Spurs panic meter after 24-point turnaround in NBA Finals Game 1 loss to Knicks

On Wednesday evening, the San Antonio Spurs dropped to 0-1 in their NBA Finals series against the New York Knicks with a tough 105-95 home loss. The Spurs led this one by as many as 14 points in the second half before falling apart down the stretch, and now face what is essentially a must-win contest in Game 2.

Spurs panic meter: 4

There are a couple of different schools of thought pertaining to the Spurs’ Game 1 collapse. On the one hand, many things went wrong for San Antonio in this one, with Victor Wembanyama suffering through one of his worst games of the season, De’Aaron Fox struggling mightily with his shot, and the team overall looking to still be getting their legs under them as they were coming off a seven-game series with the Oklahoma City Thunder.

However, on the other hand, Jalen Brunson shot poorly for the Knicks, Mikal Bridges and Josh Hart combined for just 12 points, and New York didn’t get much from its bench outside of a few threes from Landry Shamet. At least a couple of those factors figure to swing back in the Knicks’ direction moving forward, so the Spurs can’t just rely solely on regression to the mean to get them back in this series.

Overall, the Spurs looked like the better team for the majority of the game on Wednesday, but there is certainly something to be said about performance in crunch time, where the Knicks thoroughly out-executed a San Antonio team that looked very much their age in the game’s biggest moments.

Still, the Spurs have already accumulated some meaningful experience so far in these playoffs, and they’re not going to start panicking now. After all, San Antonio was down 0-1 in their second round series against the Minnesota Timberwolves, and down 3-2 in the Western Conference Finals against the Thunder, and rallied to win both of those matchups.

Moving forward, the Spurs will need Wemby to play much more under control, and they will also want to try to have Stephon Castle stick to Brunson on defense, particularly down the stretch of close games, as much as possible.

If they can do some things, and if Fox is able to shoot just average from the field, the Spurs should be able to tie this one up on Friday.

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