The New York Knicks are a game away from the Eastern Conference finals, and the young San Antonio Spurs grew up in the fourth quarter Friday night. Here are the winners and losers from the sixth night of the NBA’s second round of the playoffs.
Winners
Villanova Basketball
When the second-round series between the Philadelphia 76ers and New York Knicks moved to the City of Brotherly Love, three Knicks who spent their college years in Philly stepped up. Villanova alumnus Jalen Brunson scored 33 points, his college teammate Mikal Bridges put up 23 and another Wildcat, Josh Hart, had a double-double with 12 points and 11 rebounds in their 108-94 win.
Bridges and Brunson won two national titles at Villanova, with Hart joining them for the first one. Friday, the trio came one step closer to an NBA title by nearly matching the Sixers’ fourth-quarter output by themselves, putting up 17 points to the Sixers’ 18. When the Sixers closed to within four points early in the fourth, an 11-2 Villanova run put the game away.
After the Minnesota Timberwolves won Game 1 by two points, there was talk that they’d solved the Spurs’ 7-foot-4 prodigy, holding him to 11 points. While Victor Wembanyama had 19 points and 15 rebounds playing just 26 minutes of the Spurs’ blowout Game 2 win, he didn’t truly explode offensively until Friday.
Wemby finished with 39 points on 13-of-18 shooting in San Antonio’s 115-108 win. He scored 16 of those points in the final quarter and blocked two shots in the quarter. Perhaps Rudy Gobert can slow his fellow Frenchman for a while, but when Wembanyama is hitting his threes (3-of-5 in Game 3), no one can really slow him down.