Game 1 of the 2026 NBA Finals will be the New York Knicks' fourth time playing the San Antonio Spurs this season. Only two of those first three games officially counted toward these teams' season statistics, but December's NBA Cup Championship in Las Vegas was certainly the most important.
The Spurs got some NBA Cup revenge on the very last day of 2025, but their only meeting since then resulted in a Knicks blowout at Madison Square Garden. Now, they'll match up at least four times on the biggest stage the league has to offer.
San Antonio already knows at least one way in which New York will attack their personnel: with a barrage of 3-point shots. The Knicks averaged 38.2 3-point attempts during the regular season. But they shot 40, 48, and 52 times from downtown in those three games against the Spurs, something The Strickland pointed out on Twitter. Mike Brown's going to need all hands on deck for this upcoming series.
Knicks will need full team effort to sustain 3-point barrage vs. Spurs
The Knicks have been the NBA's hottest 3-point shooting team in the playoffs thus far, leading all postseason competitors in percentage on shots taken 25-29 feet away from the basket. The second team on that list, however, is the Spurs. Their 39.4% from downtown is just behind the Knicks' mark of 39.9 heading into Wednesday night's Game 1.
New York has been much more accurate from 20-24 feet, though, having made 38.9% of their looks from that range in comparison to San Antonio's 32.3. Part of that success is because of reserves like Landry Shamet, who's made 21 of his 35 3-point attempts. That's good for a 60% conversion rate, certainly hot enough to land the veteran sharpshooter on a billboard on 33rd & 8th.
Knicks attempted 38.2 3PAs per game this season and are down to 32.9 per game in the playoffs, but in their 2 regular season games against the Spurs they attempted 52 and 48. They also took 40 in the NBA Cup Final.
— ShwinnyPooh, Diawara playing time advocate (@shwinnypooh) June 3, 2026
Expect the Knicks to aggressively launch from 3 in this series.
The Knicks are going to need Shamet to keep his hot shooting streak up. But they'll need behind-the-arc contributions from the rest of their team, too. Miles McBride is 27-63 from downtown, giving him about a 42.9% 3-point success rate.
His 7-9 performance in the Knicks' closeout Game 4 blowout of the Philadelphia 76ers is doing a lot of heavy lifting, given his struggles against the Cleveland Cavaliers in the Eastern Conference Finals. But 42% is 42%, no matter how you want to slice it.
Between McBride, Shamet, and the Knicks' five starters, the work is cut out for the guys in orange and blue. Brown is going to want them to launch shots from behind the 3-point arc.
They seem ready to knock those shots down, when they get them, often enough to force San Antonio's defense into some uncomfortable decisions.
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