Spurs snap Knicks' historic streak in 2026 NBA Finals rematch

The Spurs did more than steady the 2026 NBA Finals. By beating the Knicks 115-111 in Game 3 at Madison Square Garden, San Antonio snapped New York’s 13-game postseason winning streak and forced the series back into a fight after the Knicks had opened with back-to-back one-possession wins.

That streak had carried real historical weight. New York entered the Finals with the second-longest single-postseason run in NBA history, trailing only the 2017 Golden State Warriors’ 15 straight wins. It had also passed the 1998-99 Spurs’ 12-game mark, the same San Antonio team whose final two victories in that run came in Games 1 and 2 of the 1999 Finals against the Knicks. The rematch has now circled back to the same institutions, with the same pressure, and a very different cast.

New York had taken control early in the series, winning Game 1, 105-95, and Game 2, 105-104, both on the road in San Antonio. That made the Knicks only the third team in Finals history to win the first two games of a series away from home, joining the 1992-93 Chicago Bulls and the 1994-95 Houston Rockets. Both of those clubs finished the job and won the title. The Knicks, who have not won a championship since 1973, were trying to push past the league’s long shadow and put themselves within reach of a first crown in more than half a century.

Instead, the Spurs answered with the kind of result that changes the framing of a Finals. San Antonio returned to the championship round for the first time since 2014 after beating the Oklahoma City Thunder in seven games in the Western Conference finals, and Victor Wembanyama arrived on the stage carrying Western Conference Finals MVP honors. On the other side, New York had swept the Cleveland Cavaliers to reach the Finals and leaned on Jalen Brunson’s scoring and late-game command, along with a roster built around Karl-Anthony Towns, Mikal Bridges, OG Anunoby and Josh Hart.

The larger story now reaches beyond one series. Gregg Popovich’s old Spurs had once defined a generation; now Wembanyama, with help from De’Aaron Fox, Stephon Castle and Julian Champagnie, has forced the league to confront the possibility of a new center of gravity. Game 4 was scheduled for June 10, with the Finals no longer looking like a coronation for New York and more like the first clear sign that the post-veteran era may already be arriving.