{"id":131697,"date":"2026-06-03T09:30:35","date_gmt":"2026-06-03T15:30:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/game-1-spurs-and-knicks-set-to-open-the-nba-finals-on-wednesday-night-in-san-antonio\/"},"modified":"2026-06-03T09:30:35","modified_gmt":"2026-06-03T15:30:35","slug":"game-1-spurs-and-knicks-set-to-open-the-nba-finals-on-wednesday-night-in-san-antonio","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/game-1-spurs-and-knicks-set-to-open-the-nba-finals-on-wednesday-night-in-san-antonio\/","title":{"rendered":"Game 1: Spurs and Knicks set to open the NBA Finals on Wednesday night in San Antonio"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"San
San Antonio Spurs head coach Mitch Johnson speaks to the media prior to the start of the NBA Finals basketball series against the New York Knicks, Tuesday, June 2, 2026, in San Antonio. (AP Photo\/Eric Gay)<\/span>(AP Photo\/Eric Gay)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

SAN ANTONIO (AP) \u2014 For the San Antonio Spurs and New York Knicks, Game 1 of the NBA Finals might feel like old times.<\/p>\n

It’s the Knicks’ ninth time in the title series, and the eighth time they’ve played Game 1 on the road. It’s the Spurs’ seventh time in the title series, and the sixth time they’ve played Game 1 at home.<\/p>\n

Granted, a good amount of time has passed for both teams since they’ve been on this stage: The Knicks haven’t played in the finals since losing to the Spurs in 1999, and the Spurs haven’t been there since beating the Miami Heat in 2014.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we\u2019re just locked in and focused on the task at hand,\u201d Knicks forward Josh Hart said. \u201cThen we can look back when everything is all said and done and really embrace this process and this run. It\u2019s an honor, but can\u2019t focus too much on the outside world and the run so far.\u201d<\/p>\n

The run the Knicks are on coming into this series is without compare: 11 straight wins by a total of 262 points, the most lopsided 11-game run \u2014 regular season or playoffs \u2014 in NBA history.<\/p>\n

The Spurs have a different kind of streak going into Wednesday night. They’ve never lost Game 1 of the NBA Finals, going 6-0 in openers when they make the title round.<\/p>\n

Most players on both teams are making their finals debuts in this series. Spurs guard De’Aaron Fox said it’s still going to be important for his team to remember how they got to the finals in the first place.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a hard thing to do. It\u2019s hard to get back to these places,\u201d Fox said. \u201cDon\u2019t change anything that we\u2019re doing. There\u2019s a reason that we\u2019re in the finals. There\u2019s a reason that we won (62) games. There\u2019s a reason we didn\u2019t lose three games in a row the whole year. So, we don\u2019t want to get to this place and then start changing the way we play.\u201d<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

AP NBA: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/nba<\/a><\/p>\n

\"New
New York Knicks head coach Mike Brown speaks to the media prior to the start of the NBA Finals basketball series against the San Antonio Spurs, Tuesday, June 2, 2026, in San Antonio. (AP Photo\/Eric Gay)<\/span>(AP Photo\/Eric Gay)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Antonio Spurs head coach Mitch Johnson speaks to the media prior to the start of the NBA Finals basketball series against the New York Knicks, Tuesday, June 2, 2026, in San Antonio. (AP Photo\/Eric Gay)(AP Photo\/Eric Gay) SAN ANTONIO (AP) \u2014 For the San Antonio Spurs and New York Knicks, Game 1 of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":131698,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5734],"tags":[],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-131697","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-associated-press"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131697","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=131697"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131697\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/131698"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=131697"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=131697"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=131697"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=131697"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}