The 2025-26 San Antonio Spurs were dominant on both sides of the basketball court — unless they were playing the New York Knicks. Seemingly every time Wembanyama got switched onto Brunson, Goliath met his David.
The center will likely have plenty of new tricks to show off by his next matchup with the NBA's reigning champions. He'll have new teammates, like Tobias Harris, and new coaches, like Billy Donovan, in tow to help him do it.
Luckily for the Knicks, though, they're the Knicks. The Spurs aren't going anywhere anytime soon, with all the makings of an all-time young core between Wembanyama, Dylan Harper, Stephon Castle, and others. But New York's veteran (and NBA Championship-winning) core is almost entirely back for next season. And they're a pair of extensions away from having a potentially dynastic level of talent locked up.
The Indiana Pacers ended two consecutive Knick playoff bids. The Oklahoma City Thunder present a real threat to the Spurs, and reside in the same conference as the NBA's 2026 runner-up. But the best up-and-coming rivalry, though, has been right in NBA fans' line of sight for several years.
Knicks and Spurs have had the NBA's best rivalry for years
The rivalry between the Knicks and Spurs has nothing to do with conferences, divisions, or in-state bragging rights. It's relatively unrelated to any battles between superstars at the same position, which used to make Joel Embiid and Nikola Jokic's duels must-see television.
This particular rivalry was seemingly born fully from pure competition, between both the teams and two of the league's titans in Brunson and Wembanyama. It's been on full display — in scheduled games or not — since the March 2024 matchup that saw Brunson score 60 points.
Wembanyama, who scored 40 points himself while pulling down 20 rebounds, sent the game ball into the stands. It may have been in that moment that the superstar center created what would eventually be his own worst nightmare.
Either way, the rivalry continued in a Christmas Day matchup later that year. And in an Emirates NBA Cup Championship round in the fall of 2025. And then in an entire NBA Finals series.
The Knicks are the team that became the first Emirates NBA Cup Champion to win a playoff series. Mike Brown's group is the one that changed their style of play down 2-1 in the first round and rode their collective buy-in to absolute dominance of the rest of the Eastern Conference Playoffs. Their historic margins of victory left them among the ranks of some all-time great teams.
And then they pulled off the largest single-game NBA Finals comeback of all time against the Spurs in Game 4.
The Knicks spent most of four playoff series proving their devotion to overcoming whatever obstacles lie in front of them. Even with championship rings on their fingers, that dedication to winning likely isn't going anywhere. And the bonds in their locker room have seemingly only been made stronger by a summer of celebration.
Wembanyama's Spurs are going to remain on the rise. They're also likely more motivated than ever to band together and win a championship themselves.
But Brunson's Knicks — his resilient, winning Knicks — will be ready.
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