GREENBURGH, N.Y. (AP) — When the New York Knicks declined to hang a banner after beating the San Antonio Spurs to win the NBA Cup, they did so because they were waiting to celebrate something bigger.
That wait is at 53 years and it can only end now by beating the Spurs again.
Nearly a week after clinching their first NBA Finals berth since 1999, the Knicks were at last able to practice Sunday while knowing who they were practicing for, after Victor Wembanyama and the Spurs knocked off Oklahoma City on Saturday night in Game 7 of the Western Conference finals.
“I mean, they’re a special team,” Knicks guard Deuce McBride said. “Obviously they have the Defensive Player of the Year, obviously a great organization and they’ve got a lot of great young guys, so we’re just excited for this matchup.”
It's the same one as the last time the Knicks were in the NBA Finals, when the Spurs beat them 27 years ago to leave New York without a title since 1973.
The Knicks believed they were going to have a good shot at ending the drought this year and got a test run at chasing a championship back in December, when they beat San Antonio in Las Vegas to win the NBA Cup.
The Knicks then passed on joining the Lakers and Milwaukee, the previous winners of the in-season tournament, in raising a banner at Madison Square Garden to acknowledge it. They aren't putting much stock in that victory six months later, knowing how different both teams are.
“Obviously there was good energy around that, but I don’t think that’s really going to be any equivalent to what the atmosphere or the energy is going to be like at their place, or obviously at the Garden," Knicks forward Josh Hart said.
"So technically that game didn’t happen, so I don’t think there’s anything that we can learn from,” Hart added, poking fun at the fact that the Cup final, an 83rd game for the two teams, doesn't count in the standings or statistics.
The teams split the two games that did matter, with San Antonio's victory on New Year's Eve starting a midseason spiral for a Knicks club that arrived with a 23-9 record. Then, after the Spurs went undefeated in February, New York snapped their 11-game winning streak with a 114-89 home victory on March 1.
Game 1 is Wednesday at San Antonio. More than Wembanyama and the Spurs, the Knicks' biggest problem might be their lack of playing rhythm.
Because they are rolling through the postseason with an 11-game winning streak, that will be just the 10th game in a 35-day span for the Knicks, starting with the April 30 clincher against Atlanta in Game 6 of the first round.
They then swept Philadelphia and had more than a week off before opening the Eastern Conference finals against Cleveland. Their inactivity clearly showed after that extended rest, as they were 4 for 23 on 3-pointers through three quarters and fell behind by 22 points early in the fourth before rallying to win in overtime.
“We understand what happened last time we had a layoff like this, so we’re just trying to be better than we were last time,” center Karl-Anthony Towns said.
That was the only trouble the Knicks had with the Cavaliers, easily taking the next three games and ending the series last Monday. They have outscored opponents by 262 points during the winning streak, the largest margin for any 11-game stretch in NBA history.
The Knicks don't expect anything so easy against the Spurs, whose victory in the 1999 matchup was their first of five NBA titles. New York coach Mike Brown was on the bench for one of them as an assistant to Gregg Popovich, and was the losing coach in another when the Spurs swept Cleveland in 2007.
“I got ties to San Antonio and you appreciate the people, you appreciate the journey and all that other stuff,” said Brown, who has family still living in San Antonio. “But at the end of the day, just like they want to beat you, you definitely want to beat them.”
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New York Knicks guard Josh Hart (3) shoots against Cleveland Cavaliers guard Donovan Mitchell (45) during the first half of Game 4 in the Eastern Conference finals NBA basketball playoffs series in Cleveland, Monday, May 25, 2026. (AP Photo/Tim Phillis)
The New York Knicks hold the Eastern Conference Championship trophy after Game 4 in the Eastern Conference finals NBA basketball playoffs series against the Cleveland Cavaliers in Cleveland, Monday, May 25, 2026. (AP Photo/Tim Phillis)
The New York Knicks hold the Eastern Conference Championship trophy after Game 4 in the Eastern Conference finals NBA basketball playoffs series against the Cleveland Cavaliers in Cleveland, Monday, May 25, 2026. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki)
Graham Platner’s wife called reports that her husband had previously exchanged sexually explicit text messages with several women “shameful" over the weekend, the latest controversy to hit the Maine Democrat’s whirlwind campaign.
Platner, an oyster farmer and combat veteran, posted a video taken by his wife, Amy Gertner, who reportedly told his campaign of the text messages last year. In the five minute video, Gertner avoided speaking directly about her husband's reported texts, dubbing the broader coverage as “gossip" and saying that “being married is hard.”
“I find it really shameful that there’s a group of media outlets and people who are willing to spread gossip,” she said in the informal, selfie-style video where she walked along a road. “No marriage is perfect, and I don't want a perfect marriage. I want my marriage.”
Platner is seeking the Democratic nomination for one of the most closely-watched Senate races as Democrats hope to defeat longtime Republican Sen. Susan Collins in the party's efforts to win control of the closely divided Senate. The Maine primary is June 9.
The texts were first reported by The Wall Street Journal, which wrote that Gertner had told the campaign in August about the messages she had found on Platner's phone earlier in their marriage. The New York Times, which also published a story Saturday about the texts, named former aide Genevieve McDonald as one of the then-campaign staffers who confirmed the messages.
Both newspapers reported that Gertner wanted to ensure the texts didn't pose a political liability to the novice candidate. Platner's campaign team eventually decided that the texts were private and being handled by the couple, who were married in 2023. The two are in counseling, Gertner has said.
Platner's campaign on Sunday did not specifically confirm the text messages to The Associated Press, but issued a statement from Gertner saying the disclosure of the conversations she had with a campaign aide was a betrayal that “deeply hurt.”
“I trusted this person with the most private chapter of our lives — the early days of our marriage before any campaign was on our mind," she wrote.
Platner, who has never held public office, has a gruff, less buttoned-up approach on the campaign trail, fashioned a platform around economic equality and has already had to navigate statements that surfaced from his past.
The candidate had a tattoo recognized as a Nazi symbol, which he said he didn't realize until he was several weeks into the campaign. There's also been much attention on his former Reddit posts, which were dismissive of military sexual assaults and used homophobic slurs, for which he has apologized.
Platner's campaign weathered those earlier revelations in what had been considered one of the most competitive Democratic primaries before Gov. Janet Mills dropped out of the race in late April due to a lack of campaign funds. Mills, a two-term governor, had been seen as one of the Democrats' top 2026 recruits when she entered the Senate race before her campaign fizzled out.
Platner has still pulled support from big name Democrats, including Sens. Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and Ruben Gallego as well as U.S. House Rep. Ro Khanna. The latter is scheduled to rally with Platner Friday.
Questions over whether additional controversial information about Platner could still surface have added to some Democrats' anxiety over his chances in a general election against Collins, who has represented Maine in the Senate since 1997.
In October, after the revelation that he once had a totenkopf tattoo on his chest and promptly had it covered, the AP asked him if other scandals were on the horizon.
Platner said he was expecting his opponents were “going to keep dragging things up.”
“They’re go to keep making things up,” he said “I fully expect people to just lie about me at this point.”
Voters are familiar with the couple's struggles, including with infertility and travelling out of the country to afford IVF treatment, which they've discussed on the campaign trail.
In late April, Platner shared that Gartner had suffered a miscarriage, and he’s discussed his own mental health struggles and the role of his family and therapist in helping.
McDonald initially worked on Platner’s campaign as his political director and resigned a few months later when his now-deleted Reddit posts began surfacing, saying she couldn’t stand behind him as a candidate. She later declined a severance offer from the campaign in exchange for signing a non-disclosure agreement.
On Saturday, McDonald wrote on Facebook that Platner’s campaign had “demanded” she retract her statements she had made to The Wall Street Journal or his team would accuse her of violating the couple's trust. That’s when she said she made the choice to be publicly named in The New York Times story.
McDonald did not immediately respond to a text and phone call from the AP on Sunday.
“His consultants greatly overestimate how much I do not aspire to be them,” she wrote on Facebook.
After resigning from Platner’s campaign, McDonald moved to help Democrat Jordan Wood’s congressional campaign in Maine’s second district. McDonald submitted her resignation from Wood’s campaign Saturday morning, according to Wood’s campaign.
Wood endorsed Platner after Mills dropped out.
Bedayn reported from Austin, Texas and Kruesi reported from Providence, Rhode Island.
Graham Platner, Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate, speaks at an event hosted by Sen. Bernie Sanders in Orono, Maine, Sunday, May 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)
