Нью-Йорк Никс 53 жилийн дараа аваргаллаа

SAN ANTONIO — The Spurs are close to greatness, but they aren’t there yet. They thought they could outrun inexperience, but OG Anunoby chased them down. In the end, the NBA Finals ended Saturday in a gentlemen’s sweep.

In many ways, the Spurs are in the same spot the New York Knicks found themselves in a year ago, the same spot most contenders need to live in before finding their calling. Failure comes before acing the test. They ran into a team who could stretch them thin and force them to play on their opponent’s terms. Just about every game, that identity crisis broke the Spurs.

They were right there, so close to breaking through, before coming up short. The Spurs aspire to be better than this. They are not far. But success is binary in the NBA Finals.

The Knicks beat the Spurs 94-90 in Game 5 to win their first NBA championship in 53 years, a monumental moment for the league and sport. As unforgettable as the Spurs’ season was, a team well ahead of schedule featuring a potential all-time great in the making, it’s now the biggest footnote in the Knicks’ run for the ages. If it ain’t etched on the Larry O’Brien trophy, it will eventually fade into the ether like “Spurs 2026 Champions” shirts remaining in their shipping boxes.

Those shirts could’ve been in every shop in San Antonio, but the Spurs kept forgetting just how long the game is. They let their foot off the gas as the Knicks cut them off, flipped the bird and sped away.

The New York Knicks are everything Victor Wembanyama and the Spurs want to become: a deep, resilient team, orbiting around a singular, unflappable force. As they watched the Knicks celebrate on their home court, the Spurs could see the runway left on their path to the top.

At the beginning of the season, coming off a 34-win campaign, Wembanyama made waves when he said the team’s goal was to be the sixth seed. It didn’t take long for the Spurs to show they had a chance to make a run at the title.

Over the course of the season, Wembanyama went from the next big thing to MVP finalist race as the Spurs became a juggernaut as he became healthy. They outlasted the defending champion Oklahoma City Thunder in a thrilling seven-game series, but ultimately succumbed to the Knicks’ rope-a-dope act over and over again in the finals.

Now the Spurs must figure out how to further optimize the roster around their centerpiece as they start paying some of their cheap, young rotation players.

So, how does Wembanyama get to that final level, and how can the Spurs improve their team to get him there?

The Wemby Rules

The Spurs became the fourth team in NBA history to go from the lottery to 60-plus wins in a season. Wembanyama may have become the face of the league for everything from his play on the court to his bold stances on various on- and off-court topics. This was a year of change and emergence.

But that part is over.

The Spurs spent much of this season free from the burden of expectations. Their ascension to the top tier of the league was swift and surprising, but this is now a championship-or-bust team.

With that, the novelty of Wembanyama will wear off. For the most part, the public fell in love with his on- and off-court approach over the course of the season. But now that the expectations have been set at the highest level, every time he appears to be coming up short, the pressure will ramp up.

Wembanyama struggled at times to handle the spotlight in the playoff run, particularly when the Spurs were going down to the Thunder before coming back in the West finals. He couldn’t consistently impose his will on the game, which is not surprising for a 22-year-old in the postseason for the first time. He got his feet wet at the highest levels and will now be expected to own the game every night. The expectations cannot be any higher at this point.

He found out just how much teams will be able to beat him up and pull him out of his comfort zone in the postseason. The same set of rules won’t apply, and he’ll have to maintain his composure.

So, how will he deal with increased scrutiny for the first time in his career?

The next evolution as a team starts with strengthening the link between Wembanyama and the ball. The Knicks won this series because the defense made it impossible for him to consistently get the ball in his comfort zone. His catches rarely came with momentum and balance. He couldn’t roll through the paint reliably. Drives were walled off effectively, to the point that he wasn’t able to step through all the way to the rim.

This summer, Wembanyama will need to get in the lab and build out a post game he can carry with him to the NBA Finals. Missing throughout the series were the face-up jumpers and running hooks that belong to most great 7-footers. Just look at how Jalen Brunson owned the midrange, fighting tooth and nail to get to spots he would own regardless of defense. Wembanyama needs the kinds of shots that Tim Duncan and Carmelo Anthony could get to consistently, which would have been the antidote to the Knicks’ coverages. He has a bunch of actions he can get to, but not quite a known spot in the post or the perimeter where he has an inevitable signature shot.

Can Wemby have his catch pushed out, turn around, jab-step, swing the ball around until he finds a rhythm, then drive into a comfortable jumper? Can he get the ball on the elbow and develop a reliable separation move at the point of attack to get to a step-through to the rim? When is the turnaround jumper right off the catch in the low post gonna take shape?

Only by doing so consistently could Wembanyama force the Knicks to start double-teaming his catches so he can’t touch the ball. That’s when the wide-open shots start opening up on the other side consistently. There were too few moments in the NBA Finals where Wembanyama looked like he was dictating the shot and was confident going into his decision. He has to become a more proactive scorer rather than reactive.

Fortifying the identity

Wembanyama’s scoring package was only half of the equation. The Spurs guards couldn’t reliably crack the Knicks’ stout perimeter defense with the proper timing to find Wembanyama in the paint, particularly during the second-half collapse in Game 4. Execution and timing were the biggest things the Knicks defense took away. The Spurs rarely drove with comfort and often looked unsure of when they should take a shot instead of passing.

Wembanyama’s dives toward the hoop typically weren’t in sync with the guards being in position to throw him the ball. Stephon Castle and Dylan Harper will have to improve their feel for how to set up the offense and get more comfortable as 3-point threats to help mitigate those coverages, though they made significant strides this postseason. They are both a good bet to turn into the exact players the Spurs need to take their offense to the next level as they improve.

Then, there is the overall team identity. The Spurs don’t have a deficiency. They simply weren’t the Knicks. As forward Julian Champagnie put it after Game 4, the Knicks were the more desperate team. The Spurs weren’t quite there, missing the blend of defensive experience and offensive fearlessness that the Knicks got from Brunson and Anunoby.

What’s next?

Then, there is the matter of roster construction. The Knicks’ ability to put out lineups with five shooters was the key weak point for the Spurs in the finals, especially when the Spurs’ shooting went ice cold. San Antonio will need their two young point guards to get confident with their shot in the postseason, but the biggest question is De’Aaron Fox’s fit. Harper showed he is ready for prime time now and the Spurs need to clear the way for him. How can they accentuate his rapid rise while still relying upon Fox to keep the offense organized?

Throughout the season, Fox’s feel for running the offense proved paramount, and they needed him to dial up the right angles and actions in crunch time. The ankle sprain he suffered against Minnesota hampered him throughout the playoff run and his field goal percentage plummeted below 40 percent in the last two rounds of the Spurs’ run. Fox should be commended for playing through the high ankle sprain that likely would’ve had him shelved for weeks in the regular season, but the Spurs will still have to figure out how to balance the point guard dynamic as Fox begins his max extension in the fall.

Harper has embraced his bench role so far and is genuinely grateful to be in San Antonio, but how long can the Spurs keep him on the bench? Harper earned leaguewide adulation for his play in the second half of the season and showed signs he could become a superstar in his own right. It’s not the same situation the Spurs faced with Manu Ginobili, who was a second-round pick and was trying to find a role within the franchise. Unless Harper can scale up his shooting enough to space the floor as well as the Spurs’ current starting wings, there will be room for only two ballhandlers in the starting lineup.

Devin Vassell entered his age-25 season with questions about whether he could justify his $27 million salary, but he proved to be worth it in the playoffs with his two-way play. Locked up for three more seasons at a good price within the team’s salary structure, he should continue to fit in comfortably as a starting wing.

Champagnie has a $3 million team option, but is also extension-eligible. The Spurs could decline his option and sign him to a four-year deal this summer; the two sides have from the end of the season until the June 29 option deadline to figure that out.

Harrison Barnes, who often lost minutes to Carter Bryant during the playoffs, enters free agency, while the team also has the nontaxpayer midlevel exception (approximately $15.1 million) to spend on another rotation player. The team may need to beef up its rebounding presence and will undoubtedly look for even more shooting to surround Wembanyama. There is some flexibility for this team even while keeping the roster intact.

Though the Spurs’ deadline approach to stand pat and waive Jeremy Sochan made sense at the time and remains reasonable in hindsight, the struggle to get Wembanyama rest in the NBA Finals is a reminder of the importance of filling out every role on a roster at the highest levels. The Spurs had three backup centers on the bench behind Luke Kornet and didn’t want to use any of them in non-garbage time situations. They didn’t have a beefy rebounding and finishing big to send out there when Kornet struggled with his matchups. This is just about the only immediate need they must fill this offseason, as the roster is otherwise in a great place.

Most of all, there is Wembanyama’s journey to consider. He spent this season proving to the world he was worthy of the hype. Now, what does he do with it?

He is becoming more famous on a global scale now after this playoff run and is likely to become a bigger face of Nike and the NBA’s marketing next year. How does he handle the exposure? How does he respond to the way this playoff run went — and ended? Can he maintain his principles while pushing even further forward?

Wembanyama’s “ethical” center will continue to be tested. When variables like pressure and disappointment are introduced, the leaguewide perception of a budding superstar can change. How will he respond now that he is no longer the shiny new toy without the burden of expectation?

He’s as safe a bet as anyone to handle it well, but this will be a test nonetheless.