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The Spurs led for roughly 72% of the NBA Finals.
The Knicks won the championship in five games.
Those two facts explain almost everything about this series.
The New York Knicks are deserving champions. They made the plays that mattered most, particularly late in games, and they earned the trophy that now sits in Manhattan.
But anyone who watched this series knows the final result doesn't fully capture what happened.
For long stretches of the Finals, the Spurs controlled play. They built leads. They dictated tempo. Victor Wembanyama was often the most dominant player on the floor. San Antonio's defense repeatedly frustrated New York.
Yet the Knicks kept finding ways to win.
Championship basketball often turns on small moments. A missed defensive assignment. A turnover. A rebound that slips away.
The Knicks won enough of those moments to win the championship.
Nobody spent this season wondering whether Wembanyama could carry a contender. The uncertainty was everything around him. Could a roster this young handle June basketball? Could a first-year head coach manage the adjustments that come with a Finals series? Could a rookie like Dylan Harper contribute on the sport's biggest stage?
The Finals provided an answer: close enough to believe, not quite ready to finish the job.
The Spurs had the talent to get there. What they lacked was some of the experience, composure and conditioning that championship teams rely on late in close games, when every possession feels like it could decide a season.
That applies to everyone involved.
Mitch Johnson did an extraordinary job guiding this team to the Finals. Harper looked at times like the second star every championship contender needs. Stephon Castle, Devin Vassell and Julian Champagnie all had moments during the playoff run.
The Spurs did not take a straight path to the Finals. They endured setbacks, scrutiny and moments that could have fractured a younger team, and they kept advancing.
What this team gained over the last two months can't be taught in a practice facility or a film room. It has to be experienced.
That's why this loss should be viewed as disappointing, but not discouraging.
What is harder to acquire is what the Spurs already have: the best young player in basketball, a potential second star in Harper and a core that should be better next season simply because it will be more experienced.
Along the way, this playoff run reminded San Antonio of something else.
Fiesta felt a little more like Fiesta.
As it has so many times before, Fiesta helped launch a Spurs postseason run that carried the city through the spring and into the summer. Silver and black mixed with medals and flower crowns. Conversations at parades turned to playoff matchups. Watch parties filled restaurants and bars. For a few weeks, San Antonio showed the rest of the country who it is.
This year, the Spurs also planted an official flag on the West Side through their pop-up shop at La Zona, across from Market Square and in the heart of Fiesta.
What began as a temporary storefront became one of the symbols of the playoff run as the Spurs kept winning and the postseason stretched deeper into the calendar.
It felt fitting that one of the most visible symbols of this Finals run sat across from Market Square. The Spurs have always belonged to all of San Antonio. This playoff run was a reminder of how deeply that connection still runs.
The playoff run also unfolded alongside a larger debate about the future of downtown. Questions remain about Project Marvel, the use of public dollars and whether the communities most affected by the project will benefit from it.
As Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones has noted, San Antonians can be fans and skeptics at the same time. They can root for their team while still asking hard questions about the future of their city.
The city celebrated together. It worried together. And, in one heartbreaking case, it mourned together.
Throughout the playoff run, car horns echoed through downtown and neighborhoods across the city. After Game 5, despite the loss, many San Antonians honked anyway.
They weren't celebrating a championship. They were celebrating a team that gave them reason to believe.
The Spurs didn't bring home a trophy. But they brought back the feeling that meaningful basketball in June isn't just a memory anymore.
The championship belongs to New York today. The future looks a lot like San Antonio.
