2025-26 NBA Season Retrospective · The New York Knicks are the 2026 NBA Champions, ending a 53-year wait with a 4-1 Finals win over the San Antonio Spurs. Here’s how a season that opened with no clear favourite finished with the most clutch Finals series on record.
The 2025-26 NBA season ended at the Frost Bank Center in San Antonio on Saturday 13 June, with Jalen Brunson scoring 45 points and the New York Knicks lifting the Larry O’Brien Trophy for the first time since 1973. It capped a Finals series that the NBA itself called “the only Finals where every game was within five points in the last five minutes.” For Australian fans, it also ended one of the most viewable championship rounds of the modern era — all five Finals games at 10:30am AEST, a window that made waking up for live basketball genuinely practical. Here’s the full retrospective.
On this page
- The 2026 NBA Finals — historic clutch
- Brunson’s MVP run
- How the Knicks got there
- San Antonio’s surprise Finals run
- Defining moments of the season
- For Australian fans — the broadcast year
The 2026 NBA Finals — historic clutch
By the numbers, the 2026 NBA Finals was the most consistently competitive championship series of the modern era. Every single game was within five points in the final five minutes. Games 1 through 5 were all within three points in the final two minutes — only the fourth playoff series of any round in the past 30 years to manage that, and the first such Finals series in the last decade. The score said 4-1. The basketball said something much closer.
The Knicks’ edge wasn’t in dominance — it was in resilience. In all four of their wins, New York rallied from double-digit deficits. The Spurs led by 29 in Game 4 before letting it slip. San Antonio outscored the Knicks by 57 points across the five first quarters. None of it mattered, because every time it counted in the closing minutes, the Knicks executed and the Spurs didn’t.
The Knicks finished the 2026 playoffs 6-2 in games they trailed by double digits — the best such record for any team in the 30 years for which the NBA has play-by-play data. Over the same period, the leaguewide record in playoff games where a team trailed by double digits is 530-2,007 (a winning percentage of just 20.9%). What New York did in the Finals doesn’t usually happen. It happened five times in two weeks.
Title-clinching Game 5 in San Antonio finished with the Knicks ahead. Brunson scored a Knicks Finals record 45 points. The Spurs led by 11 in the first half and were still ahead with under two minutes to play. Brunson’s floater over Stephon Castle with 1:06 remaining gave New York the lead for good.
Brunson’s MVP run
Jalen Brunson was named 2026 Finals MVP and took home the Bill Russell trophy. The vote wasn’t close. His 45 points in the title-clinching Game 5 set a Knicks Finals scoring record. But his case for MVP wasn’t really about scoring averages or efficiency — by his own standards, this was Brunson’s fourth-least-efficient playoff series of the 15 he’s played in (true shooting percentage of 53.6%). The case was about timing. He delivered when nothing else worked.
“He is a freaking 1A,” Knicks head coach Mike Brown said after Game 5. “He is an MVP candidate.” Brown was talking about the regular-season MVP race — the kind of casual line a coach drops in a press conference that suddenly looks prescient when his player just won a Finals MVP. Brunson averaged 28.5 points per game across the entire playoff run, anchored a series-clinching Game 5 with the highest single-game scoring total of any Knicks player in Finals history, and remained on the floor in every clutch moment of every game.
The Knicks were also the best defensive team in the postseason — allowing 104.5 points per 100 possessions across all 19 of their playoff games. In clutch situations (defined as games within five points in the last five minutes), they allowed just 66 points on 72 defensive possessions — equivalent to 92 points per 100. Some of it was luck (opponents shot 4-for-19 from three in clutch moments, 10-for-21 from the free-throw line), but most of it was the way New York structured their defence to take away the actions the Spurs needed.
How the Knicks got there
The Knicks’ route to the Finals was the smoothest of any team in the bracket. They beat the Atlanta Hawks 4-2 in Round 1. They swept the Philadelphia 76ers 4-0 in Round 2 — the same 76ers who had just eliminated the second-seeded Boston Celtics in a seven-game Round 1 upset. They beat the Cleveland Cavaliers 4-1 in the Eastern Conference Finals against a team that needed seven games to grind through Detroit in Round 2. Total games lost across three rounds: three.
By the time the Knicks reached the Finals they had a full week of rest and the deepest playoff resume of any team left. Their Conference Finals against Cleveland was effectively over by halftime of Game 1 — a 137-98 demolition that set the tone for the series and never gave the Cavaliers a chance to disrupt the Knicks’ rhythm. The closeout 130-93 Game 4 win in Cleveland — a 37-point road victory in a series-clinching game — was one of the most one-sided closeouts of the modern playoff era.
Brunson averaged 31 points and 9 assists in the Eastern Conference Finals. Karl-Anthony Towns averaged 21 and 12 against a Cleveland frontcourt anchored by Evan Mobley. OG Anunoby was the defensive anchor. Josh Hart played the kind of energy-and-rebounding minutes that don’t show up in scoring averages but absolutely show up in winning a Conference Finals 4-1.
San Antonio’s surprise Finals run
The Spurs weren’t supposed to be in the Finals. The Thunder were the heavy preseason West favourites, came in as defending champions, swept the Lakers in Round 2, took a 3-2 series lead in the Western Conference Finals — and then San Antonio won Games 6 and 7 to advance. Victor Wembanyama, in his third NBA season, became the league’s most dominant interior force during the run, and the Spurs’ young supporting cast — Stephon Castle, De’Aaron Fox, the trade-deadline additions — kept pace with the most experienced playoff roster in the league.
In the Finals, the Spurs played the Knicks closer than the 4-1 score suggests, but couldn’t deliver in clutch moments. Wembanyama averaged 28 and 12 in the Finals against the Knicks’ defensive scheme. Castle had multiple high-scoring nights. The supporting cast was good enough to take leads but not experienced enough to hold them.
The series ended with a moment that became its own talking point — Wembanyama walking off the floor after the Game 5 loss without shaking hands. Knicks guard Jose Alvarado addressed it directly post-game: “He should have stayed and shook everyone’s hand. That’s part of it.” The footage circulated widely. Wembanyama declined to comment publicly on it in the immediate aftermath. The bigger picture: the Spurs are good. They will be back. Their first deep playoff run of the Wembanyama era ended one round from a championship.
Defining moments of the season
A few storylines from the 2025-26 season that won’t fade quickly:
The 7-seed upset. Philadelphia eliminating Boston in seven games in Round 1 was the biggest upset of the modern era — a 7-seed beating a 2-seed had not happened in over a decade. The 76ers ran into the Knicks in Round 2 and were swept, but the Boston elimination changed the entire East playoff bracket.
The Wolves’ Game 1 shocker. Anthony Edwards walking into San Antonio and stealing Game 1 of the Conference Semifinals with a clutch three with 47 seconds left was the kind of result that hinted at a longer series. The Spurs answered with a 38-point Game 2 demolition and eventually won 4-2, but Game 1 announced Minnesota as a genuine playoff team.
OKC’s road back to the Finals comes up short. The defending champions swept the Lakers, took a 3-2 lead over the Spurs in the Conference Finals, and lost both Game 6 in San Antonio and Game 7 at home. It’s the kind of result that ends dynasties — or fuels them. The Thunder remain young, deep and well-coached. They’ll be back next year as the team most likely to win it all.
LeBron and Bronny make history. The Lakers’ Round 1 win over Houston included the first father-son combination in NBA history to win a playoff series together. The Lakers were swept by OKC in Round 2, but the milestone counts.
Detroit’s revival. The Pistons reached Round 2 for the first time since 2008. They pushed Cleveland to seven games. Cade Cunningham averaged 28 in the playoffs and entered the offseason as the unquestioned face of the franchise. After nearly two decades in the wilderness, Detroit are back as a competitive Eastern Conference team.
For Australian fans — the broadcast year
The 2025-26 season was the most Australian-friendly NBA year of the modern era. The Finals tipped at 10:30am AEST across every game — a window that didn’t require a 4am alarm and didn’t conflict with work for most viewers. The Conference Finals were spread across both morning and lunchtime AEST windows depending on home court. Round 1 and Round 2 had a healthy split of Australian breakfast and lunchtime games.
For broadcast platforms, this was a transitional year. Disney+ Australia carried every ESPN and TNT NBA game for the first time, broadening NBA accessibility for households who already subscribed for entertainment. Kayo Sports continued to be the simplest one-subscription option for most Australian fans, carrying every ESPN-broadcast playoff game and all of the NBA Finals. NBA League Pass remained the only way to watch NBC-broadcast games (including the entire Thunder vs Lakers Round 2 series).
While we don’t yet have final 2026 Australian viewership numbers (those typically come out in the months after the Finals), the anecdotal signal was clear — discussion of the Knicks Finals run was bigger across Australian sports media than any NBA postseason since the 2019 Toronto Raptors championship.
For full Australian platform details and prices, see our How to Watch NBA in Australia 2026 guide.
What’s next: the 2026-27 season
The NBA Draft is on Wednesday 25 June (US time, Thursday 26 June AEST). Free agency opens shortly after. The 2026-27 NBA regular season tips off in late October. Off the back of this Finals run, the conversation heading into next year will be straightforward:
The Knicks defending. Mike Brown’s group enters next season as defending champions with most of the rotation intact. Brunson, Towns, Anunoby, Hart, Mikal Bridges — all under contract.
The Spurs as the team to beat in the West. Wembanyama in year four. A young supporting cast with one Finals appearance under their belt. The Thunder will still be there. So will the Wolves. The Western Conference is loaded heading into next season.
The narrative-driven offseason. Free agents, trades, the LeBron decision (he hasn’t confirmed retirement plans), the post-Finals coaching shuffle. The next three months will define what 2026-27 looks like.
For the full bracket, schedule and current state, see our NBA Playoffs 2026 Australia hub.
What’s next?
- Live US Sports TV Guide — every game with AEST times and live scores
- How to Watch NBA in Australia 2026
- NBA Playoffs 2026 Australia hub
- Knicks reach the Finals — Tuesday wrap (26 May)
All times shown in AEST. Mac Johannson covers US sports for Australian fans, with a focus on AEST schedules and broadcast platforms.
