Game 2
107–106Hawks by oneChapter 10
The Playoff Staircase
From a first-round emergency to fifteen wins in sixteen games and an Eastern Conference title.
Act VI · First round
The season almost breaks
Two one-point losses. Bridges: zero points in twenty-one minutes. Atlanta up 2–1, and every accumulated question about the roster asked at once.
Game 3
109–108Hawks by oneGame 6
140–8983–36 at halftime — a playoff recordBrown moved Towns toward an elbow-hub role. The offense opened. New York won fifteen of its final sixteen games — and did not lose again in the East.
Game 6 · Closeout140–89
Fifteen of sixteen
The playoff staircase
Atlanta was the emergency. Philadelphia and Cleveland were the answer. San Antonio was narrower, stranger, and final.
Atlanta
4–2+105
Down 1–2, then wins by 16, 29, and 51.
Philadelphia
4–0+89
Recovery became sustained control.
Cleveland
4–0+77
A 22-point Game 1 comeback opened another sweep.
San Antonio
4–1+12
The tightest margin, and the only one that ended the season.
May 19 · The next comeback
Cleveland led by twenty-two. New York's second unit changed the pressure, Towns made the late three, and the conference finals opened with another proof that a bad possession did not have to become a bad night.
The adjacent full-game highlights are published by the NBA and retained in the research library as game-2026-05-19-60.
Four meetings · one opponent
They kept finding San Antonio
First a trophy, then the first loss of winter, then a March correction. By June, repetition had started to look like inevitability.
- 124–113
December · Las Vegas
The Knicks erased an eleven-point Cup-final deficit and closed 43–21.
- 132–134
New Year's Eve · San Antonio
The rematch became the first loss of the winter slide.
- 114–89
March · The response
The third meeting was a 25-point Knicks win.
- 4–1
June · The Finals
A recurring opponent became the last one standing.
New York and San Antonio met in the 1999 Finals. Twenty-seven years later, they met again.