Karl-Anthony Towns thinks the Spurs’ biggest Finals problem came down to age.
San Antonio spent much of the 2026 NBA Playoffs brushing off the talk about its lack of postseason experience, and for a while the young roster made that noise look foolish. The Spurs kept winning, kept advancing, and eventually pushed all the way to the NBA Finals against the New York Knicks.
But once the Finals arrived, the inexperience everyone had been pointing to started showing up in the worst possible way. San Antonio kept building big first-half leads, only to watch New York chip away and finish the job. Towns, one of the central figures in the Knicks’ run, believes the difference was pretty simple: the Knicks were the steadier, more mature group.
The contrast between the teams was obvious. New York had veterans in their late 20s and 30s, while San Antonio’s only real seasoned voices beyond former champions Harrison Barnes and Luke Kornet were limited. The Spurs did have a promising young core in Victor Wembanyama, Stephon Castle, and Dylan Harper, but those three had just six combined NBA seasons between them.
Even so, Towns said the Knicks never approached those moments like a team trying to survive.
“I think sometimes when you’re a young team you look to not lose the game, and we were looking to win the game. That’s what made us bring such aggression to the game, and I think they were just trying to protect the lead," Towns said about the Spurs' problem on The New York Times' The Interview.
That showed up most clearly in Game 4, when the Spurs blew a 29-point lead.
Towns’ read on the series was blunt, and it lined up with the way the Finals played out. The Spurs were talented enough to get there, but the Knicks handled the pressure better when the games tightened.
For San Antonio, the lesson was harsh. For New York, it was another sign that experience still matters when the stage gets biggest.
In Other News...
Wembanyama May Have Started A Spurs Trend That Changes Everything
Victor Wembanyamas rookie-scale deal already gave the Spurs an unusual kind of flexibility, because he agreed to take less than he could have commanded and helped San Antonio keep more room under the cap. In a league where young stars usually push every possible dollar to the limit, that kind of move stands out, and it has put the Spurs in a very different conversation as they try to build around their franchise center without boxing themselves into a roster crunch.
The real intrigue is whether that mindset can spread inside the locker room. If other key players were willing to follow Wembanyamas lead, the Spurs could create the kind of breathing room that helps teams avoid the NBAs second salary cap apron and keep a deeper, more expensive roster intact. It is the same kind of hard-choice territory that has forced contenders elsewhere to make painful moves, and San Antonio now has a chance to see whether a rare bit of self-sacrifice can become part of its identity. [Read more 🡒]
Wembanyamas Finals Edge Has Spurs Fans Facing An Uncomfortable Question
The Finals gave Victor Wembanyama the kind of stage that can sharpen a superstars reputation in a hurry, and not all of it was flattering. The 22-year-old Spurs center spent much of the series in the middle of the action, mixing dominant stretches with a physical edge that had Knicks fans and the national audience talking as much about his temperament as his talent. For a San Antonio team building around him, it was a reminder that the line between intimidation and controversy can get thin when the games get bigger.
What made it feel especially uncomfortable for Spurs followers was how quickly the conversation hardened around him. One sequence after another pushed the same storyline, with Wembanyama drawing scrutiny for the way he handled Jalen Brunson and Karl-Anthony Towns, and the broader image of him as a villain starting to take hold by the end of the series. For a franchise that wants him to be the face of its next era, the question now is whether that edge is part of what makes him special, or the first real test of how he wants to be seen. [Read more 🡒]