NBA Finals Game 1 winners and losers: Jalen Brunson clutch for Knicks, Victor Wembanyama 'bad' for Spurs

The New York Knicks have a 1-0 lead in the 2026 NBA Finals. Led by star guard Jalen Brunson, the Knicks used a late surge to upset the San Antonio Spurs, 105-95, for their 12th consecutive win in these playoffs. New York trailed by as many as 14 points in the third quarter and was down by one with two minutes left when Brunson hit a corner 3-pointer to give the Knicks the lead for good. Brunson scored 13 of his 30 points in the fourth quarter.

Victor Wembanyama had 26 points and 12 rebounds in his NBA Finals debut, but the Spurs star was just 6 for 21 from the floor. The Spurs got 16 points from Julian Champagnie, who hit half of his 10 3-point attempts, but the rest of the team shot 6 for 33 (18.2%) from beyond the arc.

Karl-Anthony Towns added 18 points and 12 rebounds for the Knicks, and Josh Hart made a huge impact while scoring three points. Hart made just one shot from the floor, but he grabbed 15 rebounds, dished out six assists and corralled four steals. The Knicks have stolen home-court advantage from the Spurs and are now three wins away from their first title since 1973.

Here are the winners and losers of Game 1:

Winner: Brunson's clutch reputation

The Knicks star saved his best for last

Jalen Brunson spent most of Game 1 in pain and watching his shots clang off the rim. 

Late in the first quarter, after Brunson had missed six of his first seven shots, Landry Shamet chucked Harrison Barnes on a box out, and the veteran crashed into Brunson's right leg. After briefly remaining in the game, Brunson limped to the locker room and ended up missing over five minutes of game time. 

Shortly after he checked back in, he finally got a tough floater to go, but he was knocked to the ground in the process. And as Luke Kornet, who had gone up to contest the shot, came back down to Earth, he landed on Brunson's left ankle. Brunson eventually hobbled to his feet and began yelling at official Scott Foster. 

Brunson finished the first half with just 11 points on 5-of-15 shooting, and the Knicks trailed by seven. By the middle of the third quarter, the Spurs had pushed their advantage up to 14, and the Knicks were on the ropes. The Knicks slowly worked their way back into the game, however, and tied things up heading into the fourth. 

That's when Brunson took over. 

He had a personal 8-0 run to put the Knicks up by eight with 6:07 to play, and then, after the Spurs ripped off a 9-0 run of their own to retake the lead, he buried a huge 3-pointer from the corner with 1:50 left to put the Knicks back in front for good. And with just under 40 seconds to play, he hit an absurd leaning jump shot from 15 feet to push the Knicks' lead to six and effectively end the game. 

Brunson finished with 30 points on 31 shots -- the most shots in a Finals debut since Allen Iverson put up 41 in Game 1 of the 2001 Finals. He had 17 points on 7-of-22 shooting in the first three quarters and 13 points on 5-of-9 shooting in the fourth. Over the final 7:30, he outscored the Spurs by himself, 13-9. 

Results are all that matter in the Finals, and Brunson delivered when the Knicks needed him the most. 

"Jalen, he was the MVP in the second half," Knicks coach Mike Brown said. "He was huge for us. He did what MVP candidates are supposed to do. He carried us home. We put the ball in his hands and he got it done for us down the stretch."

Loser: Wembanyama's offense

Wemby shot 28.6% from the floor in Game 1

In the middle of the fourth quarter, with the Spurs trailing by five, Victor Wembanyama caught the ball on the left wing and tried to drive against Karl-Anthony Towns. He couldn't get downhill and ended up tossing an awkward runner off the side of the backboard. He was able to grab the offensive rebound, however, and a few seconds later had a look for 3 from the corner. That, too, clanged off the side of the backboard. 

Wembanyama might very well be the only player to hit the side of the backboard twice on the same possession in the NBA Finals.

That terrible possession, which somehow resulted in points for the Spurs after another offensive rebound, summed up Wembanyama's frustrating night on the offensive end. He finished with a team-high 26 points, but shot 6 of 21 from the field, including 2 of 9 from 3-point range, and turned the ball over six times. 

Notably, only five of Wembanyama's field goal attempts came at the rim, where it's essentially impossible to stop him. While he did go 12 of 13 at the line, the Knicks did an excellent job keeping him away from the basket and forcing him to try to operate from the perimeter. 

"I'm going to figure it out," Wembanyama said after the game. "I was bad tonight. It's not more complicated than that."

Wembanyama is incredibly skilled for a man his size, but he doesn't have the tightest handle nor the most functional strength on his drives. It's hard for him to catch the ball at the top of the key and slice through multiple bodies to try and create a bucket for himself off the bounce. Often, he's forced to settle for jumpers in those situations, and while he's capable of hitting them, his shot can be inconsistent. In Game 1, he didn't have it going. 

 Here's a look at his shot chart:

"Felt like he missed a few shots early. We got to get him moving in space and toward the rim, whether that's on rolls or running in transition. But we need the pressure on the rim and the force in the paint," Spurs coach Mitch Johnson said. "They did a good job of obviously being physical and showing crowds. We need to do a better job of establishing that early on, for sure."

The Spurs won't win this series unless Wembanyama can find a way to be more efficient and effective on the offensive end. But that's easier said than done against a tough Knicks defense -- especially when the Spurs aren't hitting shots. They went 11 of 43 from 3-point range, which made it easier for the Knicks to crowd the paint. 

Winner: Hart's hustle

The 6-foot-5 Hart grabbed 15 rebounds

Josh Hart finished with three points and shot 1 of 5 from the field, yet he was arguably the Knicks' best player in Game 1. 

Hart was absolutely incredible on the defensive end, particularly in the second half, dominated the glass and made all of the hustle plays to help the Knicks pull off their 14-point comeback. He finished with 15 rebounds, six assists, four steals and a block, and the Knicks were +22 in his 27 minutes. If not for his early foul trouble, perhaps they never would have fallen behind to begin with. 

It was fitting that in the fourth quarter Hart didn't take a single shot, but grabbed six rebounds and swiped three steals, including one with less than a minute to play that led to Brunson's game-sealing bucket with 38 seconds remaining. 

"Yeah, that's just who he is," Brunson said, when asked about Hart's ability to impact the game without scoring. "He's always been that way. I can't explain it. He just has a knack for doing things like that, and in crucial times, as well. It's a credit to who he is as a player."

Josh Hart helps Knicks steal Game 1 of NBA Finals with gutsy performance only he could produce

Sam Quinn

Hart is the second player to have at least 15 rebounds, five assists and four steals in a Finals game. Larry Bird in 1986 is the other. Hart is also the shortest player -- he stands 6-foot-5 -- to grab at least 15 rebounds in a Finals game since Elgin Baylor in 1960. 

"You know, you look at Josh Hart's line being 1-for-5 from the field, and the guy had 15 rebounds and four steals, and he made some unbelievable defensive plays, and he helped us tremendously in transition," Brown said. "So heck of a job by Josh."

Loser: Fox doesn't repay Johnson's faith

Fox missed a game-tying jumper in the final 90 seconds

After Brunson hit a clutch 3-pointer to give the Knicks a two-point lead with 1:50 to play, the Spurs came down and ran a dribble handoff with Wembanyama and De'Aaron Fox. OG Anunoby fell down trying to chase Fox around Wembanyama's screen, which left Fox wide open for a little 10-foot pull-up in the middle of the lane to tie the game.

It was a shot Fox has made hundreds of times in his career, but on this occasion, he was too strong and bricked it off the back of the rim. Fox could have tied the game. Instead, the Spurs wouldn't score the rest of the way.

Watching on from the bench as Fox missed and the Spurs fell apart was rookie guard Dylan Harper. The No. 2 overall pick was the Spurs' best player on the night. His energy off the bench helped the Spurs take the lead in the first quarter, and he finished with 16 points and eight rebounds on 6 of 10 from the field.

For some reason, though, he barely played in the fourth quarter. He checked in briefly in the middle of the frame, and lasted only three minutes and 33 seconds until he was pulled for good. While he didn't do much in his short stint, it was strange that Mitch Johnson never put him back in the game, especially when Fox and Devin Vassell were having such rough nights and the Knicks were crushing the Spurs on the offensive glass. 

Fox, who has had a frustrating postseason, ended the night with seven points and five assists on 3 of 13 shooting. Vassell, who also closed the game, had nine points on 4 of 11. 

Johnson was not asked about the decision to bench Harper during his postgame press conference, but it will be interesting to see what he says if the topic comes up before Game 2 and if Harper gets more than 28 minutes on Friday night. 

Winner: Towns makes his mom proud 

Towns honored his late mother after his stellar Finals debut

In November of 2020, during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Karl-Anthony Towns' mother, Jacqueline, died due to complications from the illness. Towns was extremely close to her, and, in the years since then, has been open about his grief and the emotional toll her death took on him. 

After his Finals debut on Wednesday, during which he put up 18 points, 12 rebounds and four assists in a stellar all-around performance, he said he felt his mother's presence during the game. 

"I don't know what it was, but I just felt a calm and a peace that had to come from the woman above," Towns said during an interview with the Inside the NBA crew. "I felt really confident about today. I felt good. I felt like a kid. It was just fun out here. This was something as a kid you always dream about. You always hope just to be an NBA player, let alone be in the NBA Finals. 

"All day it was just a weird feeling. I felt like I was a kid getting ready to go play my Saturday AAU games and Sunday AAU games. In a way, I felt like I was seeing [my mom] in the stands. It was fun. It was really fun. And it was really comforting."