Steph because of his season-saving clutch shooting in the guts of game to hold the Knicks at bay. The version of the Spurs that marched through the playoffs to the Western Conference championship finally arrived on basketball’s biggest stage on Monday to the delight of Spurs fans everywhere and I think the consensus on our side heading into Game 4 is we have finally shaken the Finals jitters and also figured out how we need to play the Knicks and as a result, we are cautiously optimistic we can dig out of the hole we created for ourselves as soon as tonight.
Meanwhile, New York fans have spent the past two days losing their collective minds over the refs and calling for Wemby to get a retroactive flagrant foul for dislodging the fist-full of jersey that Jalen Brunson had with 4:44 remaining in the first quarter. They need to get over that quick and start coming to acceptance that they never were the superior team and as a consequence there never was going to be a coronation. The championship they’d presumptuously been celebrating for three days prior to Game 3 was never theirs to celebrate. It’s a dangerous game to count your chickens before they hatch. This series was always going to be a dogfight. A dogfight on the court, by the way, Knicks fans. It is one thing to be losing your collective minds over the officiating on social media, it is quite another that some of you are assaulting random strangers in the streets for supporting a different basketball team than you. The city of San Antonio welcomed you with open arms, gave you tips on things to do while in town and great places to eat and in return, we can’t even feel safe to wear a Spurs jersey out in public in NYC without fear that we might encounter physical violence? What an absolute disgrace. Those of you who are blaming the Game 3 loss and the shattering of your seven straight weeks of good vibes solely on Donald Trump need to do some serious soul searching. On our side, we’re just going to be over here cheering on our amazing players, staying confident in our belief that we have to better team, and munching on our popcorn while we watch you meltdown, crash out, and continue to bring more and more bad karma on yourselves with each and every passing hour. I won’t lie, observing your overconfidence and premature celebrations after being gifted Game 2, I knew this is exactly how y’all would react. I predicted it in the last post but thank you, nonetheless 🙏 We need all the luck we can get in order to be the first team in NBA Finals history to comeback from 0-2 at home so keep doing everything you’re doing to self-sabotage the lighting in a bottle you were able to capture during the 13-game win streak. Keep doing all of it and more except stop assaulting Spurs fans on the streets of New York immediately. Seriously, what is the matter with y’all? I know I can’t say act like you’ve been here before when you haven’t since the Clinton Administration but start learning how to take your losses with some class because, and I hate to be the one to break it to you, there’s almost certainly more of them coming before this series is over. /advice-to-Knicks-fans
In other news, we have a plot twist. Guess which one of our favorite conniving characters from earlier in the postseason is back to make a cameo in the Finals, y’all? Apparently after getting eliminated by the Spurs on May 15th, The Sniveler (Chris Grinch—err, I mean Chris Finch) has been busy behind the scenes training a fellow NBA head coach (and a former Jedi Padawan of Gregg Popovich) in the Sith dark arts of working the refs in the postgame news conference. New York Knicks head coach (and assistant to Coach Pop on the 2003 Spurs title team) Mike Brown has officially been recruited and converted to the dark side by our reigning ref-working world champion. There has been a lot of ridiculous noise for Spurs fans to be annoyed with coming out of the camp of the Eastern Conference Champions as well as and especially from their fanbase during these Finals but Mike Brown taking a page directly out of the Sniveler’s playbook by having a 5-minute temper tantrum during his Game 3 postgame presser about the 24-8 San Antonio second half free throw advantage may very well take the cake. Come on, Mike. You’re so much better than this. You know damn well the only hope you have to slow down the greatest player in the world is to foul Wemby 75 times a game and when you know damn well that is your strategy, you cannot complain that the refs called more fouls on you than they did on us in the second half. Just like OKC and Minnesota in the past two series, you are mostly being allowed to guard Wemby by playing football. If the officials were calling these Finals games by the letter of the law (or even giving Wemby the same whistle as Brunson), you would lose every game by disqualification because your entire team would foul out. If you don’t want us to shoot more free throws than you in the second half, go ahead and try to guard Wemby straight up without fouling him constantly and let’s see what happens By the way, the level of cherry picking of information the New York Knick’s coach was presenting with this rant was enough to even make the Sniveler blush. I guess the fact that the Knicks were afforded a 16-8 free throw advantage in the first half and used it to help build their seven point halftime lead is irrelevant so long as the aggrieved party gets to be aggrieved. The biggest shame of it all is that Mike Brown knows better than anyone that the reason we won the game is because our defense was spectacular in the second half. We were the more aggressive team throughout the night (the more aggressive team almost always gets the better whistle) and we flat-out outplayed New York full stop. For Mike Brown to attempt to tarnish that rather than tipping his cap to the organization that helped him make his mark in this league is classless and a real shame but at least he made his Sith Lord Chris Finch proud. By contrast, I’m really pleased with the way that San Antonio Spurs head coach Mitch Johnson has represented the Pop coaching tree well throughout these playoffs (and especially after our two brutal Finals losses at home). Coach Mitch has never once complained about the refs after a loss and has consistently given due credit every time the opponent has outplayed us. We always have and always will consider Mike Brown to be a part of our Spurs family but I guess somewhere in between Sacramento and New York (perhaps on a pit stop in Minnesota) he lost sight of our Spurs values and gave into the temptation of the dark side. Drats! The Sniveler strikes again!
To end on a more positive note, as we start getting mentally prepared for another super intense emotional clash tonight in Game 4, I just want to acknowledge how super fun it was to watch the Spurs play an NBA Finals game again in Madison Square Garden on Monday and how much of a privilege it is that we have gotten to be the road team each of the last two times that basketball’s Mecca has hosted the NBA Finals. There is nothing else quite like watching basketball at MSG. I can attest to this from personal experience. On December 12th, 2017, I checked off one of my bucket list items when my partner Jenn and I attended an NBA basketball game between the Los Angeles Lakers and the New York Knicks at Madison Square Garden during a vacation trip to the Big Apple. The Knicks defeated the Lakers in overtime that night 113-109 behind a 37 point, 11 rebound effort by Kristaps Porzingis (aka The Unicorn). It was an awesome game between two of the league’s most prestigious franchises but as you can see in the headline image for this post, I was in the world’s most famous arena for the first time (and only time so far) of my life supporting the San Antonio Spurs even though we weren’t even playing in that night’s contest. (Jenn, a native New Yorker but is also a Spurs fan took more of a “when in Rome” approach.) Even though that experience happened eight and a half years ago, I’ve been holding this nice thought in my mind that the aftershocks of my Spurs fandom energy being in that special building are still reverberating to this day and as a result, I was there in spirit cheering on San Antonio on Monday and I’ll be there in spirit cheering on San Antonio again tonight. We face another stiff test in as hostile but also as special an environment as we’re ever going to find but if we play our brand of basketball the right way again tonight in Game 4, we will put ourselves in position to even this series heading back home for Game 5. If that happens, look out. I will likely never in my life be able to afford to purchase tickets to watch the San Antonio Spurs play an NBA Finals game in Madison Square Garden but my Spurs fandom energy is going to be in the building tonight for free. And I’ll be rooting on the #BlackAndSilver to win Game 4 tonight with everything I’ve got watching from my living room at home while visualizing the sights, sounds, and smells of that sacred place like I’m right there sitting court side with the tv off.
Featured Image Source: Aerosmith.com