No team has ever won the NBA Finals after losing Games 1 and 2 at home. The Spurs are just the third team in NBA Finals history to lose the first two games on their home floor, joining the 1993 Phoenix Suns and 1995 Orlando Magic. The Suns lost to Michael Jordan’s Bulls in six games. The Magic were swept by Hakeem Olajuwon’s Rockets.
San Antonio kept its season from sliding toward a historic dead end with a 115-111 win over the New York Knicks in Game 3 of the NBA Finals at Madison Square Garden. The Knicks still lead the series 2-1, but the Spurs have turned this from a difficult hole into one of the most fascinating comeback chases in Finals history.
The Spurs’ Game 3 win also created another rare historical wrinkle. This is just the second NBA Finals in which the road team has won each of the first three games. The other was the 1993 Bulls-Suns series, which is suddenly the cleanest comparison for this matchup.
Victor Wembanyama made sure the Spurs got on the board with a stellar 32 points, eight rebounds, six assists, two steals, and three blocks. He’s been individually stellar in this series, posting averages of 29 PPG, 9.7 RPG, and 3.3 BPG. He’s shooting .467/.316/.833, and if his three ball ever fully wakes up, it’s going to get much scarier in the next decade for the rest of the league. Stephon Castle added 23 points, including key late fourth-quarter production and an absolute deep three grenade deserving, and receiving, of a Mike Breen “Bang”. San Antonio snapped New York’s 13-game postseason winning streak.
That streak was the second-longest postseason winning streak in NBA history, behind only the 2017 Golden State Warriors’ 15-game run.
The Spurs are still in a brutal spot. Only five of the previous 37 teams to fall behind 2-0 in the NBA Finals came back to win the championship, and all five started the series on the road. San Antonio lost the first two at home, making this comeback even steeper.
Still, this series has been close enough to keep the door open. The Spurs held a 14-point lead in Game 1 and a 12-point lead in Game 2 before finally closing the deal in Game 3, proving that they can hang around. It also helps that Jalen Brunson, New York’s main offensive weapon, has been quiet in this series, shooting a putrid 37% from the floor in three games while taking 27 FGA. He’s letting it fly out there with zero recourse.
The Knicks do not want to drop Game 4 at home. If the Knicks win, they’ll move within one victory of their first championship since 1973. If the Spurs win, the series is tied heading back to San Antonio, and the Spurs’ chase for a never-before-seen Finals comeback becomes the biggest story in basketball.
