Once again, the home team prevails and we have ourselves a game 7 for all the marbles! It was an oddly balanced scoring game for the Spurs, which you don’t see from them very often. 7 guys scored in double figures, and Davis only had 10 points on 5-16 shooting. The Spurs bench finally showed up! They demolished the Knicks bench, scoring 46 points to the Knicks 29. Beverley bounced back from a bad game 5 to post 18 points on 60% shooting.
This game came down the 4th quarter again like many of them do. The Spurs went on a mini-run, and it seemed like the Knicks just couldn’t score. The Spurs quickly turned a 1-point lead to a 7-point lead and never looked back! The turnovers killed the Knicks in this one, 12 turnovers to the Spurs 8, with 4 coming in the final quarter contributing to the Spurs run.
We move on to game 7. What do we expect? I don’t expect Anthony Davis to score 10 points again, but I also don’t expect Barton to score 20 points off the bench. There will be some give and take there. I expect the Spurs bench to regress a little allowing the Knicks bench to stay in it. Kyrie Irving was the only + player on the Knicks, going +8 in his 37 minutes. That means they were -18 in the 11 minutes he was out of the game. That’s pretty harsh. Harden and Patty Mills step in for him when Kyrie goes out, and they need to play better. Patty going -7 in a mere 3 minutes of action isn’t going to get it done.
The Knicks play completely different on their home court, and the Spurs aren’t nearly as dominant. It feels like two completely different series depending on what state it is played in. For some reason this game feels different though. The Spurs feel like a team of destiny, weathering the storm for the first two rounds with Embiid out, now going blow for blow with one of the top teams from the East. My head says the Knicks win it at home, but I have this nagging feeling that the Spurs are going to surprise everyone and win game 7. I’m calling it here, it’s a gutsy call, not based on what I’ve seen at all. I think the Spurs win game 7 and get crowned NLL champions. Good luck to both teams, let’s see an OT game!
