Limiting Wembanyama becomes the Knicks' top challenge! ESPN predicts the Finals: Spurs win the championship 4-2

On June 2, Beijing time, ESPN previewed the Knicks vs. Spurs Finals, noting that limiting Wembanyama would be the Knicks' top issue, and forecasted a Spurs 4-2 victory over the Knicks for the championship. Here is what was covered—

The foremost difficulty for the Knicks in this series: containing Victor Wembanyama. This 22-year-old has been the best all-around performer in these playoffs. He has played 15 complete postseason games (excluding early exits due to injury or ejections), and in those 15 games, the Spurs outscored opponents in 14 of them during his minutes on the floor.

The Knicks have two defensive plans for Wembanyama, which they mixed during the regular season. One is to use a big interior player (typically Karl-Anthony Towns, or Mitchell Robinson if available) to match his height and strength; the other is to switch to a shorter, more physically sturdy defender like OG Anunoby.

In regular-season matchups, Towns defended Wembanyama one-on-one with reasonable effectiveness, even making a nice steal on a drive. However, if Towns is tasked with guarding Wembanyama for most of the Finals, his tendency to foul could become a fatal flaw. The Knicks need Towns on the floor, especially with Robinson's injury status uncertain, and Wembanyama averages 6.8 fouls drawn per game in the playoffs.

Anunoby, on the other hand, might be the best perimeter player in the league at preventing Wembanyama from getting into position and receiving passes. In the Western Conference Finals, the Thunder tried using smaller wings like Jalen Williams and Alex Caruso to hound Wembanyama, but eventually abandoned that approach because Wembanyama physically overpowered them. At 6'7" and 240 pounds, Anunoby is much harder to simply overpower.

The Spurs lack a top-tier wing scorer that Anunoby would normally need to guard, so Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau can assign Anunoby to shadow Wembanyama full-time, letting Towns switch onto opposing perimeter shooters for mismatches.

Over the past month, the Knicks have been playing fluid, highly entertaining basketball. Against the Spurs, they have several advantages that even the top-seeded Thunder didn't possess. Josh Hart will exploit the Spurs' tendency to leave him open for efficient scoring in at least one game, possibly more. The size and length of Towns and Anunoby also give the Knicks an edge offensively when attacking a Spurs defense that lacks Wembanyama inside.

The Knicks enter the Finals with fresher legs: they swept the Eastern Conference Finals and rested for over a week. In contrast, the Spurs' core players logged heavy minutes after a grueling seven-game series against the Thunder. Yet the challenge the Spurs present is far greater than any opponent the Knicks have faced this postseason. The Hawks, Cavaliers, and 76ers ranked 10th, 15th, and 17th in regular-season defensive efficiency, while the Spurs rank 3rd. The Cavaliers and 76ers each needed three Game 7s to advance to face the Knicks, and those two teams combined for a 12-9 record against non-Knicks opponents in the playoffs. Meanwhile, the Spurs' victims—the Timberwolves and Thunder—had a combined 12-2 playoff record before meeting San Antonio.

Additionally, the injury landscape has flipped over the past week. Earlier, the Knicks were fully healthy while Spurs guards De'Aaron Fox and Jared Harper were dealing with injuries, giving New York the luck. But now those two guards have rebounded strongly in the later stages of the West Finals, while Mitchell Robinson underwent surgery, casting doubt on the Knicks' rebounding depth and interior strength behind Towns.

If the Knicks can sustain their three-point shooting percentage while holding opponents to historically low marks from deep, all those variables become irrelevant. With that level of offensive and defensive performance alone, they could win the franchise's first championship in years.

However, the prediction is that the two teams' strengths will be evenly matched, but the Spurs' dominant defense will dictate the series. Victor Wembanyama will follow in the footsteps of Tim Duncan and Kawhi Leonard, winning Finals MVP at age 22 as the Spurs take the title 4-2 in six games.