New York Knicks vs San Antonio Spurs live updates: Knicks hang on after furious Spurs rally, win Game 2

Knicks point guard Jalen Brunson had another challenging night shooting the basketball, as he made just seven of 25 field-goal attempts in Friday’s 105-104 victory over the Spurs.

However, the Knicks’ captain managed to do something no player in franchise history had done in an NBA Finals game.

Finishing with 20 points, five rebounds, six assists and five steals, Brunson is the first Knicks player to account for at least 20 points, five rebounds, five assists and five steals in an NBA Finals game.

He’s also the fifth player in NBA history to reach those numbers in an NBA Finals road game. Brunson joins Jimmy Butler, Allen Iverson, Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen.

The Knicks now head home having won 13 consecutive playoff games, and they’re now two wins away from the franchise’s first NBA title since 1973. Game 3 is on Monday at 8:30 PM Eastern.

The New York Knicks are now two wins away from their first NBA title since 1973.

Victor Wembanyama’s elbow jumper in the final seconds was long, with the end result being a 105-104 victory for the Eastern Conference champions. Give Mitchell Robinson credit for his challenge of the shot, which allowed the Knicks to avoid losing a game they led comfortably early in the third quarter.

Game 3 is on Monday night in New York. With the defeat, the Spurs are the first home team to drop the first two games of an NBA Finals series since Orlando did so in 1995. Houston won that series in a four-game sweep.

With the game tied, the Spurs played a great defensive possession, got a Brunson miss, Wembanyama got the rebound, started to bring it up, then decided to throw a pass ahead to Stephon Castle, who had his back turned to the play and never saw it. Terrible play by Wemby, who then fouled Brunson.

Brunson hit one of two free throws.

Spurs ball, down 105-104, 7.5 seconds left and their season on the line

Spurs went fast for 2-for-1, Wemby missed a midrange. Timeout Knicks. Can they get a quick 2-for-1?

WHAT. A GAME.

A Brunson fade-away two tied the game after Wembanyama gave the Spurs the lead on an old-school and-1 (off a great play by Harper, who does not play like a rookie).

A goaltend by the Knicks on a Dylan Harper layup (it hit the backboard first) makes this a 1-point game.

It’s now a 13-0 run now by San Antonio and a tie game, 97-97, with 2:37 left.

The Knicks challenged an out-of-bounds call and got what they wanted (and the right call), a Champagnie foul on Anunoby that sends OG to the line to take three free throws. The Knicks need them to stem the Spurs momentum.

This is the run the Spurs needed, an 8-0 run forcing another Knicks timeout.

It’s 97-92 Knicks with 4:17 left. Can the Knicks answer one more time.

Do the Spurs have one more run in them?

They better if they want to have any more home games in this series.

The Spurs, sometimes led by Victor Wembanyama, keep making mini-runs and their fans desperately try to cheer them on.

Then the Knicks just answer. Like the McBride 3-pointer that stretched the Knicks lead to 12 with 6:45 left in the game.

The Spurs, who for three rounds looked incredibly poised, are making a lot of youthful mistakes in the Finals.

Both fan bases — and there are a lot of Knicks fans in the building tonight — understand the stakes of the fourth quarter.

The Knicks fans start chants, the Spurs fans try to drown them out.

Those Spurs fans are desperate for something to cheer for, but every time San Antonio makes a run, New York has answered.

When the Knicks fired Tom Thibodeau despite the team making the Eastern Conference Finals, one of his mandates was to play the bench more, develop some depth, have more lineups they could trust when it mattered most.

He worked on that all season long and it is paying off massively in the finals. That starts with Landry Shamet hitting some key buckets to squash Spurs runs.

“When I first got the job, I called Landry...” Brown said pregame. “I believe you can help us on both ends of the floor.”

He has with 13 off the bench and the Knicks lead by 8 with 8:18 left.

Mikal Bridges can’t miss, he went 4-of-4 in the third quarter and is 8-of-9 shooting for the game, and it feel like every one is a tough, contested shot. He has 20 points and sparked an answer to the Spurs third-quarter run.

The Knicks lead by nine entering the fourth quarter and are 12 minutes away from a 2-0 lead in the NBA Finals.

A frustrated Victor Wembanyama took it out on a dunk, and with that — and Towns having to check out with four fouls — the Spurs are on a 10-4 run and cut the Knicks’ lead to just four.

We had been tracking the Wemby on/off minutes, need to do that with Towns instead:

KAT on court: +19
KAT off court: -15

The Knicks defense in the third quarter has been fantastic, the Spurs are 1-of-4 from the floor and that doesn’t include Josh Hart blocking Stephon Castle at the rim.

With a Brunson 3 over Wemby, the Knicks have stretched their lead out to 10 early in the third and Knicks fans in the building — and there are a lot of them — are feeling it.

If there is an early Finals MVP it is Karl-Anthony Towns.

At the half of Game 2 he has 17 points on 6-of-8 shooting, including 3-of-5 from beyond the arc, and has seven boards. More importantly, his play on the perimeter is keeping Wemby out of the paint and he’s being physical with the Spurs star and not letting him get comfortable.

KAT had 18 points and, despite Brunson’s 30 and fourth-quarter takeover, was maybe the best Knick in Game 1.

New York closed the first half on a 12-4 run, capped of by a Karl-Anthony Towns 3, and it’s the Knicks by 4 at the half, 56-52.

The second half is where the Spurs have to make a stand — if they go down 0-2, dropping both games at home in the NBA Finals, they are in a deep hole no team has ever climbed out of (five teams have won the Finals from down 0-2, but every one of those dropped the first two on the road and then went home to get right).

The Knicks are 24 minutes from taking total control of the Finals, and it’s thanks to Karl-Anthony Towns. Brunson has 11 points.

Fox leads the Spurs with 12 points, and Vassell has 11. Wembanyama has 7 points, 5 rebounds and 2 blocks, but they need more out of their star — he has taken just four shots, and the Spurs are even with him on the court this game, and -4 without him.

Through the first six quarters of this series, Karl-Anthony Towns has been the best player on the court. He has 14 points and six rebounds to lead the Knicks, who trail by 1, 52-51, withh 2:07 left in the first half.

This has not been the best first half by the Knicks, but they are hanging around thanks to plays like this.

If this were soccer, it would have been a red card for denial of an obvious goal-scoring opportunity.

The Spurs Devin Vassell stripped Josh Hart of the ball at center court and to prevent a breakaway bucket, Hart reached out and tripped Vassell and got a Flagrant 1 foul for his trouble.

46-42 Spurs with 4:56 left in first half.

Mike Brown is really animated — he is frustrated with what his team is running (or not), defensive rotations, and the fact the officials are letting them really play in Game 2.

Still, with a Mikal Bridges corner 3, it’s a three point game, 42-39 Spurs.

Another stat to watch: Spurs +6 with Wemby on the court so far, -3 without him.

The Spurs are doing better in all the ways they wanted to: The Knicks have just one offensive rebound (and have not scored on second chance points), the Spurs lead in points in the paint 18-8, and they are shooting 65% overall and 50% from 3 to 38.1% and 42.9% for the Knicks.

That has the Spurs up nine, 34-25 after a quarter.

Fox has nine and Champagnie eight to lead the Spurs, Brunson has 8 to lead the Knicks.

The Spurs didn’t use the Cavaliers’ favorite tactic in Game 1, but they did in Game 2 — “hack-a-Mitch” on Mitchell Robinson is making for great television viewing in the NBA Finals. Robinson shot 40.8% on free throws in the regular season, but is just 29.5% in the playoffs — if the Knicks are already in the penalty (and get free throws for any foul), hacking becomes a smart mathematical tactic.

Robinson is 1-of-4 from the line so far.

It was expected that both teams would shoot better from 3 than a sloppy Game 1, and they are — the Knicks are 2-of-4, the Spurs 3-of-5 (with two of those makes by Julian Champagnie, who has 8 points early). The difference is the Spurs are 3-of-6 inside the arc, and the Knicks are 2-of-7, so the Spurs lead 17-13

Brunson scored the first five points for the Knicks — a midrange jumper and three free throws when Castle fouled him on a 3-pointer — which is impressive because the Spurs have upped their defensive pressure on him. Brunson has 8 early, Anunoby 5, and that’s all the Knicks scoring.

The scoring has opened with a Devin Vassell 3-pointer for the Spurs and we are underway in Game 2.

I was sitting at a counter in an old-school restaurant for lunch in San Antonio while a Knicks fan laid out the math for the server and bartender, wearing their Spurs gear:

It was cheaper for him to fly to San Antonio, stay at a hotel for a couple of nights, take a mini-vacation, and have a local buy him or scalp tickets to Game 2 than to get the cheapest seats in Madison Square Garden for Game 3.

Right now, it feels like a lot more of those classically understated Knicks fans in the Frost Bank Center tonight than there were for Game 1.

NBA players ending their pregame individual workouts with a trick shot is nothing new; Stephen Curry’s sessions have approached a level not seen in the NBA before his rise to prominence.

San Antonio center Victory Wembanyama capped his pregame session ahead of Friday’s Game 2 of the NBA Finals with an impressive 3/4-court shot that appeared easy.

Wembanyama will hope this shot is a good omen for Game 2, as he was 6-of-21 from the field in Wednesday’s 105-95 defeat.

Mike Brown was a young coach, 30 years old, and he’d been an assistant for a couple of years in Washington, when Gregg Popovich brought him to San Antonio to be an assistant. He was in San Antonio for three years and, before Game 2, talked about how Popovich influenced him as a young coach.

“You want to talk about MSG being iconic, New York City being iconic — Pop is iconic,” Brown said. “Especially here in San Antonio, but I think when you talk about the game of basketball, he’s iconic to everybody that enjoys the game of basketball.

“The neat part about him is it’s not just about the X’s and O’s that you learn, it’s — you can never be him — but you learn people skills. You learn how to connect not just the 15 or 18 players, you learn how to connect the entire city, even maybe an entire state. And then on top of that, you know, he’s second to none in how he treats people off the floor in their personal lives, so I grew a lot personally. Everybody goes through good times and bad times off the floor in their personal life, and you know when, obviously, I went through good times and bad times, and he helped me tremendously with those.

“So he’s a special human being, and I’m more than appreciative to him for everything that he taught me, and more importantly, an opportunity he gave me here.”

New York Knicks backup center Mitchell Robinson (finger) is officially available for Friday’s Game 2 of the 2026 NBA Finals.

Playing with a protective wrap on his fractured right pinky finger, the 7-footer logged 13 minutes in Wednesday’s Game 1 victory. Unless starter Karl-Anthony Towns lands in early foul trouble, Robinson should take on a similar workload in Game 2.

Here are some quotes from the off day (where teams held film sessions but didn’t fully practice as the day was about recovery for everyone).

Victor Wembanyama: “Really, I think the reason we lost that game isn’t even technical. It’s not even technical, tactical. We need to approach the game with a better mental state. We just need to play our game. We just need to be normal. We don’t need to do anything incredible.”

What do you mean by “normal?”

“‘Normal’ means trusting each other, trusting the basketball gods, trusting the game plan, executing, and not relying on talent so much to make shots or to save the day. We’ve been playing a certain way all season. We’ve been successful this way. There’s no reason to change the day the Finals start.”

Karl-Anthony Towns: “I just want to impact winning. Whatever the team needs me to do to impact winning and to help us get over the hump and get that win on that night, I’m willing to do. Last night was a night where a lot of things happened. Jalen got hurt, changed my role. Jalen came back, I had to change my role again. Throughout the game you’re changing your role three, four times. But whatever my role is, I’ve got to be the best at it and impact winning. I thought last night I did a good job of whatever my role was called to be, and I wanted to be a star in that role.”

Mikal Bridges, on Knicks 12-game playoff win streak: “I think for us, the guys in the locker room, our coaching staff, everybody pretty much in our office, in our organization, I think we just got a lot of grit, a lot of mental toughness. The thing about us is we don’t really look at it as a win streak. I think we just take it one game at a time. For us, ever since the Playoffs started, just one game. It’s like our most important game is our next game... It’s always just 1-0 if you win. After that game goes, it’s back to 0-0.”

De’Aaron Fox: “We were up one with, I think, three minutes left. We weren’t able to score at the end of the game, and obviously ended up losing the game by 10. Throughout the course of the game, we were in the game, and we gave ourselves chances to win. We went on runs. We got bigger leads. We just have to figure out a way to sustain it. That’s keeping them off the glass, not giving up second-chance points. Last time we had the lead, we were up one, gave up an offensive rebound, [Brunson] hits a three and then we didn’t have a lead for the rest of the game.”

The bookmakers expect a bounce-back game from San Antonio — it’s a larger favorite in Game 2 than it was in Game 1. However, the series odds have now flipped, and the Knicks are the favorites. Here are the odds heading into Friday night from our partners at DraftKings.

Game 2 Odds:
San Antonio -225, New York +185
Spread: Spurs -6.5
Total: 217.5

Series Odds:
Knicks -140, Spurs +120

Just look at the stats and you might ask, “How did the Knicks win Game 1?” They only shot 41.5% on the night and 30.6% from 3-point range. Josh Hart scored just three points as a starter. They sent Victor Wembanyama to the free-throw line 13 times. Jalen Brunson tweaked his knee and ankle (going to the locker room at one point for evaluation) and was just playing through it.

This is what the Knicks have done all playoffs, and all season: They just find a way.

The foundation of this Knicks win was a physical defense that collapsed into the paint, bumped Wembanyama when he tried to roll to the rim, and bodied up anyone trying to drive. It threw the Spurs off their game, they stopped moving the ball and fell into too much isolation — particularly Wembanyama. The result was the Spurs shot just 36% on the night, with Wembanyama going 6-of-21 from the floor (and just 4-of-9 in the paint), plus the team shot 25.6% from 3-point range.

Still, this was a tied game with 7:38 remaining, but that’s when Jalen Brunson took over.

Brunson scored 13 of his 30 points in the fourth quarter. The Knicks closed the game on an 11-0 run, while the Spurs as a team really fell into hero-ball isolation and shot 6-of-21 for the quarter, including 2-of-10 from 3, with five turnovers.

Behind Brunson, the Knicks stole Game 1 on the road 105-95, and now look to take a commanding lead in Game 2.