{"id":701372,"date":"2026-06-13T08:30:10","date_gmt":"2026-06-13T08:30:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/701372\/"},"modified":"2026-06-13T08:30:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-13T08:30:10","slug":"nba-finals-wemby-spurs-still-believers-even-while-down-3-1-to-knicks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/701372\/","title":{"rendered":"NBA Finals: Wemby, Spurs still believers, even while down 3-1 to Knicks"},"content":{"rendered":"

SAN ANTONIO — Victor Wembanyama, the tallest man in these NBA Finals, is about to face the tallest order of his basketball career.<\/p>\n

And he’s fine with that.<\/p>\n

Wembanyama and the San Antonio Spurs — who just became the first team in NBA Finals history to lead a game by 29 points and still lose — need to win the next three games, or they’ll watch the New York Knicks celebrate a championship at their expense. When the Spurs gathered for practice on Friday, Wembanyama insisted the belief within the Spurs camp is still there.<\/p>\n

“Everybody thinks, everybody knows, we’re going to do it,” Wembanyama said.<\/p>\n

If he was nervous, he hid it well. The 7-4 French star has helped the Spurs stave off elimination twice already in these playoffs, after San Antonio won Games 6 and 7 of the Western Conference finals against Oklahoma City and ended the Thunder’s reign as NBA champions.<\/p>\n

Now, the Spurs have to do it again on Saturday in Game 5 against the Knicks. And if they win Saturday, they’ll have to do it again in Game 6 on Tuesday. And if they win Tuesday, a Game 7 awaits next Friday.<\/p>\n

“I feel like we need to isolate that one game and take it one game at a time,” Wembanyama said. “I think it would be a mistake to waste our energy on multiple games. It’s one game at a time.”<\/p>\n

The Spurs led Game 1 by 14 points and lost by 10. They led Game 2 by 12 points and lost by one. They won Game 3 by four, then had the 29-point lead in Game 4 and lost by one.<\/p>\n

Clearly, they know how to get into position to beat the Knicks.<\/p>\n

They just haven’t finished it off in three of the four games. And now, they will try to be just the second team in NBA Finals history to successfully rally from a 3-1 series deficit; Cleveland did it against Golden State in 2016. The other 37 teams that have tried to do so all failed.<\/p>\n

“It definitely matters,” Spurs guard Stephon Castle said. “I feel like we’ve made history all year, and we’ve proven that with our backs against the wall that we can step up. So, I don’t really expect this to be any different.”<\/p>\n

Neither does Wembanyama.<\/p>\n

The Spurs know they’re good enough. They’ve had the leads. They’ve won every first quarter, then frittered those advantages away. In Game 3, they recovered. In Games 1, 2 and 4, they didn’t. In Game 5, they’ll have to — or else.<\/p>\n

“You said all of it,” Wembanyama said. “We’re very confident. I wouldn’t say it was so hard to shake off (Game 4). Harder than any other game before, by far, for sure. I mean, now we’re over it. It’s the playoffs. There’s no time to regret things for too long.”<\/p>\n

SPURS FANS HOPEFUL<\/p>\n

With the Spurs down 3-1, thousands of Knicks fans are expected to be in San Antonio for Game 5 of the series on Saturday night, and only a comeback of historic proportions will deny New York a title now.<\/p>\n

Are Spurs fans worried? Maybe.<\/p>\n

Do Spurs fans still believe? Absolutely.<\/p>\n

Among the team’s slogans is the phrase “Por Vida.” Translated, it means “For Life.” Generations of fans in San Antonio have held those words dear through the eras led by George Gervin to David Robinson to Tim Duncan to, now, Victor Wembanyama. And even now, with the Knicks on the brink of winning this championship, the words ring true among Spurs fans.<\/p>\n

“With absolute certainty, always,” Joe Michael Benavides, the boys basketball coach at Hebbronville High School — some 150 miles from San Antonio — said when asked if he was still a Spurs fan.<\/p>\n

There are many like Benavides. Frost Bank Center will be electric when the Spurs take the floor on Saturday night, with the stands filled by those who wore San Antonio silver and black to the game.<\/p>\n

There will be a copious amount of New York blue and orange in there as well.<\/p>\n

There are some fans who sold their tickets on secondary markets for Game 5. It’s unclear how many, but with prices topping $1,500 apiece in the highest rows and reaching $5,000 or more in the lower level — big money for sure, yet a sliver of what Knicks fans paid for Games 3 and 4 — it’s easy to see why some ticketholders are making business decisions instead of basketball ones.<\/p>\n

“Of course I’m upset with Spurs fans selling their tickets, but if they can’t afford ’em, nothing can be done,” said Rick Vela, known to Spurs fans as the “Masked Bandido Of San Antonio.” “Just sad these Knicks fans have to buy ’em, but their arena is way worse with those ticket prices.”<\/p>\n

Spurs guard De’Aaron Fox understands.<\/p>\n

“People are making money,” Fox said. “It’s the economy we live in. It’s the world we live in. Am I upset about it? No. Do I understand it? Sure. I don’t think that changes what happens on the court.”<\/p>\n

It is not a frontrunning fan base in San Antonio. The city celebrated five NBA championships and a record-setting run of 22 straight postseason appearances under Hall of Famer Gregg Popovich, but Spurs fans also suffered for decades.<\/p>\n

There was the heartbreak of blowing a 3-1 lead to the then-Washington Bullets in the 1979 Eastern Conference finals. Mention Derek Fisher’s game-winning jumper with 0.4 seconds in Game 5 that helped the Los Angeles Lakers win the 2004 NBA Western Conference semifinals at your own peril in this city; it’ll go over as well as saying, “I dislike cowboy hats.” And the pain of Wednesday night’s blown 29-point lead has not subsided either.<\/p>\n

The Spurs are the only major pro team in town. There’s no Yankees, no Mets, no Nets, no Rangers, no Islanders, no Devils, no Liberty, no NYCFC, no Red Bulls here. The Spurs are San Antonio’s everything.<\/p>\n

“They’re still there for us,” said Rene Gonzalez, still proudly flying a Spurs car flag on his truck. “They still bring this community together.”<\/p>\n

Those who think trailing 3-1 in the NBA Finals is going to darken the spirits of Spurs fans might get a two-word answer in San Antonio.<\/p>\n

\u00bfEstas loco?<\/p>\n

You’re crazy.<\/p>\n

“All year these boys have proven everyone wrong,” said Raylyn Boyson, a member of the Spurs superfan group, The Jackals, born from an idea by Wembanyama to have San Antonio fans mimic what happens at games in his native Europe. “There’s no reason why we shouldn’t keep believing. If anyone is going to defy all odds, it’s this group.”<\/p>\n

Information for this article was contributed by Raul Dominguez of the Associated Press.<\/p>\n

\"SanSan Antonio Spurs forward Victor Wembanyama speaks during a news conference prior to Game 5 of the NBA Finals basketball series against the New York Knicks, Friday, June 12, 2026, in San Antonio. (AP Photo\/Ross D. Franklin)\"SanSan Antonio Spurs forward Victor Wembanyama speaks during a news conference prior to Game 5 of the NBA Finals basketball series against the New York Knicks, Friday, June 12, 2026, in San Antonio. (AP Photo\/Ross D. Franklin)\"SanSan Antonio Spurs forward Victor Wembanyama speaks during a news conference prior to Game 5 of the NBA Finals basketball series against the New York Knicks, Friday, June 12, 2026, in San Antonio. (AP Photo\/Ross D. Franklin)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN ANTONIO — Victor Wembanyama, the tallest man in these NBA Finals, is about to face the tallest…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":701373,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[355,99],"class_list":["post-701372","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\/701372","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=701372"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/701372\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/701373"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=701372"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=701372"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=701372"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}