If the NBA had screenwriters, not even they may give you a start this good to the conference finals.<\/p>\n
Victor Wembanyama has 41 points and 24 rebounds. San Antonio goes into Oklahoma City and beats the defending champion Thunder. Latest York trails by 22 points with about eight minutes left in regulation, then beats Cleveland. Each games go to additional time, a conference finals first. And the rating at the top of regulation in each games \u2014 101-101.<\/p>\n
Well done, Spurs and Knicks.<\/p>\n
If there was a standard trend in each games, it was that the perfect player on the winning teams decided to grow to be the perfect player on the ground at crunch time. On Monday night, it was Wembanyama for the Spurs. On Tuesday night, it was Jalen Brunson for the Knicks \u2014 who led a 44-11 run during the last 13 minutes.<\/p>\n
![\"NBA](\"https:\/\/sports.inquirer.net\/files\/2026\/05\/AFP__20260520__2277201825__v1__HighRes__ClevelandCavaliersVNewYorkKnicksGameOne-scaled.jpg\")
<\/p>\nJalen Brunson #11 of the Latest York Knicks reacts through the fourth quarter of a game against the Cleveland Cavaliers in Game Certainly one of the NBA Playoffs Eastern Conference Finals at Madison Square Garden on May 19, 2026 in Latest York City. Sarah Stier\/Getty Images\/AFP\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
That\u2019s right, 44-11.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know if I\u2019ve seen that in a playoff game,\u201d Knicks coach Mike Brown said. \u201cI take my hat off to my group.\u201d<\/p>\n
Game 2 of Spurs-Thunder is Wednesday. Game 2 of Knicks-Cavaliers is Thursday. The drama is simply going to maintain constructing.<\/p>\n
\u201cFound a way. \u2026 We got some stops,\u201d Brunson said. \u201cKept fighting, kept believing, kept chipping away.\u201d<\/p>\n
The numbers \u2014 from each games \u2014 are of the video game variety.<\/p>\n
Start with what happened at Madison Square Garden on Tuesday night. A 44-11 run doesn\u2019t occur within the NBA, actually not within the conference finals. Teams that led by 22 points or more within the fourth quarter were 452-1 this season, including playoffs. They\u2019re 452-2 now. Within the playoffs, teams had won 330 consecutive games when leading by 22 or more points within the fourth quarter since 2013. They\u2019re 330-1 now.<\/p>\n
Make it make sense.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t have a solution,\u201d Brunson said.<\/p>\n
Neither did the Cavaliers, either because it was happening or within the immediate aftermath.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe got a little bit unlucky,\u201d Cavaliers coach Kenny Atkinson said. \u201cBrunson obviously took over at the top. \u2026 We played great basketball tonight for 3 quarters. Unfortunately, the fourth quarter, they dominated us within the fourth quarter.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Victor](\"https:\/\/sports.inquirer.net\/files\/2026\/05\/AP26139137326425-scaled.jpg\")
<\/p>\nSan Antonio Spurs forward Victor Wembanyama (1) celebrates after a dunk through the second additional time of Game 1 in a third-round NBA basketball playoffs series against the Oklahoma City Thunder Monday, May 18, 2026, in Oklahoma City. (AP Photo\/Tony Gutierrez)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
A 41-point, 24-rebound game doesn\u2019t occur that always, either. Wembanyama was good in his conference finals debut, as was Spurs rookie guard Dylan Harper. The Spurs, just like the Cavs, wasted a double-digit lead within the fourth quarter of Game 1 and settled for additional time; San Antonio\u2019s lead was 10, not 22, but still double digits.<\/p>\n
Unlike the Cav aliers, they found a approach to quiet down \u2014 repeatedly, really \u2014 within the two extra periods Monday night.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat game was within the balance multiple times for each teams,\u201d Spurs coach Mitch Johnson said Tuesday. \u201cYou may\u2019t get preoccupied with the end result because there was a lot within the balance that might have went either way.\u201d<\/p>\n
Briefly, stealing home-court advantage by winning Game 1 doesn\u2019t mean the Spurs think the series is over. And the Thunder know that Game 1 is meaningful \u2014 but not a deciding game by any stretch.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe cumulative experience just teaches you that it\u2019s a series,\u201d Thunder coach Mark Daigneault said Tuesday. \u201cGame 1\u2019s a place to begin, not an end point. We\u2019ve lost playoff series that we\u2019ve won Game 1 pretty convincingly. And we\u2019ve also won series that we won Game 1. So, every series is different. It\u2019s the primary to 4. They\u2019re 25% of the way in which there and we\u2019re at zero straight away. But there\u2019s a number of basketball left to be played. I believe this team sort of understands the length of the series, the length of the playoff run and the length of a playoff game.\u201d<\/p>\n
The defending champions are feeling some pressure. Latest York is rocking. Wembanyama\u2019s star keeps rising. The Cavaliers \u2014 winners of two Game 7s in these playoffs \u2014 have to dig their way out of trouble, again.<\/p>\n
The beginning to those conference-final stories was stellar. Chapter 2 awaits.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
If the NBA had screenwriters, not even they may give you a start this good to the conference finals. Victor Wembanyama has 41 points and 24 rebounds. San Antonio goes into Oklahoma City and beats the defending champion Thunder. Latest York trails by 22 points with about eight minutes left in regulation, then beats Cleveland. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":337796,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[338],"tags":[19234,6095,669,585],"class_list":["post-337795","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","tag-belief","tag-conference","tag-finals","tag-game"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337795","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=337795"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337795\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":337798,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337795\/revisions\/337798"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/337796"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=337795"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=337795"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=337795"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}