While the lion's share of attention heading into Wednesday's tip-off to the 2026 NBA Finals may be on Jalen Brunson, Karl-Anthony Towns, and, unfortunately, Mitchell Robinson, lurking in the shadows is the fact that the New York Knicks may just have the ultimate X-factor in this series against the Spurs residing on their bench.
In the two games Jordan Clarkson logged minutes against San Antonio during the regular season, he managed to produce at absolutely scorched-earth levels, dropping averages of 17.5 points on 53.8 percent shooting from deep while boasting a total plus-minus of plus-20.
From his crafty ball-handling skills to his locked-in long-range shooting stroke, the veteran wing seemed to be quite the handful for San Antonio's defensive attack.
Might New York be willing to once again roll him out in a significant role for some more serious and highly impactful on-court production?
Knicks may want to increase their usage of Jordan Clarkson vs Spurs
So far this postseason, Clarkson has found himself playing a rather sporadic role within coach Mike Brown's rotation. Some nights he's seen north of 15 minutes played, while others he's finished with fewer than eight.
While this may indicate that he'll presumably serve as a non-factor duster on the sidelines here in the title round, throughout his debut season with the Knicks, the two-guard has randomly been called upon on numerous occasions after registering a string of DNPs, and during the back-half of the season, he certainly wound up delivering.
The trick for him to get and sustain more minutes throughout this upcoming series will be whether he can hit his catch-and-shoot attempts, particularly from long range.
Though he may have knocked down such shots while boasting a mere 52.3 effective field goal percentage throughout the regular season, just last season, he was knocking down catch-and-shoot triples at a respectable 37.1 percent clip on over three attempts a night while suiting up for the Jazz.
Clearly, the potential for semi-consistency is there.
On top of this, considering the way San Antonio managed to minimize the offensive impact of Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Chet Holmgren during their Western Conference Finals bout against the Thunder, New York might find itself in a place where it could use a sparkplug scorer off the bench to help relieve some of the pressures put upon Jalen Brunson and Karl-Anthony Towns.
Based both on his career track-record and past two face-offs against the Spurs, Clarkson is more than capable of serving in such a role.
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