NBA Finals: ‘Drive, kick, make the right reads’: The Knicks vs. Victor Wembanyama, summed up in one play

SAN ANTONIO — The New York Knicks entered the 2026 NBA Finals with basketball’s hottest, most overwhelming offense, averaging a scorching 126.7 points per 100 non-garbage-time possessions — a rate of offensive efficiency that would’ve led the NBA in every season of the league’s existence.

Through two games against the San Antonio Spurs, though, the Knicks are averaging 108.8 points-per-100 — a rate that would’ve ranked just below league-average during the regular season.

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This is what it is to play the Spurs: a smothering, suffocating phalanx of positional size and applied physicality. Long arms, quick feet and active communication everywhere you look, all geared toward rudely dispossessing you of the basketball — or, failing that, sending you hurtling into the 7-foot-4 event horizon stationed in front of the rim.

Victor Wembanyama, to put it mildly, is a massive defensive issue for the Knicks to address, both literally and figuratively, in this series. But one of the defining characteristics of Mike Brown’s team has been its ability to find creative solutions.

“We’ve got a group that, we just — you know, whatever circumstances are looking at us, facing us, we just try to make it work,” Knicks swingman Landry Shamet said. “Try to solve problems.”

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That’s exactly what they did late in the second quarter of Friday’s thrilling 105-104 Game 2 win, on a possession that highlighted just how much effort and energy it takes to generate good looks against this Wembanyama-led Spurs defense. It also represented something close to the ideal operation of this Knicks offensive approach — one that, as Brown has described, is predicated less on proscribed play calls and more on adherence to certain offensive principles and concepts.

“Everybody grows in their journey, and being an assistant in Golden State helped out a lot — almost everything they do is conceptual,” Brown said during a Zoom conference call with reporters between Games 3 and 4 of the Eastern Conference finals. “When you get to the playoffs, everybody, first of all, knows exactly what play is coming. So, if I were sitting here going, ‘Two up! Two up! Two up!’ every single one of our opponent’s assistants would be like, ‘Pick-and-roll coming. This guy’s doing it. This [defender], shrink! Tuck in!’ They know ahead of time exactly what’s coming, and the game is physical, so they’re gonna really bump you to mess with your front-court pace, and it’s gonna disjoint you offensively.

“If you can understand, ‘OK, hey, let’s get the flow. Let’s play in flow, and it’s read-and-react based off where the ball goes and where bodies go,’ now it’s a lot harder for their staff to help them ahead of time. Now, they have to have an elite defense in order to know that, ‘I need to play it this way, because he may come off of the pindown, but I need to play it that way, because he may come off the flare.’ And you’re on an island by yourself. All five guys are. And they have to stay connected on their own, without any help.”

If this offensive philosophy sounds familiar to you, it might be because last season you watched the Indiana Pacers boat-race the Knicks and the rest of the Eastern Conference with it, and get within one win of an NBA championship on the strength of it.

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“I think obviously, us trying to figure out how we can be the best team we can be, we needed to be able to adapt,” Knicks superstar Jalen Brunson said during the conference finals. “Even though Indiana was really good at it, I don’t think that I was necessarily thinking about that — just more focused on, how can we win games? And I think earlier in the playoffs, to be able to adapt, that was needed. Then we have that, and we can go back and forth with what style of offense we want to play. I think we have the personnel and the character to do it.”

Elite defenses like San Antonio’s can stay connected amid all that fluidity, variety and versatility. But it’s really, really hard to do it over and over and over again; eventually, the wall of water’s just too heavy to hold, and the dam’s going to spring a leak.

The play begins with swingman Landry Shamet sprinting out of the left corner. Shamet’s in the game because Josh Hart had picked up his third foul about a minute earlier — a flagrant-1 for reaching out to grab Devin Vassell’s ankle as he went for a loose ball after a Hart turnover — and because, well, Shamet’s been absolute nails for the Knicks ever since re-entering the rotation in Game 3 against Philadelphia, averaging 11.5 points in 22.4 minutes per game, making 23 of his 34 3-point attempts (67.6%).

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This torrid run has validated the trust Brown’s had in Shamet — who didn’t re-sign with the Knicks until mid-September, and who had to scrap it out in training camp just to earn a roster spot — as a shot-maker, ball-mover and hard-nosed defender, all year long.

“I talked about him to [Knicks team president] Leon [Rose] specifically during my interview process,” Brown said before Game 2. “Trying to get him signed and locked up on this team as soon as possible is something that was really important to me.”

Shamet curls around Towns and cuts across the foul line before backpedaling to the dunker spot on the opposite side, with Spurs forward Keldon Johnson giving chase. Shamet’s cut clears out the left corner, giving Brunson and Towns an empty side of the floor to go to work in the two-man game.

That’s dangerous for the Spurs, who’ve seen Towns dominate his minutes in this series thanks partly to how the threat of his 3-point shot — which he’s knocked down at a 48.1% clip in this postseason — both demands attention on the perimeter and opens his driving game, even when it’s Wembanyama who’s the one stepping out to check him up top.

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“Yeah, obviously having somebody like KAT is a difficult cover,” Spurs guard De’Aaron Fox said. “That’s what everybody tries to do, is pull Vic away from the basket. Obviously him being in the paint, greatest player to ever be — when he’s standing there, you feel the gravity. You feel teams kind of see him there and decide to do something else.”

Wembanyama guarding Towns is an automatic signal to the Knicks to do something else — namely, bring him into the action. Towns sets a high ball screen for Brunson, and the Spurs attack it. Dylan Harper ducks under Towns’ screen, while Wembanyama leaps out on the right-hand side to keep Brunson from getting a clear driving lane to the baseline.

While Harper gets back in front of Brunson and Wembanyama rotates back toward the paint, Julian Champagnie — who’d started the play guarding OG Anunoby, before switching assignments with Devin Vassell and taking Mikal Bridges when he and OG flipped spots on the weak side — slides over to pick up Towns, taking away a clean look at a pick-and-pop 3-point shot.

OK: That’s one job done for the San Antonio defense. The bad news: There’s still 11 on the shot clock.

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Brunson drives hard to his strong left hand, gaining a step on Harper while Wembanyama drops back. As Brunson approaches the elbow, Bridges begins to flash to the middle — a read that the Knicks have been making to try to give Brunson pressure-release valves when the Spurs (and, before them, the 76ers and Cavaliers) put two defenders on the ball against New York’s All-NBA point guard. Vassell slides in to stay connected to him; when both Brunson and Bridges break the paint, the middle of the floor is completely wadded up, with four defenders in the lane to actively prevent Brunson from getting a shot off.

OK: That’s two stops.

Still nine on the shot clock, though.

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The Knicks’ shooters have relocated on the weak side, with Anunoby lifting from the corner to take Bridges’ place in the slot and Shamet dropping from the dunker to the corner. An airborne Brunson kicks to Shamet, who’s been absolutely lethal from the corners — 12-for-17 in the playoffs, 70.6% — and, as a result, draws an “oh, crap” hard closeout from Johnson. Shamet quickly reads that and drives hard to the middle, blowing past the onrushing Johnson and generating another paint touch.

By the time Shamet gets into the lane, the Knicks have completely decongested that wadded-up spacing. Brunson has flowed from the paint to the right corner; Anunoby and Towns have repositioned themselves above the break; Bridges has taken his cut all the way from the right slot to the left corner, where he’s now Wembanyama’s responsibility.

“We have to try to keep touching the paint, trying to spray it if Wemby comes,” Brown said. “If you’re open, let it fly.”

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And if you’re not? Then keep it moving — quickly.

As Shamet kicks it to that left corner, Bridges is running into the catch, understanding that he’s got to move fast to get an angle on the rotating Wembanyama. He beats the Defensive Player of the Year to the lane, drawing the help of Johnson as the low man on the weak side. As soon as Bridges sees Johnson, he knows he’s got an open man, Brunson, in the corner. The Spurs are ready for that one, too — Vassell rotates from Anunoby up top down to Brunson, able to contest a shot if one goes up.

Fantastic: another job well done.

Alas: Still a little more than three ticks left.

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Before Vassell’s even fully in front of him, Brunson has already swung the ball to Anunoby, who drives past Champagnie’s closeout to generate a fourth paint touch in a 7.5-second span. Anunoby goes right at Wembanyama, who has stepped up to contest a layup; that, unfortunately, means that there’s nobody tracking Bridges, who has relocated yet again. That’s him in the corner; that’s him in the spotlight.

The pass hits Bridges’ hands with 0.8 seconds left on the shot clock. He hops into the catch; his feet are set at 0.6. The ball’s off his fingertips at 0.2; it splashes through as the shot-clock buzzer sounds.

It’s the kind of offensive possession this Knicks team was designed to generate. And it took a lot of work to get here — both on the court, and in the locker room.

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“It’s my job as a coach to fit whatever scheme we have on both sides of the floor to all of our players, and if you’re a great player, I’ve got to make a little bit more adjustments or I’ve got to give a little bit more than you do,” Brown said Friday. “And we finally got to a point where [Towns] was comfortable, I was comfortable, Jalen was comfortable, OG was comfortable, Mikal was comfortable. And to me that’s what the regular season is about. The regular season is about finding your way so you can prepare for this time of the year, and there’s going to be a lot of ups and downs.

“And I hope there’s adversity. I hope like hell there’s adversity. Because we have to see if we’re strong enough, when it comes to being connected, to see if we can get through it during the regular season. So when we get here, anything we run into, we’ve already conquered during the regular season and we’ll know how to handle it.”

Handling the strain and stress that scoring against Wembanyama and Co. place on you is an awfully big challenge; the Knicks won’t be able to do it every time down the floor. But they can do it, and when they do it like this — forcing the Spurs to cover all that ground, make all those closeouts, expend all that energy expended, all just to give up three points …

… you’d understand if that feels pretty demoralizing.

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“They made some really tough shots, shots at the end of the shot clock,” Spurs head coach Mitch Johnson said after the game. “I thought that affected our approach at times, and took away from just trying to play our brand of basketball.”

“They’re a great team. I think they got here for a reason,” Harper said. “The brand of basketball they play, I think, second to none.”

“Obviously, this team, and the way they shoot the ball, the way they move the ball … we have to figure out a way,” Fox said.

The Knicks expect San Antonio to come up with new answers, and a renewed spirit, before the ball’s tipped back up on Monday.

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“Knowing them, there’s going to be another level,” Brunson said. “We have to be prepared and be ready to match it and play for 48 minutes. No matter what goes on in the game, we have to have each other’s back, what’s going on, who is on a run, what’s not, who is up, who is down, making sure we are playing together for 48 minutes is really important.”

If the Spurs can find some answers in time for Game 3, though, it’s a pretty decent bet that the Knicks will have counters waiting. In Brown’s first season on New York’s bench, “figuring out a way” has kind of become the Knicks’ thing.

“Drive, kick, make the right reads, share the ball. That’s our team,” Shamet said. “If there’s a guy open, we’re gonna make that pass. Make that play. Trust each other. We do that. We did that a number of times — search for the best shot, the best look for each other. And Mikal knocked a big shot down in the corner.”

Simple as that. Right, Jalen?

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“I mean, we were just reading and reacting,” Brunson said. “We were playing off each other.”

And then: a little shrug and the trace of a smile.

“We saw the same thing you did.”