Category: Basketball

The 2026 NBA Finals are now upon us, and while it’ll involve games just a few train stops away from the Barclays Center, the Brooklyn Nets couldn’t be further from the championship stage right now. You all know this, but the Nets didn’t have the greatest season in the world this past year. They fell out of playoff contention with less resistance than a plane missing its wings.

However, being well-removed from something doesn’t mean you’re not connected. Growing up, my dog used to shed constantly. Her hair would get everywhere, especially in the summer, and especially on my clothes if I wasn’t paying attention. To this day, I’ll still occasionally find a strand of her’s on a shirt or pair of slacks, and much like the Nets, she’s been in the ground for years now.

While there are obvious ties to the New York Knicks, largely in the shape of Mikal Bridges, there’s far more “Brooklyn Nets residue” on these NBA Finals beyond that. Whether you’re the kind of person that’s friendly with your exes, or that kind that isn’t, here’s your guide for who to look out for.

The Obvious Ones

Indeed, Mikal Bridges is the strongest connect between Brooklyn and these NBA Finals. Brooklyn traded him for whopping five first round picks and a swap almost two summers ago now. The move drew applause from fans and analysts alike, as it allowed the Nets to reset after a failed season where they tried to position Bridges as their franchise player.

Be that as it may, if Bridges and his buddies are able to win it all this year, it’ll become near impossible to argue that Brooklyn won the trade. The Knicks haven’t won a Larry since 1973. Mikal is averaging 14.6/2.5/3.1 on 59/34/100 splits in the postseason.

However, Bridges isn’t the only consequential ex-Net hooping for New York right now. Landry Shamet, who played alongside Brooklyn’s big three at their full-might during the 2020-21 season, has also established himself as a key rotation piece. He’s shooting 21-35 from three in the postseason

One Deeper Cut

Who remembers Mason Plumlee? Brooklyn drafted this Duke product big back in 2013 and kept him for two seasons before sending him off on a journeymen’s path that’s now landed him in San Antonio. Plumlee only appeared in six games for the Spurs this season, but undoubtedly makes the list of of “guys you’d like to see get a ring” in this series.

Plumlee’s best moment in Brooklyn had to have been his game-winning block over LeBron James during an early April contest amid the 2013-24 season. Brooklyn eventually lost in a gentlemen’s sweep to Bron’s Miami Heat in the second round that year, but with that help from Plumlee, boasted a 4-0 regular season record against the defending champs. Foolishly or not, that made us believe for a time.

And if Plumlee gets a ring, he will have won three enviable championships, Duke’s NCAA title in 2010, Team USA’s FIBA World Cup title four years later and a Spurs NBA title.

From the Bench & Front Office

Sean Sweeney is about to take up head coaching duties with the Orlando Magic, but first wants to end his tenure as an associate head coach in San Antonio with a ring. Sweeney began his career as a video coordinator with the then New Jersey Nets in 2011. He ascended to an assistant coach role for the 2013-14 season under Jason Kidd, but then followed him to Milwaukee.

Maurice Cheeks isn’t known for his time with the Nets, but his Hall of Fame playing career ended in New Jersey during the team’s 1992-93 campaign. At 36 years old, he appeared in 35 games for the team. He’s now an assistant coach and special advisor for the Knicks.

Frank Zanin is a name you might be less familiar with, but the now Assistant GM in New York also served in that role from 2013-2016 with Brooklyu. A favorite of former GM Billy King was also Brooklyn’s Director of Player Procurement from 2012-2013.

Across Coaching Trees

While Knicks head coach Mike Brown has no direct correlation to the Nets franchise, it’s worth noting Jordi Fernández coached under him for two years in Sacramento and before that, was Brown’s son’s trainer. Both Brown and Fernandez coaches current Spurs De’Aaron Fox and Harrison Barnes on their rosters. Fernández also coached Plumlee for four years in Denver.

So who you rooting for and why?

I am not well.

Allow me to clarify. Physically, I’m doing great. I’ve been going on morning jogs more often; I’m working on eating well (though McDonald’s Japan just dropped spicy McNuggets, and I’m only a man). I feel energetic and healthy, despite my seared corneas due to my numerous hours spent playing Mina the Hollower on my Nintendo Switch 2.

Career-wise, I’m very pleased with my momentum, as I’m currently writing more than ever and broadening my horizons beyond the world of sports. I’m writing Utah Jazz content daily, and even recording a (rough) weekly podcast about the NBA and Utah’s place in it — apologies for that digging into my increasingly limited time and bandwidth for my posts on SLC Dunk. Add to that the fact that I even picked up work as a video games journalist (print and digital), and I’m booked. But incredibly happy.

But despite the positive momentum in my personal life, I bore witness to the Western Conference’s dramatic changing of the guard. I beheld as a 22-year-old Victor Wembanyama led his fledgling San Antonio Spurs past the flailing defenses of the title-defending Oklahoma City Thunder, and I cheered for the champion’s demise. And though I smiled as San Antonio claimed the Western crown, I know deep in my heart that San Antonio would be the team I cheer against this time a year from now. Should Wemby lead his forces to victory against the Knicks and their Villanovan power of friendship, the target of scrutiny will fall upon his goliath shoulders.

But that pressure doesn’t bother me; the natural ebb and flow from underdog to champion is the natural order of competition, and I have no stake in the Spurs’ well-being.

But knowing that the Utah Jazz intend to vie for a championship in the coming years, the road leads through San Antonio from this point forward — or Oklahoma City will win one back over their adversaries next season, and that’s not a whole lot better.

The Western Conference is controlled by warring titans, and the Utah Jazz’s chances of scaling the colossus do not do a lifelong Jazz fan well — very little does a lifelong Jazz fan well, come to think of it.

Thus, I am not well, for Utah is finally ready to compete, and I will be compelled to invest myself in their journey. I know what the Jazz are up against, and it does not inspire hope.

Fortunately, the Utah Jazz do not approach their inevitable clash with the West’s captors without a weapon, as I believe Utah’s lineup is shockingly well-equipped to brave the challenge before them. Matching Wembanyama with a single player is an effort in futility — there is no one player like Wemby — but the Utah Jazz can take a page from Billy Beane’s playbook and recreate Wembanyama in the aggregate.

Take a look at this highly scientific Venn Diagram, which should illustrate my point.

Get the picture?

I look to Utah’s front court tandem of Walker Kessler, one of basketball’s most effective shotblockers at 7’2”, and Jaren Jackson Jr., a former Defensive Player of the Year who can space the floor on the offensive end and has an undefeated record against Victor Wembanyama in head-to-head matchups. Were these games played before Wembanyama and the Spurs became the 60-win behemoth we see today? Yes. Do I choose to ignore logic for the sake of optimism? Also yes, as is my right as a fanatic.

The Spurs are a horrifying basketball team, and if history tells us anything, it’s that players like Wembanyama win plenty of championships. If the Utah Jazz — or any team in the NBA — want to take home the NBA Finals trophy, they’ve got to get through the Spurs.

That horrifies me to my core.

We’ll have to wait and see if they can keep their trajectory this year against New York.

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Calvin Barrett is a writer, editor, and prolific Mario Kart racer located in Tokyo, Japan. He has covered the NBA and College Sports since 2024.

The Spurs and Knicks will clash in the NBA Finals for the second time in NBA history, with New York looking to avenge the loss they suffered in 1999. The two teams had different paths to the ultimate destination, as San Antonio faced tougher competition, but it’s clear they are the class of their respective conferences. It’s set to be a heavyweight bout that could go either way.

Before the playoffs started, the general sentiment was that whoever came out of the West would be the champion, but it’s hard to count the Knicks out, considering how dominant they have looked and the success they had against the Spurs in the regular season and the Emirates NBA Cup. San Antonio is still the favorite according to FanDuel’s odds, but the gap has been closing leading up to the series to show that New York is not an ordinary underdog. The Silver and Black will have to be at their best to raise another banner.

The Spurs need to push the pace and hunt matchups on offense

For a team that features Jalen Brunson and Karl-Anthony Towns, the Knicks are a surprisingly good defensive squad. They have their identity, familiarity, and a group of versatile, long wings to thank for that. Josh Hart, OG Anunoby and Mikal Bridges can guard multiple positions and provide enough help when needed without surrendering too many open looks. Their turnover-averse offense allows them to force teams to play against a set defense that has flaws but also has the tools to hide them, and their elite rebounding doesn’t allow for many redos. It’s why pace will be so important in this series.

The Spurs are at their best when they attack early. Everybody knows that by now, but it can be hard to stop them because they have quick, aggressive guards who will push the pace given the opportunity. Against the Knicks, they will need to be even more assertive than ever to hunt those buckets in the first few seconds of the possession or to simply use pace to create mismatches when they are forced to slow down. Making New York uncomfortable is hard because of their ability to switch and adjust along the wing, but the best chance to do it is by catching them off guard and relentlessly targeting favorable matchups.

Defensive rebounding will be key to kick-starting transition opportunities, because the Knicks won’t cough the ball up often. New York has a size advantage at several positions and one of their keys to success against San Antonio will be to weaponize it on the glass. It’s not just about stopping them from getting the extra possessions but also about cleanly grabbing the board and passing ahead to start the attack. The more contested rebounds they have to fight for on their own end, the more the Silver and Black will be forced to play in the half-court on offense. Boxing out is not optional and gang rebounding is a must.

If the game does become a slow-paced affair, the Spurs will need to make the Knicks’ defense move while searching for the right matchup. Jalen Brunson will likely try to hide on Julian Champagnie, so getting Champagnie or whoever else Brunson is on involved in plays will be hugely important not only to tire out the engine of their offense but also to force New York to help, unlocking the three-point line for San Antonio’s shooters. Stephon Castle tends to initiate slowly on offense, which helps keep his turnovers in check, but in this series, pace in the half-court will be as important as pace on the open floor.

It will be interesting to see how the Knicks deal with Wembanyama, because it could determine how the series goes. Do they put bigs on him, play drop, and try to contain the pick and roll without sending help, risking buckets close to the rim? Do they stick Anunoby or Hart on him and switch or swarm, hoping that Wemby will be forced to take jumpers? There’s no perfect answer when it comes to stopping The Alien, but how the defense treats his matchups will determine whether Wemby can be helpful as a decoy, allowing him to save energy on the offensive end by just drawing attention as a dive man or as a floor-spacer.

As the series progresses, both coaches will make adjustments, but at first glance and at this point in the postseason, the offensive battle seems to be more about who gets to set the terms of engagement than about Xs and Os. If the Spurs can get points early in the offense after misses, figure out how to hunt matchups, and use Wembanyaama creatively, they should be able to keep up. If instead they play slow and try to grind possessions out with little movement, they could be in trouble.

On defense, it’s all about the possession game and the lessons from the Thunder series

The Spurs are coming off a series in which they faced an opponent who had an elite primary creator and a bunch of role players who weren’t great at manufacturing their own shots but fantastic at finishing the looks their superstar got for them directly or with his gravity. The Knicks are similar in that, outside of Jalen Brunson, they don’t have anyone who is a top-end bucket getter, but plenty of players who know what to do when they are open. One of the lessons from the Conference Finals is that sometimes it’s better to let a superstar get his points if it means others don’t contribute much.

The matchup-specific advantage of that strategy is that it could help the Spurs negate the massive size advantage New York has on the wing. Mitch Johnson could simply slot De’Aaron Fox on Brunson and live with the results, which would allow him to put Stephon Castle on Towns in a similar way in which he had him guarding Julius Randle. Now, the potential pitfalls of the strategy are clear and dangerous. A fully healthy Fox struggled against Brunson in the regular season. Once the Knicks superstar gets going, it’s almost impossible to stop him. If Wembanyama has to overhelp to prevent him from going off for 60, the glass will be open. But with no good way to hide Fox, it might just be worth putting him in the spotlight and luring the Knicks into having Brunson attack him while everyone else watches.

While it should be an option, the above might be too daring an approach to start the series. It’s more likely Mitch Johnson keeps it simple, at least early on. The best point of attack defender, Castle, will probably be on the opponent’s best creator. The Spurs can’t afford to have Wembanyama on Karl-Anthony Towns full-time, but they can have him start some possessions on him and use their unique one-man zone in which Wemby is always in help position. Towns could shoot over smaller defenders, and Josh Hart, the guy who Wemby would, on paper, guard, might get hot from outside, but San Antonio could live with that if the paint is protected. New York has two counters to that strategy, as they can go five out by taking Hart out, or they could use two bigs if Mitchell Robinson is available, to force Wemby to commit to guarding someone instead of roaming. But if they are forced to change their approach, it means the Spurs’ familiar strategies are working.

Whatever the Spurs decide to do on defense, they need to make sure it doesn’t leave them exposed in the glass. If Hart is left open, he can not only make San Antonio pay by hitting shots but also by crashing the boards from the corner, so someone needs to always be aware of where he is. If a smaller player guards Towns, they’ll need to put a body on him before he can get position inside once a shot goes up. Robinson will get his offensive boards because he’s elite at it and neither Wembanyama nor Luke Kornet, who was helpless against him in his time in Boston, should be able to keep him from recovering misses, but if he’s the only one doing the damage, the Silver and Black should be fine. After all, Wembanyama might be able to get points back on the other end if Robinson guards him.

If there was a recipe for guarding Brunson, the Knicks wouldn’t be in the Finals. He’ll get his points. The key for the Spurs will be to win the possession battle by not turning the ball over, limiting the amount of second-chance opportunities New York gets, and trying to keep anyone else from catching fire. Mike Brown’s team is great at grinding out games when they have to, and Brunson is an elite closer, so it won’t be easy to win even if the defense does its job. The key will be to not panic if things go awry but also not be scared to mix things up and make daring adjustments, as the Thunder series showed.

Prediction: Spurs in six

The Knicks are a machine. They carried over the successful identity they built under Tom Thibodeau and added depth and some more spice to their offense. They have been as impressive as any team in the postseason, even accounting for the lesser competition they faced compared to the Spurs. They are a horrible matchup for a San Antonio team that will be in a consistent size disadvantage, and for Victor Wembanyama, who might be forced to venture to the perimeter when Towns is out there and could exhaust himself trying to keep Robinson off the glass. And it might still not matter.

The Spurs, at their best, can steamroll opponents in different ways. If the transition buckets aren’t there, they have the creators and the finishers to use simple actions to get open looks. If the open looks aren’t there, they have shot-makers and guards that will relentlessly test the defense with drives, brute-forcing their way to the line. And they have Victor Wembanyama, the most impactful two-way force in the league, locked in and ready for the challenge.

Both teams have advantages that they should be able to exploit, but if the Spurs’ young talent plays to its full potential, with Wemby leading the way, San Antonio could come out on top in what will surely be a close series.

Dillon Brooks continues to draw attention during the offseason. First, he showed up to see LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers get eliminated by the Oklahoma City Thunder, which produced a viral meme. Next, he formed a partnership with Underdog Sports, making fun of NBA MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander’s flopping, which prompted SGA’s team to send a cease-and-desist letter to Underdog.

Now, he’s completed flight school, according to his Instagram. Posts about his accomplishment have received more than a million views online.

Congrats to Dillon Brooks on finishing flight school 🫡 pic.twitter.com/d0841xl9pa

— NBACentral (@TheDunkCentral) June 1, 2026

While the Suns have been eliminated for about a month and a half now, Brooks seems to be enjoying the public spotlight he’s put himself in since the Suns have been eliminated, as he keeps sharing what’s new in his life.

Now 30 years old, he’s entering his second season with Phoenix, has one more year left on his deal, and is eligible for a 4-year, $125 million extension. He was one of the main reasons the Suns surprised many this season, averaging a career-high 20 points per game and bringing defensive energy and tenacity to the squad. The team acquired him along with Jalen Green and Khaman Maluach when they dealt Kevin Durant to the Houston Rockets last offseason.

Just like he did in the regular season and playoffs, Brooks and his actions remain a topic of conversation.