The New York Knicks took down the San Antonio Spurs 4-1 in the 2026 NBA Finals, and Orlando Magic head coach Sean Sweeney thinks the series could have panned out differently if the former team hadn’t been unlucky. Sweeney, who was the Spurs’ associate head coach for the 2025-26 season, was asked what went wrong in the Finals during an appearance on The Ryen Russilo Show.
“I think a few things,” Sweeney said. “One, I think there’s a little attrition, having to go through the previous series. Two, bad luck. You know, they told me if the games were like 46 minutes or whatever, we would have won 4-1. Jalen [Brunson] obviously had a monster game in that last one. You know, coached him in Dallas, like, happy for him, kind of. But I think there’s some of that.
“And I think we just made more mistakes than we had made in the previous series,” Sweeney stated. “And you could maybe say some youth to that, but you don’t do what you did, and just all of a sudden become young. The one thing I think that’s a little different in the Finals than the other rounds is when you have to do media in the Finals, you have to answer questions even when you’ve played poorly or struggled, and you don’t have to do that in the previous rounds.
“You know, those guys like all year, if they have a longer media session, it’s because they’ve done something good,” Sweeney added. “You don’t have 15 minutes of answering like, why didn’t you make this play? Are you too young? Are you guys on the same page? What do you think about coach’s decision? So I think that’s like a different deal and can obviously contribute to it.”
The Spurs led by double digits at some point in each of those five games. They had the lead in the final minutes in multiple games, but weren’t able to finish the job.
Sweeney brought up that stat about the Spurs winning 4-1 if the games lasted 46 minutes, but that’s not quite accurate. They led with two minutes remaining in Games 1, 3, and 4. They only managed to win one of those three.
Of course, the worst of the losses came in Game 4. The Spurs led by 29 points in the third quarter, but then collapsed spectacularly. They scored just 14 points in the third quarter and 16 in the fourth to squander that advantage.
Despite those struggles, the Spurs were still in a position to win, but De’Aaron Fox attempted a layup instead of holding on to the ball and getting fouled with them leading 106-105. OG Anunoby blocked the attempt and then tipped in the game-winner on the other end.
Prior to all this, Victor Wembanyama had missed two free throws with the Spurs clinging to a one-point lead with just under two minutes remaining. Wembanyama also had a costly turnover at the end of Game 2, and there were just too many mistakes made, as Sweeney said.
That brutal seven-game series against the Oklahoma City Thunder in the Western Conference Finals didn’t help the Spurs either. All the celebrating afterward made Knicks forward Josh Hart think the Spurs believed it was over. Hart felt for a young team, taking down the Thunder was like getting to the mountaintop.
The Knicks brought the Spurs crashing back down to Earth. While Sweeney pointed to all the things that went wrong, he also acknowledged that the outcome of that series can be explained by pointing to Anunoby and Jalen Brunson.
“But then, like you said, Jalen Brunson happened is probably a good answer too,” Sweeney said. “And OG’s a**.”
Brunson had struggled a bit with efficiency in the series, but delivered in the clutch time and time again. He also scored 45 points in the closeout Game 5 to power the Knicks to victory.
Now, Anunoby had a case for Finals MVP leading into that contest, with how well he had played in the series and the fact that he had won Game 4 for the Knicks with the block and the tip-in. Brunson, though, ensured he’d be the one taking home the award with that unforgettable performance.
