Wembanyama, Spurs stun Knicks at MSG to revive Finals hopes

NEW YORK — Facing a 2-0 deficit in the NBA Finals, the San Antonio Spurs quietly clung to confidence, believing that “if we play our brand of basketball up to our standard, we’ll be just fine,” coach Mitch Johnson said.

The visiting Spurs proved as much in a 115-111 Game 3 win over the New York Knicks on a chaotic Monday night at Madison Square Garden in which Area 51 — composed of No. 5 Stephon Castle and No. 1 Victor Wembanyama — became the first pair of teammates age 22 or younger to each score 20 points or more in a Finals game.

Wembanyama poured in a game-high-tying 32 points to go with eight rebounds, six assists and three blocks, and Castle contributed 23 points, five rebounds and five assists as San Antonio ended New York’s 13-game postseason winning streak. The Spurs’ duo combined for 55 points, their most in a game this postseason that didn’t go to overtime.

“I really tried to relax,” said Wembanyama, who joined Tim Duncan as the only other Spur to score 25 points or more in three consecutive Finals games. “The playoffs, it’s like a whirlwind. It’s hard to put your head out of the water. Sometimes, I don’t even have time to watch the games back right away. I need some time off to let my brain cool down, recover. Recover as much for the body as for the mind.”

Wembanyama endeavored to reach that goal by unwinding at Gramercy Park, where he sketched a picture of the statue of Edwin Booth, the brother of John Wilkes Booth, who in 1865 assassinated President Abraham Lincoln.

“I drew the statue of that park,” Wembanyama said. “Not bad, pretty good.”

San Antonio avoided dropping three consecutive games for the first time this season with a return to what Johnson has described as the team’s “standard.” The Spurs played hard-nosed defense, constantly attacked the paint with guards Castle, De’Aaron Fox and rookie Dylan Harper, and played unselfishly in distributing 28 assists, led by Fox who dished a game-high eight to go with his 12 points.

Six Spurs scored in double figures as San Antonio took a double-digit lead in the first quarter, just as it had done in the two previous games of the series, both losses.

“We made some strides in terms of the ball movement and playing with our teammates, setting screens, trusting the basketball would find the right guy for our shot,” Johnson said. “We showed better poise at times. We finished the game still with some things that need improvement, but stronger than we did the last few games.

“We were in attack mode, but also as a collective group, it showed itself in terms of something would happen, whether it was an initial action or a guy trying to get to the paint. If they didn’t have a clear advantage, they were looking for their teammates. Because we were doing that throughout the night, it was much clearer for teammates to expect where the ball was going and when it was going to get to them, and then what to do with it when it got to them.”

In the postgame locker room, Keldon Johnson explained why the Spurs believe so strongly in their brand of basketball, which was established by former head coach Gregg Popovich and currently stewarded by Mitch Johnson.

“We don’t know nothing else,” the NBA Sixth Man of the Year told ESPN. “It’s like Vic said, we don’t know what’s possible or impossible. We just know when we play our brand of basketball, we can play with anybody they put in front of us.”

That includes the Knicks, despite challenging circumstances around the game. President Donald Trump watched Game 3 from the suite of Knicks owner James Dolan, becoming the first sitting president to attend an NBA Finals game. That led to increased security measures throughout Manhattan and Madison Square Garden, where the United States Secret Service took over for the usual gameday staff, leading to longer wait times for fans and players alike.

San Antonio’s team hotel was located approximately a half-mile from Madison Square Garden. But even with a police escort, it took nearly 30 minutes for the Spurs to arrive, multiple sources said.

Inside the arena, San Antonio faced a raucous sellout crowd of nearly 20,000 packed with plenty of celebrities smiling and glad-handing, optimistic about the prospects of a four-game sweep.

San Antonio’s win in Game 3 marked only the second time in NBA Finals history that the road team emerged victorious in the first three games of the series.

“It’s their first Finals game in 30 years,” Castle said. “We expected it to be loud in there. We said coming into the game they’re going to have their runs. They’re going to make shots. When that happens, just stick together, stay poised. We did that for a majority of the 48 minutes.

“I don’t know if I would say ‘relief.’ We still haven’t really done anything. We’re still down 2-1. Whether we won or lost this game, the series wouldn’t have been over for us. It feels good to win, especially on the road after dropping two bad ones. Our confidence has been the same throughout this series regardless of what happened.”