Spurs got an education down the stretch in NBA Cup title game loss to Knicks

San Antonio led 92-81 with 2 minutes left in the third quarter, when Victor Wembanyama — who played off the bench once again as he works his way back from a strained left calf — connected on a deep 3-pointer.

The score the rest of the way: Knicks 43, Spurs 21. San Antonio shot 6 for 23 over those final 14 minutes. It got outrebounded 25-8 — a staggering differential. The Knicks outscored the Spurs 18-4 in the paint over that stretch, too.

All one-sided numbers, and that's how the game got away.

“It’s do-or-die, I think, out there,” said Spurs rookie Dylan Harper, who led San Antonio with 21 points off the bench. "You’ve seen the level of intensity rise up for us, and them. Obviously, they came out with the win. But for us, it's not taking anything for granted; I think that's the biggest thing. When we all go out there, we all know that we've got to play 110% in order to win things like this.”

The Knicks wound up splitting about $5 million in additional bonus money, pushing their total to $530,933 per player for winning the Cup. The Spurs had to settle — such as it is — for $212,373 each.

"I'm assuming that we're feeling pretty frustrated because we lost the game," Spurs coach Mitch Johnson said. "I’m also feeling after 25 games in, I believe, that we’ve shown some signs that we can be a pretty good team. And we’ve also shown that we have a lot of areas of improvement. And I think that’s where we’re living today and hopefully tomorrow. We can continue to get a little bit better and minimize some of the things that we need to improve on.”

The Spurs are 18-7; Tuesday's loss doesn't factor into the record for this season. They've had four of their key players — Wembanyama, Harper, De'Aaron Fox and Stephon Castle — together for exactly two games, those being the Cup semifinal win over Oklahoma City on Saturday and the Cup final loss to the Knicks. The only teams in the Western Conference with better records than the Spurs right now are the Thunder and Denver.

There's a lot to like, even on a night that didn't go San Antonio's way.

Wembanyama was emotional afterward, for reasons that had nothing to do with the outcome. He revealed following the game that he was struggling with news that someone close to him died earlier in the day.

When asked about the game, he indicated it would be a learning experience.

“It's the best practice for important games,” Wembanyama said. “Of course. Our focus is already on the playoffs. Playoffs are going to be the biggest time of the year, so I guess it's good that we got this experience today.”

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