The Knicks Land a Haymaker, With Doc Rivers. Plus, a Mini-Mailbag, the End of 'Euphoria,' and a Movies Resurgence With Joanna Robinson and Chris Ryan.

Key takeaways

• Three plays changed the game. Doc Rivers identifies a critical seven-point swing late: Brunson grabs an offensive rebound and draws a foul to get to the free-throw line; Fox misses a wide-open paint shot that would have tied it; Fox then immediately fouls Mikal Bridges when Bridges had nothing. That sequence, followed by Wemby's turnover and Brunson's "moon ball," ended San Antonio's run. Without those back-to-back Fox miscues, the Spurs likely win.

• KAT vs. Wemby was the matchup nobody predicted—and it worked. Rivers expected Anobi to guard Wembanyama, given his historically good plus/minus against him. Instead, Carl Anthony Towns guarded Wemby effectively and attacked him before he could get set, beating him off the dribble repeatedly and staying out of foul trouble. Rivers also expected Wemby to guard Josh Hart, not Towns; that Spurs adjustment didn't come until the second half and was never fully committed to. The Knicks still have the Anobi card in reserve for future games.

• Wemby's turnover problem ran deeper than the box score. Rivers says he'd immediately check two analytics in the film room: total dribbles and time-of-possession. Wemby appeared to dribble far more than usual and hold the ball longer, which played into the Knicks' hands. Rivers texted Simmons in the first half that Wemby looked bad—"they're speeding him up." Wemby finished with six or seven turnovers, many on drives after putting the ball on the floor.

• The Knicks have "been made" in Godfather terms. Rivers draws an explicit parallel to the 2008 Celtics, whom he coached. That team wasn't truly forged until they lost at home to Detroit and immediately went back and won in Detroit. The Knicks had their equivalent moment when Atlanta pushed them hard and they held a player meeting—which, notably, Rivers says was organic, not a called meeting. Since then the team has played with the kind of selfless cohesion where a CAT timeout speech actually lands. Rivers: "Six weeks ago he wouldn't have said it and no one would have listened."

• The NBA's parity era is structural, not accidental. The CBA's second apron has made the three-star model functionally extinct. Rivers argues the league now rewards GMs who can build around a star, not just acquire one—citing Danny Ainge, Brad Stevens, and Sam Presti (who eventually figured out he needed Hartenstein and Caruso around SGA) as the template. He predicts stars will increasingly stay home because they can maximize money and teams can build around them, and that dynasty talk will keep getting embarrassed.

• Winning a title is harder than anyone acknowledges. Rivers, asked about OKC's title defense, argues that everything has to break right simultaneously—health, role players buying in, clutch shots from unexpected sources. He gives OKC's defense an 8.5 out of 10 given Jalen Williams' injury, noting they went 155-35 across two seasons. He pushes back on the culture of immediate over-reaction after a single bad series, invoking Magic Johnson in the '84 Finals, Pippen's migraine game, and Chris Paul's collapse against OKC—all of which those players recovered from.

Notable moments

• Rivers on the Fox missed shot: "He got a wide open shot that would have tied the game. And he missed that shot. And then he followed up with a foul on Bridges where Bridges had nothing. Those back-to-back plays—that's a seven-point swing."

• Rivers on Hart's rebounding: "If you watch Hart, there's no one blocking him out. He just goes to rebound. He has a free lane to go rebound because no one's guarding him, and he takes advantage of it."

• Rivers on CAT: "My son turned to me and said, 'Wow, Minnesota traded Carl Anthony Towns.' Last year no one was saying that. But second half of this season, he's been absolutely unbelievable."

• Rivers telling the story of a Spurs team meeting that "went haywire" when he was a player: Dennis Rodman challenges Pop (who wasn't even head coach), Avery Johnson tells Moses Malone "your time has passed," then goes after David Robinson. "The meeting was a disaster." They went to Houston and won games three and four anyway.

• Simmons on the Knicks winning it all: "I think this is the biggest title that anybody can have right now... six generations of fans, they're the biggest city. It's like the Cubs winning. It really is."

• Rivers on why he doesn't like the "face of the league" construct: "You know it when you see it. You can't force it. And we definitely have it now with Wemby."

• Simmons on the Steven Spielberg Rewatchables episode: "You can see with Spielberg—greatest living director, probably the greatest director we've ever had—he just loves movies. Loves talking about them, loves the whole process. The stories he was telling about the set, how he interacts with different actors depending on their methods. Just a huge student of it."

• Simmons, Robinson, and Ryan on binge TV vs. the movies resurgence: Robinson argues the week-to-week model builds audiences and communal conversation that binge drops destroy, pointing to The Pit and Widow's Bay as evidence. Simmons notes Obsession delayed its VOD release by 30+ days after strong theater demand. Ryan: "We are in a psychological space where people feel so isolated—and if you have this communal experience, TV can be that if it comes out week to week."

• Simmons on the Euphoria finale: "I've never gotten so many all caps texts." He gives it an F-minus, arguing the show squandered three of the biggest under-35 actors working—Zendaya, Elordi, Sydney Sweeney—by never putting them in scenes together and burying legacy characters in a Nazi shootout.

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