The San Antonio Spurs’ dream 2025-26 campaign is now over. After experiencing the high of dethroning the Oklahoma City Thunder in a hard-fought seven-game series in the Western Conference Finals, the Spurs are now heading towards the summer with a broken heart — losing the NBA Finals in five games to the New York Knicks, the team that was simply better in the end.
Game 5 saw the ever-familiar story of this year’s NBA Finals come back to bite the Spurs in the backside yet again. They built a double-digit lead, only for the Knicks to eat at it bit by bit until they could deliver the decisive blow late. San Antonio’s offense sputtered in the clutch once more, and it would prove to be the death knell of their season in a 94-90 loss on Sunday night.
The Spurs will keep their head high, as their team is full of pride about the way they played all season long. This is a resilient and talented bunch that should get back to this level within the next few years. But no team in the NBA, not even the Victor Wembanyama-led Spurs, can take open title windows for granted, as there is a non-zero chance that they never make it back.
With that, their repeated collapses in the fourth and inability to get it done in close games make their defeat in the 2026 NBA Finals all the more soul-crushing. But of course, the Spurs have no one to blame but themselves.
Victor Wembanyama falters in a trial by fire
Winning a title is never supposed to be easy, even for an all-time great in Wembanyama. The Spurs star is only in his first-ever playoff run, and he managed to bring his team all the way to the NBA Finals in a series they could’ve won had they been more composed and had they brought in more playoff-viable frontcourt depth that could’ve spared Wembanyama from logging such heavy minutes game after game.
Even the best are supposed to fall down sometimes. All-time greats have canon events they can look back on and say that that moment shaped them and spurred them into getting over the hump.
Michael Jordan had to overcome the Bad Boys Pistons and their pesky Jordan Rules. Shaquille O’Neal got swept in his first Finals appearance. Kobe Bryant barfed up a ton of airballs in the postseason before he morphed into a killer. LeBron James got swept in the Finals as well, and he faltered in the face of the Dallas Mavericks 15 years ago.
Even Stephen Curry had to face early-round playoff exits in his first postseason runs. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and the Thunder were humbled in 2024 before they became a world-beating squad in 2025.
The 2026 NBA Finals is Wembanyama’s canon event. He’ll always look back at this series as the one he let slip from his fingertips. The Game 1 giveaway where he dribbled the ball off his foot. The Game 2 backbreaking turnover off of Stephon Castle’s back. The Game 4 all-timer choke job in which he missed two clutch free throws, helping the Knicks back into the game.
And now, in Game 5, Wembanyama wasn’t much better in the clutch. He allowed Mitchell Robinson to secure an all-important offensive board for New York after a missed free throw, and he had another missed free throw to his name with the Knicks riding the momentum they had in the fourth to take the lead for good.
He missed a three that would have cut the Knicks’ lead to one in the dying embers. With the Knicks up by four, Wembanyama airballed a three-pointer with the clock nearing zero.
Make no mistake about it, Wembanyama is an elite player with a bright future. He’s only 22 years of age. Health permitting, the Spurs should be back on this stage sooner or later. But this Finals loss has got to sting. They gave away four winnable games, two of which they should have won beyond reasonable doubt had they executed (Game 2 and Game 4).
All that’s left for Wembanyama is to reach that next level, fueled by the spite that should grow within him as he watches the Knicks hoist the Larry O’Brien trophy on his home turf.
Are the Spurs sure that De’Aaron Fox is their guy?
The Spurs got Fox on a bargain trade; there shouldn’t be anyone who’s mad at them for trading away Tre Jones, Zach Collins, Sidy Cissoko, four first-round picks (one that didn’t even convey), and two second-round picks for the former Clutch Player of the Year.
After all, this young Spurs team badly needed a talent infusion if they were to take the next step in their contending journey, and veterans are very much invaluable to a team’s contending hopes. They hoped that Fox would be their guy, and they even gave him a four-year, $229 million extension.
But after the 2026 NBA Finals, the Spurs have to be pondering whether or not Fox is their man for the long haul. Fox had an out-and-out disaster in the NBA Finals, most notably giving away Game 4 with a rush of blood to his head moment when he took that layup over OG Anunoby, and he did not help matters at all in Game 5 — scoring just seven points on 3-15 shooting and being culpable for giving away the lad in the fourth.
At the 5:23 mark of the fourth, the Spurs were still on the high side, 83-79. Fox, from that point forward, missed all four of his shots. Every one of those misses was backbreaking, as the Knicks were charging hard and San Antonio could not stop the bleeding.
It’s not like Fox was missing good shots. He was clanking it from deep midrange, and he’s not nearly efficient enough of a jump shooter to be taking those shots with a literal NBA championship on the line.
Is Fox still dealing with a sore ankle? Perhaps. Even then, there’s no excuse for him to have crapped the bed to this degree in the biggest stage.
There simply are players who are not built for the moment. Time has shown this to be true over and over again. And as this year’s NBA Finals have shown, perhaps Fox is one of those players.
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