{"id":714731,"date":"2026-06-04T12:13:10","date_gmt":"2026-06-04T12:13:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/714731\/"},"modified":"2026-06-04T12:13:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-04T12:13:10","slug":"mitch-johnson-explains-what-went-wrong-for-spurs-in-nba-finals-game-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/714731\/","title":{"rendered":"Mitch Johnson Explains What Went Wrong for Spurs In NBA Finals Game 1"},"content":{"rendered":"

Coming off a grueling seven-game series against the Oklahoma City Thunder<\/a> in the Western Conference Finals, many had their doubts<\/a> about the San Antonio Spurs<\/a>\u2018 chances in Game 1 of the NBA Finals. These fears were only realized after Mitch Johnson<\/a>\u2018s Spurs suffered a 105-95 loss to the New York Knicks<\/a> on Wednesday night.<\/p>\n

San Antonio\u2019s fatigue was evident in Game 1. While most players struggled to get going offensively<\/a>, the team as a whole could not sustain its momentum on both ends of the floor. Needless to say, these are only a fraction of the overall problems, as Mitch Johnson addressed the key issues during his postgame media availability<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Johnson began by addressing Victor Wembanyama<\/a>\u2018s (26 PTS, 12 REB, 3 BLK, 6-21 FG) slow scoring and offensive struggles in Game 1.<\/p>\n

\u201cFelt like he missed a few shots early, but we\u2019ve got to get him moving in space and towards the rim. Whether that\u2019s on the rolls or running in transition, but we need the pressure on the rim and the force in the paint.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThey did a good job, obviously being physical and showing crowds, but you know, we need to do a better job of establishing that early on.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wembanyama\u2019s reduced impact due to Karl-Anthony Towns\u2019 defensive effort<\/a> was one of the talking points of the game. With the superstar recording one of his worst shooting nights in this year\u2019s postseason run, Mitch Johnson had to give credit where it was due.<\/p>\n

In a follow-up question, Johnson was also asked about the team\u2019s early-clock three-pointers and how they affected their overall momentum. The Spurs\u2019 head coach responded:<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t have any right now that I thought were egregious. There was definitely a stretch there in the second quarter where\u2026 We want to play with pace, and we want to hunt for threes in transition, but we also want those to be in rhythm and feel like they\u2019re our shot.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cThere might have been some questionable ones\u2026 We\u2019ve got to make sure we put more force in the paint, and we\u2019ll still get our threes up with that. But we can\u2019t work outside-in. We\u2019ve got to go more inside-out.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Spurs shot a miserable 11-43 (~26%) from beyond the arc and 32-89 (~36%) from the field. Considering that, despite having Wembanyama, they only scored 42 points in the paint on Wednesday night, Mitch Johnson\u2019s concerns seem justified.<\/p>\n

While these issues were legitimate, Mitch Johnson pointed out something far more pressing, mainly because it deviated from the Spurs\u2019 identity as a basketball team.<\/p>\n

\u201cApart from everything, missing shots or not, 16 assists for us is not our brand of basketball\u2026 There\u2019s a lot of things that we\u2019ve discussed in this press conference that we can get better at and clean up, but that\u2019s something that is not up to the standard, even anywhere close to what we\u2019re used to and how we play.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Spurs were immensely successful in the regular season because of the trust within the roster in moving the ball around. With an average of 28.1 assists per game in the regular season and 24.6 assists per game in the playoffs, San Antonio routinely shared the ball to get the best look. Unfortunately, this wasn\u2019t the case on Wednesday night, as both the ball movement and offense stagnated at different points of the game.<\/p>\n

Despite losing Game 1, Mitch Johnson and the Spurs remain confident about their chances<\/a>\u00a0heading into the remaining games of the series. Having developed a penchant for bouncing back from losses, San Antonio is likely to make the necessary adjustments before Game 2.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Coming off a grueling seven-game series against the Oklahoma City Thunder in the Western Conference Finals, many had…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":714732,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[64,63,590,85],"class_list":["post-714731","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/714731","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=714731"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/714731\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/714732"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=714731"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=714731"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=714731"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}