For the New York Knicks, it’s 13 wins down, three more to go. The NBA Finals is far from over — the Indiana Pacers won Game 1 last season, after all — but the San Antonio Spurs suddenly find themselves in a must-win situation at home for Game 2.
Game 2 will tip off at 8:30 p.m. ET tonight at the Frost Bank Center in San Antonio, and the Spurs have traded the fiesta-colored shirts for black, grit-and-grind determination taking the place of euphoric celebration.
For tonight’s pivotal contest, only one player is on the injury report for either team; Knicks backup center Mitchell Robinson, who broke his pinky in between the Eastern Conference Finals and the start of this series, is probable.
San Antonio is a 5.5-point favorite at DraftKings Sportsbook (-218 on the Moneyline), with the point total set to 215.5. New York is +180 on the Moneyline. Below, I’ve broken down my three favorite prop bets from tonight’s critical contest.
Victor Wembanyama 40+ Points + Rebounds (-105)
Wembanyama played about as badly as he possibly could have in Game 1, going an uncharacteristic one-for-seven on non-restricted area twos, and he still recorded 26 points and 12 rebounds. Of course, that doesn’t guarantee that he’ll be any better in Game 2, but he’s shown the ability to bounce back in the past, following up a Game 5 stinker in the Western Conference Finals with a 28-point, 10-rebound effort in Game 6 that likely would’ve gotten over the 40 P/R threshold had the score been more competitive. His damage on Wednesday mostly came from the charity stripe, and that should be sustainable, given that he had 21 regular season games and five playoff games with double-digit free throw attempts.
The Knicks played excellent defense on Wembanyama, as Karl-Anthony Towns more than held his own, limiting him to just two-for-11 shooting in 45.9 partial possessions and only fouling him three times. Wembanyama also shot just five attempts in the restricted area, one fewer than he did during the regular season (on average), but he also finished anomalously poorly for a guy who shot 11-for-12 (91.7%) in the restricted area in the teams’ two regular season matchups. In the long run, the Towns matchup shouldn’t be so bad for Wembanyama; though Towns is strong and relatively agile for his size, he ranked in just the 32nd percentile in rim points saved per 100 possessions during the regular season. Wembanyama also hauled in just 54.2% of his rebound chances, nearly 12 percentage points lower than his efficiency during the regular season.
Landry Shamet 3+ Three-Pointers Made (+196)
When Shamet signed a non-guaranteed, veteran minimum contract with New York in the offseason, he surely didn’t expect that he’d play the third-most minutes on the team in Game 1 of the NBA Finals, but his shooting has proven invaluable, especially in luring Wembanyama away from the paint. Shamet is on an all-time tear, going 20-for-27 (74.1%) from beyond the arc across his last seven games, and he’s hit three or more threes in five of his last six. Game 1 represented his sixth-highest minutes total of the season, and he might receive slightly fewer in Game 2 given that some of his minutes came with Jalen Brunson in the locker room injured, but given the Knicks’ torrid pace, it’s hard to see Mike Brown changing his rotations too much.
In Game 1, the Spurs allowed 14 wide-open threes, which was actually an anomalously strong performance; for the playoffs as a whole, they’ve allowed 18.5 uncontested triples per game. They’ve also allowed among the most catch-and-shoot threes and the most corner threes per game, and they’ve been even more vulnerable with Luke Kornet manning the middle in Wembanyama’s stead, a look Shamet is more likely to see as a bench player. Shamet has shot 62.5% on wide-open threes, 60.0% on catch-and-shoot threes, and 76.9% on corner threes so far these playoffs, and even if he regresses to his regular season percentages, he shot at least 41.5% on each look in the regular season. For San Antonio, giving up four corner three-point attempts to a player who’s shot 38.6% from deep for his career isn’t a good idea.
Dylan Harper 15+ Points (+127)
It’s unclear whether Mitch Johnson will adjust his rotations to give Harper more minutes than De’Aaron Fox, given Fox’s contract and his status as one of the team’s veteran leaders, but in Game 1, Fox scored seven points on three-for-13 shooting and Harper had 16 points on six-for-10 shooting. Harper also had a better on-court net rating during both the regular season and the playoffs despite playing fewer minutes alongside Wembanyama, and he’s been more capable of putting pressure on the rim and better at finishing than Fox throughout the playoffs. Increasing Harper’s minutes in Game 2 wouldn’t guarantee a win, but it would be a simple, no-nonsense adjustment that Johnson would be widely-panned not to make.
New York simply isn’t built to stop Harper as well as it can Fox. In Game 1, Harper was guarded most frequently by Mikal Bridges, who’s a good defender but doesn’t consistently have the strength to swallow Harper’s momentum at full speed. Meanwhile, the Knicks chose to guard Fox mostly with OG Anunoby, arguably their best perimeter stopper. Perhaps those priorities will change if Johnson starts running the offense more through Harper, but I’d still expect that Harper’s strength, shiftiness, and superior finishing would make him more capable of beating Anunoby than Fox has been. Plus, New York is occasionally prone to give up easy threes, and Harper’s jumper has been more reliable than Fox’s as of late.
