If the NBA had screenwriters, not even they could come up with a start this good to the conference finals.<\/p>\n
Victor Wembanyama has 41 points and 24 rebounds. San Antonio goes into Oklahoma City and beats the defending champion Thunder. New York trails by 22 points with about eight minutes left in regulation, then beats Cleveland. Both games go to overtime, a conference finals first. And the score at the end of regulation in both games \u2014 101-101.<\/p>\n
Well done, Spurs and Knicks.<\/p>\n
If there was a common trend in both games, it was that the best player on the winning teams decided to become the best player on the floor at crunch time. On Monday night, it was Wembanyama for the Spurs. On Tuesday night, it was Jalen Brunson for the Knicks \u2014 who led a 44-11 run over the last 13 minutes.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s right, 44-11.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know if I\u2019ve seen that in a playoff game,\u201d Knicks coach Mike Brown said. \u201cI take my hat off to my group.\u201d<\/p>\n
Game 2 of Spurs-Thunder is Wednesday. Game 2 of Knicks-Cavaliers is Thursday. The drama is only going to keep building.<\/p>\n
\u201cFound a way. \u2026 We got some stops,\u201d Brunson said. \u201cKept fighting, kept believing, kept chipping away.\u201d<\/p>\n
The numbers \u2014 from both games \u2014 are of the video game variety.<\/p>\n
Start with what happened at Madison Square Garden on Tuesday night. A 44-11 run doesn\u2019t happen in the NBA, certainly not in the conference finals. Teams that led by 22 points or more in the fourth quarter were 452-1 this season, including playoffs. They\u2019re 452-2 now. In the playoffs, teams had won 330 consecutive games when leading by 22 or more points in the fourth quarter since 2013. They\u2019re 330-1 now.<\/p>\n
Make it make sense.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t have an answer,\u201d Brunson said.<\/p>\n
Neither did the Cavaliers, either as it was happening or in the immediate aftermath.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe got a little unlucky,\u201d Cavaliers coach Kenny Atkinson said. \u201cBrunson obviously took over at the end. \u2026 We played great basketball tonight for three quarters. Unfortunately, the fourth quarter, they dominated us in the fourth quarter.\u201d<\/p>\n
A 41-point, 24-rebound game doesn\u2019t happen that often, either. Wembanyama was brilliant in his conference finals debut, as was Spurs rookie guard Dylan Harper. The Spurs, like the Cavs, wasted a double-digit lead in the fourth quarter of Game 1 and settled for overtime; San Antonio\u2019s lead was 10, not 22, but still double digits.<\/p>\n
Unlike the Cavs, they found a way to settle down \u2014 repeatedly, really \u2014 in the two extra periods Monday night.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat game was in the balance multiple times for both teams,\u201d Spurs coach Mitch Johnson said Tuesday. \u201cYou can\u2019t get preoccupied with the outcome because there was so much in the balance that could have went either way.\u201d<\/p>\n
In short, stealing home-court advantage by winning Game 1 doesn\u2019t mean the Spurs think the series is over. And the Thunder know that Game 1 is meaningful \u2014 but not a deciding game by any stretch.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe cumulative experience just teaches you that it\u2019s a series,\u201d Thunder coach Mark Daigneault said Tuesday. \u201cGame 1\u2019s a starting point, not an end point. We\u2019ve lost playoff series that we\u2019ve won Game 1 pretty convincingly. And we\u2019ve also won series that we won Game 1. So, every series is different. It\u2019s the first to four. They\u2019re 25% of the way there and we\u2019re at zero right now. But there\u2019s a lot of basketball left to be played. I think this team kind of understands the length of the series, the length of the playoff run and the length of a playoff game.\u201d<\/p>\n
The defending champions are feeling some pressure. New York is rocking. Wembanyama\u2019s star keeps rising. The Cavaliers \u2014 winners of two Game 7s in these playoffs \u2014 need to dig their way out of trouble, again.<\/p>\n
The start to these conference-final stories was stellar. Chapter 2 awaits.<\/p>\n
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\n Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 39 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If the NBA had screenwriters, not even they could come up with a start this good to the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":656540,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[355,99],"class_list":["post-656539","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/656539","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=656539"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/656539\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/656540"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=656539"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=656539"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=656539"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}