Make your NBA Finals predictions here
Let's do this as a community: Tell us who wins Knicks/Spurs
The San Antonio Spurs are the seventh different team to represent the Western Conference in the past seven NBA Finals.
The New York Knicks haven't lost a basketball game of any kind since April 23.
Victor Wembanyama was born nearly five years after the Spurs and Knicks last met on the NBA's grandest stage in 1999.
Jalen Brunson has led the Knicks to 35 playoff wins across the last four postseasons … after they managed just eight during the previous 21 seasons overall.
The Spurs began this playoff run with a top-eight rotation (based on minutes played) that had a combined 50 games of playoff experience … fewer than any top-eight rotation #thisleague has seen since the 1976-77 Portland Trail Blazers led by Bill Walton had 45 such games of collective experience.
The Knicks are the first team in league history to face a team coming off a seven-game series in three consecutive playoff rounds.
Think you get the point.
This series, entering Wednesday night's Game 1 on the Spurs' floor, is packed with angles and backstories.
Who is going to win it all? Now is your chance to tell us in permanent ink. Just scroll to the comments and seize the opportunity to tell the world.
We collected community predictions before Round 1 and again before the conference finals in both the East and the West and hope for a strong turnout of responses before this file gets locked just prior to the Knicks and Spurs tipping off the opener in the Alamo City.
For tallying purposes, which will be handled as always by longtime subscriber/trusty tabulator Deven P., please list your winning team only and the number of games for the series.
Just like so …
Spurs in 7
We repeat: Please register your picks in the comments section below and share this piece with a friend, too. The process is so much more fun when we get the largest possible turnout.
The NBA, no matter what, is headed for a record eighth new champion — as in eight completely different franchises — in a span of eight seasons.
Which of these two teams, Knicks or Spurs, will fill in the blank in the top row of the handy graphic below provided by my Prime Video colleagues?
Tell us below in the comments! We had nearly 100 respondents last year and I'd love to see that happen again.
PS — Shoutout to my Amazon colleague and statistical maven pal Keerthika Uthayakumar for all the fun facts listed above.
PPS — My former ESPN teammate John Hollinger, now of The Athletic, highlighted another good one in his Spurs In 7 prediction piece: San Antonio is a ridiculous 39-5 in its last 44 games, regular season and playoffs, in which Wemby has played more 20 minutes.
PPPS — Below please find the usual interesting graphic from Sportico's Lev Akabas … with the obvious caveat that Wemby is a likely future MVP:
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Conference Finals Results
There were nearly 40 respondents to our last call for community predictions.
Beyond stating the obvious — we are obviously rooting for a more robust response to this call for Finals picks — I wanted to pass along a few items from Deven P's tallying:
🏀 Nicea Wilson was the only reader to correctly predict a Knicks-In-Four sweep of Cleveland in the East finals.
🏀 Six prognosticators correctly touted the Spurs to win a Game 7 in Oklahoma City: Aman Brar, Ray Briggs, Cullen Connick, John Steppling, Dominique Vielot and Ryan (no last name furnished).
🏀 No one picked both winners in the precise game count. Here is Deven's breakdown of the most common forecasts from the round:
(Substack) Note(s) of the Week
The latest declaration(s) of note from Substack Notes:
Knicks in 6
Spurs in 5