2026 NBA Finals: New York Knicks vs San Antonio Spurs

Knicks-Spurs kick it off tonight in the 2025-2026 NBA Finals.  It's hard not to be as excited as everyone else about San Antonio and Wemby but the Knicks are good.  Really good.  Led by Jalen Brunson, they are a deep team with multiple players who can shoot and score.  This includes one of the best shooting big men ever, if not the best, in Karl-Anthony Towns.  His play around the 3-point line could make for an interesting matchup for Wemby who likes to sag a lot and can do so against traditional bigs.  But Wemby and the Spurs seem to have an energy right now that might be hard to stop.  And New York doesn't have the defense OKC did. San Antonio needs the ball in De'Aaron Fox' hand to keep down turnovers and to be that calming presence.  Wemby will be flying everywhere on defense which makes it tough for shooters and anyone close to the lane alike.  I like San Antonio in this series.  The Spurs can be streaky though and the Knicks have plenty of scorers so I think it will be close and I expect 6 games.

I did enjoy looking back on the 1999 NBA Finals where Tim Duncan and David Robinson led the Spurs over the New York team with Latrell Sprewell, Allan Houston, Marcus Camby and Larry Johnson in 5 games.  While we knew that Spurs team was good and that Duncan was special, did we really know it would lead to 5 San Antonio Spurs Championships?  I've always been a closet Spurs fan dating back to George Gervin, Artis Gilmore, and Johnny Moore in the early 80s, so I definitely have a rooting interest in this series.
 

Random Wax: 1991-1992 Topps Stadium Club Hockey

91-92 Stadium Club:   I don't do much Hockey but with the NHL Stanley Cup starting tonight between Las Vegas and Carolina let's do it.  Al MacInnis is a Hall of Famer who won a Stanley Cup in 1989 with Calgary and was a 7X All-Star.

Stadium Club has always been solid.  This isn't my favorite design of theirs.  We need a logo or at least something more here.

The backs are solid.  I really like getting the player's rookie card here.  That's great!  I was a big fan of The Sporting News back in the day, but I'd like to see more stats here but that wasn't the norm with Stadium Club.

Photos weren't quite as consistently good as we see today but I think a lot of that has to do with technology and availability.  Still, it's hard to complain about their cards.

We do get horizontal cards which is great and I like this photo.  The card also has an update showing Ray Sheppard is with a different team.

Fun pack and we get some goalie love.  I don't have a rooting interest in the Stanley Cup but maybe I'll go for Carolina since their owner is also the owner of the Portland Trail Blazers now.

BREAKDOWN:
12 - Total Cards