The San Antonio Spurs find themselves in a precarious position after blowing a 14-point lead in Game 1 of the NBA Finals.
Instead of being up 1-0 and favorites to win the title, the Spurs lost the game, home-court advantage and are now series underdogs.
That said, they are a consensus 6.5-point favorite ahead of Game 2 at home on Friday night. Win, and San Antonio goes to New York with the series split. Los, and the Spurs face the prospect of not even getting the series back home for Game 5.
ODDS & TRENDS
The moneyline action has been nearly split at DraftKings, with the Spurs backed by 52% of the total bets. However, the Knicks as 6.5-point underdogs has drawn 58% of th spread-line action.
The line opened at 5.5 at BetMGM but ticked up a full point with th Knicks backed by 60% of the bets and 84% of th money. New York’s +190 ML has also drawn 75% and 60% of the action, respectively.
PLAYER PROPS
–Knicks G Josh Hart Under 11.5 Points (-120 at BetMGM): This has been the most popular player prop at the book with Hart managing only 3 points in Game 1. That was after scoring only 6 points in Game 4 of the Eastern Conference finals, although he did average 14.3 points during the four-game sweep of Cleveland.
–Spurs F Victor Wembanyama 25+ Points (-203 at DraftKings): Many are expecting a massive rebound from Wembanyama, who managed 26 points while shooting only 28.6% from the floor in Game 1. He averaged 27.3 points during the seven-game series against Oklahoma City, and 26.4 points pr game at home this season.
THE NEWS
Jalen Brunson was the scoring machine for the Knicks in Game 1, putting up 13 of his 30 points in the final quarter. Brunson also played through injuries — right knee, left ankle — sustained during the first half of the contest.
New York closed Game 1 with an 11-0 run to leave the Spurs bruised and battered on the home floor.
San Antonio was just 6-of-21 from the field and committed five turnovers while being outscored by 10 in the final quarter.
The Spurs are loaded with players who are part of their first NBA Finals, but coach Mitch Johnson insisted youth wasn’t the reason for the shaky play down the stretch.
“Old teams make bad decisions, too, at the end of games,” Johnson said. “It’s looking at a picture, understand if you see that moving forward, whatever that pattern is, whatever led to that situation, if you can recognize it and make a better decision next time or understand maybe where there’s a better opportunity to look for an advantage, we’ll try to help them with that.”
Perhaps the biggest symbol of their defeat was Wembanyama’s 6-of-21 shooting. The Frenchman also committed six turnovers.
He maintained that he didn’t succumb to the pressure of his first game on the ultimate NBA stage. Wembanyama also received a text from legendary director of basketball operations Gregg Popovich about his performance.
“In the big lines, it was that I’ve been bad and I’m better than this,” Wembanyama said of what Popovich’s message entailed.
Wembanyama did contribute 26 points, 12 rebounds and three blocked shots.
One San Antonio player missing in action was De’Aaron Fox, who scored seven points on 3-of-13 shooting and was regularly assigned to defend Brunson.
Fox stated the obvious Thursday — he’s got to shoot better — while also reminding people that Wednesday’s game counts as just one loss.
“We know it’s a long series,” Fox said. “Obviously you want to win every game that you have on your home court, but it’s not the way it happens every day. We try to go in and fix the things we need to fix. Obviously we want a different outcome.”
PREDICTION
The stage is now set for a potentially dramatic series, but only if the Spurs can rebound to win Game 2. Really, it would be difficult for them to play worse than they did from 14 points up to losing by 10 on Wednesday night. –Spurs 107, Knicks 103
