{"id":693030,"date":"2026-06-09T07:03:13","date_gmt":"2026-06-09T07:03:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/693030\/"},"modified":"2026-06-09T07:03:13","modified_gmt":"2026-06-09T07:03:13","slug":"nba-finals-wembanyama-silences-gardens-party-as-spurs-beat-knicks-in-game-3-nba-finals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/693030\/","title":{"rendered":"NBA finals: Wembanyama silences Garden\u2019s party as Spurs beat Knicks in Game 3 | NBA finals"},"content":{"rendered":"

The spectacle at Madison Square Garden on Monday night was such that the basketball almost took a back seat to everything else. The president in the suites<\/a>. The mayor in the crowd. Movie stars along the sideline. The culmination of days of talk over $10,000 tickets, heightened security and cancelled watch parties<\/a> alongside the anticipation for New York City\u2019s first home NBA finals game since 25 June 1999.<\/p>\n

By the end of the game, Victor Wembanyama<\/a> had given New York something fresh to talk about. The San Antonio Spurs snapped the Knicks\u2019 13-game postseason winning streak with a 115-111 victory, playing spoiler to the Garden\u2019s party and cutting the deficit to 2-1 in this year\u2019s finals. Game 4 is Wednesday in New York.<\/p>\n

Wembanyama put together his best performance of the series, finishing with 32 points, eight rebounds, six assists and three blocks. Stephon Castle, who had 23 points, hit two free throws with 6.8 seconds left in the third nail-biting finish in as many games.<\/p>\n

Jalen Brunson fueled the Knicks with 32 points and OG Anunoby added 28, but the rest of their team went cold in the fourth quarter. It was the most points New York have allowed these playoffs, and they finished frustrated by a discrepancy in foul calls.<\/p>\n

After a standout regular season and an enthralling Western Conference finals<\/a>, Wembanyama had yet to fully break through in this series. The 7ft 4in French phenom ended Game 2 in San Antonio with an errant pass that bounced off his teammate\u2019s back<\/a> and a missed potential game-winner.<\/p>\n

\u201cReally tried to relax [after Game 2]. The playoffs, it\u2019s like … a whirlwind. It\u2019s hard to put your head out of the water,\u201d he said of his approach to Monday night. \u201cI need some time off, let my brain cool down.\u201d<\/p>\n

He opened Game 3 with a new sense of energy and urgency, scoring nine points in his first nine minutes and giving the Madison Square Garden crowd a hint of what was to come the rest of the night.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt home it really feels like playing six against five. Here it feels like five against six,\u201d Wembanyama said with a smile. \u201cIt really shows what teams are made of.\u201d<\/p>\n

Before Monday, New York\u2019s postseason run had carried an air of inevitability<\/a>, with the bruising Brunson<\/a> consistently coming up clutch, forward Karl-Anthony Towns playing some of the best basketball of his career, and their depth carrying them through games. It all came amid the fervor<\/a> of a city anxiously hoping for its first NBA championship since 1973.<\/p>\n

Jalen Brunson makes a move against De\u2019Aaron Fox. Photograph: Sarah Yenesel\/EPA<\/p>\n

Monday night\u2019s atmosphere brought perhaps the fiercest test of their focus yet. Donald Trump, a longtime Knicks fan invited as a guest of team owner James Dolan, watched from a suite, received heavy boos<\/a> when he appeared on the jumbotron during the national anthem. New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani attended separately; he said earlier Monday he paid about $1,000 for his standing-room-only ticket. Spike Lee, Timoth\u00e9e Chalamet, Ben Stiller, Tina Fey, Tracy Morgan and Larry David were among the stars on celebrity row.<\/p>\n

They \u2013 and the thousands of fans watching across the five boroughs \u2013 were left at a loss for the first time since 23 April.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve done our best to try to learn from wins over the past couple weeks. But now we have to learn from a loss,\u201d Brunson said. \u201cBut I think the most important thing is that we are going to learn regardless, because we knew there were things that we were going to have to improve on going into next game. So mindset stays the same.\u201d<\/p>\n

When asked if the fanfare of the occasion influenced their struggles, Towns demurred and praised the crowd for their energy.<\/p>\n

\u201cOf course our fans brought it,\u201d said Towns, who had a quiet night of 11 points and eight rebounds after back-to-back double-doubles in San Antonio. \u201cOf course they lived up to the expectations. Exceeded them. We didn\u2019t do our job to give them something to cheer for [during] the game.\u201d<\/p>\n

After the Spurs raced out to an 11-point first-quarter lead, the Knicks swung the momentum back in their favor and out-scored San Antonio 42-24 in the second. Each time the Spurs threatened \u2013 at one point Wembanyama hit a three and slammed an alley-oop dunk in a span of 38 seconds \u2013 New York found an answer. Brunson lit up the crowd on a three with 41 seconds left in the first half, and Wembanyama\u2019s missed floater meant the Knicks went into the break up 64-57.<\/p>\n

Outside of Wembanyama and Castle, who combined for nearly half of their team\u2019s total points, the Spurs found a lifeline with 21 points off the Knicks\u2019 13 turnovers. Neither side managed to pull away in the third quarter, with the largest lead by either team being five.<\/p>\n

The Knicks\u2019 frustration over the officiating \u2013 \u201crefs, you suck!\u201d chants broke out at least three times throughout the night \u2013 boiled over in the fourth quarter. New York were whistled three times in the first 64 seconds of the period, and took just eight free throws in the second half to the Spurs\u2019 24.<\/p>\n

As Wembanyama ticked past the 30-point mark, Brunson kept the Knicks in the game with 12 points in the final period, but his teammates went just 3 for 20 from the field. A pair of threes by Brunson and Anunoby gave the crowd a jolt of hope, but a countering triple by De\u2019Aaron Fox and Castle\u2019s free throws silenced them.<\/p>\n

No NBA<\/a> team has lost the first two games of the finals on its home floor and come back to win the championship, but the Spurs\u2019 hopes of doing so remain alive.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The spectacle at Madison Square Garden on Monday night was such that the basketball almost took a back…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":693031,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[355,99],"class_list":["post-693030","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\/693030","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=693030"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/693030\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/693031"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=693030"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=693030"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=693030"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}