The San Antonio Spurs have fingers to point.
They’ve just lost the NBA Finals in five games to the New York Knicks, and there’s a litany of reasons why. Experts (those who consider themselves such) and casual viewers, all facets of the NBA community, have already taken a stab at pinpointing the exact reason the Spurs fell.
There are, however, two reasons most aren’t considering.
It’s not the lack of consistency from Victor Wembanyama, the drop-off in clutch moments, or blowing a lead with two minutes to go. It’s two largely forgotten moments, especially in the context of the games in which they occurred.
Two intentional fouls that unintentionally turned the 2026 NBA Finals upside down.
NBA Finals Game 2: An Intentional Foul With Unintentional Consequences
With 30 seconds left in the game, Game 2 sat in a 104-104 deadlock. Out of a timeout, the ball found Jalen Brunson — as it usually does. Stephon Castle, his defender on this possession, was faced with two options.
Option one was to simply let the possession play out, defend Brunson and force a missed shot. This would’ve accomplished many things — the Knicks would get no reset for their play, and in the case of a miss, San Antonio got the last say in regulation with a defensive rebound. Not to mention, Castle is a terrific on-ball defender.
Option two was to intentionally foul Brunson and reset the possession. This allows the Spurs to set their defense in order to get what they want matchup-wise for the rest of the possession. However, it now requires them to be perfect from then on in defensively.
No fouls, or else New York — full of players capable at the stripe — get two shots that put the “free” in free throws.
Castle didn’t get to ponder for long, however. Jalen Brunson made the decision for him when he blew past him. Castle chose option two purely to prevent an easy layup, as the 7-foot-4 DPOY Wembayama was not in the paint.
The Spurs got set defensively, and Wembanyama found his way onto the 6-foot-1 Brunson.
Perfect.
Brunson was forced into a tough shot that he missed.
Perfect!
Wembanyama grabs the rebound! Everything is going perfect — until Wembanyama throws a pass off the back of Castle. That results in a steal by Brunson, who Wembanyama collides with.
Without a foul to give, Brunson goes to the free throw line, where he sinks one-of-two, and the Spurs can’t retort. Game over.
The Aftermath
The Spurs had to be perfect, and they weren’t. There lies the issue with Castle intentionally fouling.
Again, Castle didn’t have a choice — it was either that or an easy Brunson bucket. However, the proceedings would’ve been much less harmful with a foul to give. There would’ve simply been another side-out, and the Spurs would be able to put trust in the leagues third-best defense by way of DRTG. In fact, they just did and had success doing so.
There’s no reason to believe they wouldn’t have done it again.
Intentionally fouling Jalen Brunson with 30 seconds didn’t directly befall San Antonio. However, by not putting full trust in their defensive capabilities, the Spurs opened the door for a bit of chaos to derail them.
Chaos burst through that door, and it cost them.
Game 5: What Did the Fox Do?
If the intentional foul fiasco in Game 2 was inconvenient, what went down in Game 5 was simply incompetent.
Everyone knows the story of Game 5 — the utter domination by the Spurs to start, the subsequent collapse, the blown De’Aaron Fox layup and “The Tip.” As a matter of fact, it’s the aforementioned Fox who will star in this episode of the intentional foul saga. Picking up right after his intriguing — and that’s putting it nicely — decision to go for a layup instead of draining clock, Jose Alvarado winds up with the ball going the other way.
With time running out, Alvarado hastes into the frontcourt. He then runs into a Castle-sized problem. Fox, retreating from his first fatal error, meets him at mid-court. Alvarado is as dead to rights as any NBA player has ever been, retreating into the backcourt to get away from both defenders.
Alvarado is teetering on the lines of of committing a series-tying backcourt violation…and then Fox fouls him.
That directly leads to the side-out that produces “The Tip.” The rest is history.
W-Why?
This intentional foul made zero sense at the time, and still doesn’t seven painstaking days later. Unlike Game 2, the Spurs already had the defensive advantage for the final possession. As Alvarado brought the ball up the court, there were only two Knicks in view: Brunson and Karl-Anthony Towns. Wembanyama, was already patrolling the paint while Dylan Harper and Devin Vassell were guarding the two aforementioned.
The Spurs had a five-on-three advantage defensively (with one of the five being the DPOY), while having Alvarado on the edge of a game-ending turnover. There was zero reason for Fox to just give the Knicks a hard reset to draw up a play to steal Game 4. Yet, that’s exactly what happened.
Unfortunately for Fox, this blunder is only the tip of his big iceberg of blunders in this series.
In Hindsight
Reflecting post-Finals, the mindset surrounding these fouls still remains polar opposite to one another.
The Game 2 decision by Castle was a decision made to stop a potential rotation or a easy layup, and the intended outcome occurred. It was only a freak play that made the intentional foul costly at the end of the day. Castle would probably do the same if put back in that exact spot.
Fox’s decision in Game 5, on the other hand, is inexplicable. Holding a defensive advantage with the ball handler in the process of a game-clinching turnover, there’s no reason to not let that play out. It came off as a moment of panic following a moment of misjudgment. It’s going to be largely forgotten, but it directly gave a game to New York.
These two instances will not deter most from fouling up one to three points in the future, but perhaps following these consequences, coaches will be much smarter about it.
Especially if it’s Finals games hanging in the balance.
Leave a comment