Knicks own the glass, setting up Game 1 stakes

Knicks dominated – Over three regular-season meetings with the Spurs—including the NBA Cup final—the New York Knicks scored 125.0 points per 100 possessions with relentless efficiency. The swing keeps pointing to the same place: offensive rebounding and second-chance production,

San Antonio has built a reputation on stopping opponents from getting second chances. It still got crushed there.

In the Knicks’ three meetings with the Spurs this season—regular-season matchups and the NBA Cup final—New York scored an efficient 125.0 points per 100 possessions. That number isn’t just good. It’s tied for the Knicks’ sixth-best mark against any opponent across those three regular-season games.

The Spurs were ranked third in the regular season defensively, allowing 110.4 points per 100 possessions. Yet in these matchups, only one team—the Nuggets—scored more efficiently against San Antonio than New York did.

Even when the shooting line looked less clean, the Knicks kept finding ways to create extra possessions. Their best shooting game of the three came in a two-point loss in San Antonio on Dec. 31. In their two wins. their effective field-goal percentage landed a little below the league average—but the production still showed up.

The details are blunt. In the NBA Cup final, the Knicks turned 23 offensive rebounds into 32 second-chance points. On March 1, in New York, they grabbed 18 offensive boards and cashed them into 23 second-chance points.

Across the three games, New York committed just 35 total turnovers, 11.8 per 100 possessions—small enough to keep the possession battle leaning their way.

For a team like the Spurs, the problem isn’t that they don’t try to pressure the ball. They do. In the regular season, they ranked 28th in opponent turnover rate (12.8 per 100 possessions). In the playoffs, they’ve risen to 10th (13.8 per 100). But the defensive glass is where their story flips.

The Spurs were the No. 1 defensive rebounding team in the regular season. In these two Knicks wins, they got absolutely destroyed on the defensive glass. That mismatch is likely to loom large from the jump—starting with Game 1 on Wednesday (8:30 p.m. ET, ABC).

New York’s offensive rebounding isn’t an accident that only shows up when a ball bounces kindly. It’s a playoff identity. The Knicks are the third best offensive rebounding team in the playoffs, and it starts with Mitchell Robinson.

Robinson has grabbed 18.3% of available offensive rebounds while he’s been on the floor. the highest mark by a healthy margin among 146 players who’ve averaged at least 10 minutes per game in the playoffs. Karl-Anthony Towns is also aggressive, pulling down 9.4%—ranked 15th. Reserve guard Jordan Clarkson has contributed too, with 16 offensive boards in 165 minutes.

Josh Hart has been relentlessly active as well. Against the Spurs across those three games this season, OG Anunoby totaled six offensive boards and Mikal Bridges totaled five, giving New York 11 offensive boards from that pair.

Clarkson summed it up in one line when he explained the team’s approach to earning second chances. “That’s just our identity,” he said of the Knicks’ offensive rebounding prowess and his role in creating second chances. “One through 15, I think we’re all trying to impact the game in any way.”

A big part of the Spurs’ trouble is matchup design. In the Knicks’ games against San Antonio, New York often created offensive rebounding advantages by drawing big men into spaces where smaller defenders had to cover them.

In the March meeting, the two players who guarded Towns the most were Stephon Castle and Devin Vassell. That did several things at once: it allowed Victor Wembanyama, assigned to Josh Hart, to function in a one-man zone, and it enabled the Spurs to switch ball-screens that Towns set.

But it also put pressure on the glass, because those assignments don’t protect you when the ball drops into a rebounding pocket.

The Spurs may still prefer to have Wembanyama guarding Hart, with their priority being to keep the league’s best rim protector near the rim. Yet they don’t have a great option—like a stronger power forward—against Towns. And the concern isn’t only in the post. It’s about what happens on the boards.

In response, when Robinson is on the floor, the Spurs have shifted back toward more traditional matchups. Wembanyama takes on the Knicks’ backup center, easing some of the big-vs.-small issues. That doesn’t mean the offensive rebounding threat disappears.

Robinson’s numbers are stark. With him on the floor, he has set 43.3 ball-screens per 100 possessions for Jalen Brunson, compared with 24.3 for Towns. Unlike Towns, Robinson is always rolling to the rim after setting a screen. That matters because it keeps him close to the play—catching lobs or getting behind his defender into rebounding position.

If Robinson finds inside position against Wembanyama, then the battle becomes length versus strength, and sometimes strength wins.

The only uncertainty hanging over it is availability. Robinson is listed as questionable for Game 1, having suffered a fractured finger at some point after the Eastern Conference Finals. If he can’t play, it would compromise the Knicks’ ability to hurt the Spurs on the glass.

The Spurs can plan for many things. They can pressure the ball and switch screens. They can protect the rim.

But the Finals are beginning with an uncomfortable truth: when the Knicks get second chances, they’ve scored with a kind of efficiency that doesn’t depend on pure shooting. And after what happened on the defensive glass in the two Knicks wins, the question isn’t whether the glass will matter.

It’s whether San Antonio can make it stop hurting—starting on Wednesday night at 8:30 p.m. ET on ABC.

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