Monday night at Madison Square Garden is going to be the loudest basketball atmosphere in 25 years.
Game 3 of the NBA Finals tips off between the New York Knicks and the San Antonio Spurs at 8:30 PM ET on ABC. The Knicks lead the series 2-0 after stealing both games in San Antonio. New York is playing its first Finals home game since 1999, which means the MSG crowd is going to be unhinged.
The math here is brutal for the Spurs. No team in NBA history has ever come back from a 3-0 deficit in the Finals. Going down 3-0 essentially ends the series even with three games still on the schedule. San Antonio has to win Monday night or this thing is functionally over.
The Spurs have problems. Victor Wembanyama has been the best individual player in the series, but he has been let down by his supporting cast. Devin Vassell has been ice-cold from three. Stephon Castle has been turnover-prone in big moments. Chris Paul, the veteran point guard San Antonio signed last summer to mentor Castle, has run out of magic at age 41.
Game 2 was the most painful of the two losses. The Spurs led for most of the game and were up 102-98 with under a minute left before a series of brutal turnovers and missed free throws handed the Knicks an overtime win. Wembanyama’s late-game blunder, a turnover with 12 seconds left in the fourth that led to a Brunson layup, was the kind of moment that defines a young superstar’s playoff growth.
The Knicks have been the better team. Brunson is averaging 32.4 points in the series. Karl-Anthony Towns is averaging 22.1 points and 14.3 rebounds and has been a complete matchup nightmare for the Spurs frontcourt. OG Anunoby and Mikal Bridges have done exactly what Tom Thibodeau needs them to do on both ends.
And then there is the crowd. New York has waited 27 years to host a Finals game. The line for tickets reportedly stretched across Penn Plaza on Sunday morning, with the cheapest available standing-room ticket going for around $5,000. Josh Hart called the prices “ridiculous.” Knicks fans paid anyway because they have been waiting for this since the Patrick Ewing era.
President Donald Trump is reportedly attending the game. So is Spike Lee. So is essentially every New York celebrity with a basketball connection. Tracy Morgan, Jimmy Fallon, Pete Davidson, Tina Fey. The courtside seats are going to look like a Saturday Night Live alumni reunion.
The Spurs have to find a way to play through all of it. Wembanyama said Sunday he is good at isolating himself from crowd noise. He said practicing meditation over the years has helped him stay centered. He is going to need every bit of that mental work tonight.
The basketball matchups still favor New York. Brunson against any Spurs guard has been a mismatch. Towns against Wembanyama has actually been one of the more interesting battles of the playoffs, with KAT using his shooting range to pull Wemby away from the rim. The Knicks bench has outperformed the Spurs bench in both games.
The keys to a Spurs win are obvious. They need Wembanyama to dominate from the opening tip and they need at least one role player to step up with a big shooting night. Vassell going 4-of-7 from three. Castle hitting some pull-up midrange jumpers. Even Jeremy Sochan giving them 14 points off the bench would help.
The keys to a Knicks win are even more obvious. Make Wembanyama work for every touch. Let the crowd take over the building. Get Brunson to his spots in the second and third quarters. Lock the game down in the fourth like the Knicks have done all postseason.
If New York wins, they go up 3-0 and the parade planning starts. If San Antonio wins, the series gets interesting for the first time. Either way, the MSG crowd is about to make NBA Finals history just by showing up.
Game 3 tips at 8:30 PM ET. The wait is over. Knicks-Spurs has arrived in New York.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
