Knicks hunker down to avoid any letdown in Game 5 of the NBA Finals
Knicks guard Jalen Brunson speaks during a news conference on June 12, 2026, in San Antonio. Credit: AP/Ross D. Franklin
SAN ANTONIO — When they completed their historic comeback from a 29-point third-quarter deficit Wednesday night, the Knicks were caught up in the midst of a wild celebration. Celebrity fans rushed onto the floor, nearly 20,000 fans remained in their seats for singalong revelry, and it understandably felt as if a championship party was underway.
But when the court was cleared and the viral highlights began to fade out, the reality set in that the job wasn’t done. Although the Knicks own a 3-1 lead in the NBA Finals and are on the verge of their first title in 53 years, they haven’t gotten there yet.
So while outside of the team’s tightly guarded quarters, videos of OG Anunoby’s game-winning tip-in were dissected in slow motion, the Knicks began preparations in a different way.
“Obviously, when we practice, we have film, we talk about situations, what we have to do. You’re always preparing worst-possible-case scenario,” Jalen Brunson said. “If it happens, we have to prepare for this. Our mindset and focus is on one possession at a time, one play at a time, one quarter at a time. You’re thinking about the now, how you can be better the next possession, how can you turn the page, positive or negative.
“Regardless of what’s going on, our mindset and approach has to stay the same. I think we’ve done a very good job of that. It’s something that has grown over the season. It’s really important, especially obviously now.”
Game 5 will be played on Saturday night at Frost Bank Center, and the Knicks have approached every closeout opportunity in this postseason run intent on destruction, winning by 51, 30 and 37 points, all on the road.
But can they summon the same intensity, the desperation and belief to approach it as if they are 0-0 in the series, as they maintain, when you can almost hear the strains of Frank Sinatra singing “New York, New York” with the accompaniment of 19,812 fans still echoing in their ears?
How can anyone create that level of intensity when it feels as if the celebration already has begun?
“It is hard. We’re all human,” coach Mike Brown said. “It was hard even in the series that we swept. You win two, three, four, five games in a row, there’s a tendency to relax a little bit. That’s just in life.
“In your job, you have success for 10 months straight, maybe you feel like, I got this, I know what I’m doing. You’re not as sharp then because everybody’s been patting you on your back and telling you how great you are. Trying to manufacture things to help guys lock in, trying to talk to guys individually so they can continue to talk to their teammates to lock in, all that stuff is huge.
“Having Pat’s presence around, Pat Ewing, so he can talk to guys to help them lock in from a different vantage point, is all huge, especially during this time and coming off a win like we did last time.”
“That’s the key,” Deuce McBride said. “You can’t have a hangover of winning a game like that. Obviously, it’s special, but we don’t want to repeat it. We want to go out there and take care of business.”
For the coaches, it isn’t hard to find video to show the team, not after the first half on Wednesday that set the stage for the comeback. You can’t have a historic comeback without a miserable start, and the Knicks had one, allowing the Spurs to pile up 76 first-half points and take a 27-point halftime lead.
And it’s not a one-off — the Knicks have trailed by double figures in every game in the series. After a season spent talking about slow starts, they have trailed at the end of the first quarter by eight, nine, 11 and 19 in this series.
“We know they come out with a lot of energy,” Josh Hart said. “They’ve been doing it all playoffs. We’ve been very up and down with that a lot this year. So we’ve got to make sure we come in focused with a great attention to detail and taking things a possession at a time.
“We know if we do that and we play our style of basketball, we’re going to put ourselves in a good position to be successful. But we can’t keep getting into a hole and trying to dig ourselves out of a hole. We were fortunate to do that last game — actually, all three games, all three of our wins — but we’ve got to do a better job of starting games off.”
“We spoke about it multiple times,” Karl-Anthony Towns said. “We’ve got to approach every game like it’s 0-0. We’ve got to have that kind of desperation to win Game 1 of a playoff series. We’ve got to go in there with the understanding of no comfortability, just really be desperate, execute at a high level. Game-plan discipline has to be at a high level.
“I’ve said this multiple times, the hardest game to win is the one that ends someone’s season. So we’ve got to be our best version [Saturday].”
Steve Popper covers the Knicks for Newsday. He has spent nearly three decades covering the Knicks and the NBA, along with just about every sports team in the New York metropolitan area.
