NEW YORK (AP) — Victor Wembanyama was surprised. His San Antonio Spurs, who were untouchable in February, were unsteady to start March.
San Antonio didn't respond well to the New York Knicks' defensive pressure Sunday and had its 11-game winning streak snapped with a 114-89 loss.
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San Antonio Spurs' Mitch Johnson yells during the first half of an NBA basketball game against the New York Knicks Sunday, March 1, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
San Antonio Spurs' Luke Kornet reacts to a call during the first half of an NBA basketball game against the New York Knicks Sunday, March 1, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
San Antonio Spurs' Victor Wembanyama, left, looks to pass around New York Knicks' Josh Hart (3) during the second half of an NBA basketball game Sunday, March 1, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
New York Knicks' Mikal Bridges, left, fouls San Antonio Spurs' Victor Wembanyama, center, while Bridges and Mohamed Diawara (51) try to get to the ball during the second half of an NBA basketball game Sunday, March 1, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
The physical defense was nothing the Spurs hadn't seen before. So Wembanyama expected the Spurs to stand up to it better at Madison Square Garden, but instead they never recovered from the Knicks' 26-2 run in the first half.
“We gave them life,” Wembanyama said. “We should have been better, especially on that run in the first quarter.”
The Spurs were 11-0 in February, becoming the first team in NBA history to go unbeaten and score at least 110 points in every game while playing at least 10 in a month. It appeared they would keep on rolling when they raced to a 19-7 lead Sunday.
But the Knicks shut them down from there, changing the game with their big run and holding the Spurs to their lowest point total of the season.
“I was surprised, yeah,” Wembanyama said. “It feels like they’re a good basketball team, they are good actual basketball players. They’re not the nastiest, ugly team, you know? They’re not an ugly team to watch but they made our game ugly.”
Wembanyama had 25 points, 13 rebounds and four blocked shots, bouncing back offensively after getting held to 12 points in each of the last two games. But he committed seven turnovers and blamed himself for playing too hesitantly, especially with his 3-point shooting. He was 1 for 7 behind the arc.
He also said he made a mistake on a play that both he and Spurs coach Mitch Johnson said was a pivotal one. The Spurs failed to come up with the rebound when Knicks center Mitchell Robinson missed a free throw with San Antonio leading 21-14 late in the first quarter. New York then finished the period with an 8-0 run to take a lead and then poured it on early in the second.
Before that, Johnson said “the first 10 minutes roughly couldn’t have gone almost any better for us.” Afterward, his team hardly resembled the one that had surged into the No. 2 seed in the Western Conference.
“I think if you watched us even a little bit this year, the best version of us is fast, activity, space, pace,” Johnson said, “whether that’s ball movement, body movement or a combination of. And at that point through that stretch we were it felt like in quicksand a lot, both ways.”
But Wembanyama quickly swatted away any panic after the Spurs' first loss since Jan. 31 at Charlotte.
“No, I don’t see any regression,” the All-Star center said. “I think it’s good for us to see this kind of adversity.”
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San Antonio Spurs' Mitch Johnson yells during the first half of an NBA basketball game against the New York Knicks Sunday, March 1, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
San Antonio Spurs' Luke Kornet reacts to a call during the first half of an NBA basketball game against the New York Knicks Sunday, March 1, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
San Antonio Spurs' Victor Wembanyama, left, looks to pass around New York Knicks' Josh Hart (3) during the second half of an NBA basketball game Sunday, March 1, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
New York Knicks' Mikal Bridges, left, fouls San Antonio Spurs' Victor Wembanyama, center, while Bridges and Mohamed Diawara (51) try to get to the ball during the second half of an NBA basketball game Sunday, March 1, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
WASHINGTON (AP) — Israeli and American authorities spent weeks tracking the movements of senior Iranian leaders, including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, sharing information that allowed the strikes to be carried out in a surprise daylight attack, according to an Israeli military official and a person familiar with the operation.
The eventual barrage of U.S.-Israeli attacks on Iran came so quickly that they were nearly simultaneous — with three strikes in three locations hitting within a single minute — killing Khamenei and some 40 senior figures, including the head of the Revolutionary Guard and the country’s defense minister, the Israeli military official said Sunday.
The official insisted on anonymity to more fully detail the attack, but said that a variety of factors created a golden opportunity to take out much of Iran’s leadership, like weeks of training and monitoring the movements of senior figures as well as intelligence in real-time before the attack began that key targets were gathered together.
Striking by day also gave an additional element of surprise, said the official, who said that so many major, rapid-fire strikes were critical to keep key officials from fleeing after the first strike. The official said Israel closely cooperated with its U.S. counterparts and had used a similar tactic at the beginning of last June’s war — which resulted in the killing of several senior Iranian figures.
The official also noted Khamenei having posted defiant tweets taunting President Donald Trump in the days before the attack.
The details about the strikes came as the conflict entered its second day, with Trump saying in a video message Sunday that he expected it would continue until “all of our objectives are achieved.” He did not spell out what those objectives were.
The Republican president also said the U.S. military and its partners hit hundreds of targets in Iran, including paramilitary Revolutionary Guard facilities, Iranian air defense systems and nine warships, “all in a matter of literally minutes.”
Before the attacks, the CIA had for months tracked the movements of senior Iranian leaders, including the country’s supreme leader.
The intelligence was shared with Israeli officials, and the timing of the strikes was adjusted in part because of that information about the Iranian leaders’ location, according to the person, who was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
The intelligence-sharing between U.S. and Israel reflects the preparation that went into the strikes, which continued for a second day Sunday after Khamenei's killing threw the future of the Islamic Republic into uncertainty and raised the risk of escalating regional conflict.
Arkansas Republican Sen. Tom Cotton, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, told CBS’ “Face the Nation” that tracking the movements of the supreme leader and the heads of other adversarial nations “is obviously one of the highest priorities of our intelligence community.”
The U.S. regularly shares intelligence with allies including Israel. Those partnerships, and the accuracy of the intelligence they yield, is often critical not only to the success of a military operation but also to the public's support for it.
Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, the senior Democrat on the committee, told The Associated Press that, historically, “our working relationship with the Mossad and Israel is really strong.” Mossad is the Israeli spy agency.
Warner said he has serious concerns about the justification for the strikes, Trump’s long-term plans for the conflict and the risks that U.S. service members will face. The military announced that three American troops had been killed in the Iran operation.
“No tears will be shed over their leadership being eliminated, but always the question is: OK, what next?” Warner said.
A senior White House official said Iran’s “new potential leadership” has suggested it is open to talks with the United States. That official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal administration deliberations, said Trump has indicated he’s “eventually” willing to talk but that for now the military operation “continues unabated.”
The official did not say who the potential new Iranian leaders are or how they made their alleged willingness to talk known. Separately, Trump told The Atlantic that he planned to speak with Iran’s new leadership.
“They want to talk, and I have agreed to talk, so I will be talking to them,” he said Sunday, declining comment on the timing.
The potential future diplomatic opening comes as the details were emerging about the detailed planning that went into the U.S.-Israeli strikes and some of the targets that were hit in Iran.
U.S. Central Command said that B-2 stealth bombers struck Iran’s ballistic missile facilities with 2,000-pound bombs. That mirrors the approach that the military took in June, when Trump agreed to deploy B-2 bombers to attack three key Iranian nuclear sites.
Trump said during his State of the Union speech last week that Iran had been building ballistic missiles that could reach the U.S. homeland — a justification he repeated again Saturday as he announced that the bombardment of Iran was underway.
Iran has not acknowledged that it is building or seeking to build intercontinental ballistic missiles. The U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency, however, said in an unclassified report last year that Iran could develop a militarily viable intercontinental ballistic missile by 2035 “should Tehran decide to pursue the capability.”
Federman reported from Jerusalem. Associated Press writers Matthew Lee, Will Weissert and Ben Finley contributed to this report.
The White House is seen Sunday March 1, 2026, in Washington, ahead of the arrival of President Donald Trump. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)
President Donald Trump holds up a fist after disembarking Air Force One at Palm Beach International Airport in West Palm Beach, Fla., Friday, Feb. 27, 2026. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
