CNN/SI Home Finals Home Eastern Conference Western Conference Other Basketball News Scoreboard Schedule Bracket Team Matchups SI Images Almanac

Overmatched Duncan, Spurs wear down Knicks, take Game 1 Click here for more on this story Posted: Sunday June 27, 1999 11:48 PM   Tip-in by Tim: San Antonio's Tim Duncan was all over the glass with 17 rebounds and 33 points. AP SAN ANTONIO (CNN/SI) -- He may not be the league's most valuable player, but he is the reason the San Antonio Spurs are in the NBA Finals. Tim Duncan did all his damage -- from inside, outside and medium range -- with his trademark calm demeanor and cool efficiency. Playing the biggest game of his young NBA career, Duncan was virtually unstoppable as he led the San Antonio Spurs to a 89-77 victory over the New York Knicks in Game 1 of the NBA Finals on Wednesday night. He shot 13-for-21 for 33 points and grabbed 16 rebounds. That production, combined with several timely 3-pointers from Jaren Jackson and a strong all-around game from David Robinson, gave the Spurs three weapons the underdog Knicks couldn't match. "I felt good coming back from such a long layoff. It was a great comeback for me," Duncan said of the nine days off between series. "I actually didn't feel as good as I felt in the Lakers series, but tonight was a good night for me. No doubt about that." Peak & Weak Performers: Knicks-Spurs Gm. 1 PEAK Spurs Tim Duncan: 33 pts., 16 rebs. Jaren Jackson: 17 pts. (5-10 3-pt. FG) Knicks Latrell Sprewell: 19 pts. Allan Houston: 19 pts. WEAK Knicks Chris Childs: 2 pts (1-8 FG) in 26 mins. N.Y. scores only 10 pts. in 2nd qtr.   Before a crowd of almost 40,000, the second-largest ever at a finals game, the Spurs wore down the Knicks at both ends of the floor and never let them make a final push. It showed why San Antonio, which tied the NBA record for the longest postseason winning streak -- 11 games -- is such a prohibitive favorite to win this series. Jackson had the hot hand when San Antonio needed it in the fourth quarter and finished with five 3-pointers and 17 points. Robinson shot just 3-for-10 but had 13 points, nine rebounds, seven assists, three steals and three blocked shots. "Sometimes you have years when everything clicks, the team comes together and there's a bond on the floor that's real positive," Robinson said. "This is one of those teams." Game 2 is Friday night at the Alamodome, and San Antonio will have a chance to break the record it now shares with Los Angeles. The Lakers also hold the overall playoff record, winning 13 straight postseason games in 1988 and 1989. If there's any solace for the Knicks, maybe it's the fact that the Lakers' big streak a decade ago didn't lead to a title. The Spurs haven't won one yet, either, but they sure looked ready to be a championship team. CNN/SI On-Site CNN/SI analyst Alex English breaks down San Antonio's Game 1 win Vince Cellini: Talk about how the Knicks came out in this game -- running like we thought they would and trying to score in transition. The first quarter was very effective. English: They were very effective. Allan Houston got off early. He was hitting that jumpshot and they could not stop him. But then they started wearing down in the second quarter. Cellini: You can have a strategy coming into a game but there is no way to change a height or matchup differential. That began to manifest itself in the second quarter. English: The Knicks got their big people into foul trouble and as the game progressed, they started having problems with fouls -- Allan Houston, Larry Johnson, Kurt Thomas, Chris Dudley. And that was a big problem for them. But I think the big thing the Spurs used down the stretch was that Tim Duncan was just too much for 1-on-1. Cellini: Duncan outscored New York 11-10 in that second quarter and began to take advantage of some of the matchups that you talked about. You could see that is what turned it around in the first half. English: We talked about Duncan having great footwork and you could see that footwork he was using on Dudley late in the game. He did a good job and was very effective down low and that helped his outside game. They did not know how to handle him. He was just the main reason why the Spurs ran away with this game. Cellini: Duncan was talking about Jaren Jackson being a little crazy, but sometimes you can be crazy and good. Jackson had five 3-pointers in the game. English: He was crazy and good tonight. Jackson has been throwing daggers in all the playoff series. Jackson is very important. He was the one guy for the Spurs that was hitting from the outside. It was the big men inside that were doing the damage, but it was Jackson outside that was big and that was key for them. Cellini: Let's get to something more serious and that's Johnson and that right knee. No one was really sure if he was going to play tonight and he only had five points and one rebound. He really wasn't himself because of the injury. In retrospect, should he have sat out this Game 1 and maybe come back a little stronger in Game 2? English: I would have sat him out. He wasn't very effective. When I saw him shooting earlier, he was favoring the knee. It looked very tender. He didn't look like he was ready to play and he didn't play like the Larry Johnson that we know. He was not very quick on his moves, he wasn't able to rebound. And you look at the stats, he did not have a very good game tonight.   San Antonio closed the first half with a 14-2 run to take the lead for good, made New York play catch-up after that and slammed the door shut midway through the fourth by preventing the Knicks from getting anything resembling an easy basket. "I thought we were a bit frenetic offensively," Knicks coach Jeff Van Gundy said. "We were trying at times to create shots so hard I thought we were playing at a pace that lacked poise." Duncan did a little of everything offensively, making seven jumpers from anywhere between 6 and 20 feet, six layups and seven foul shots. If there was any rust from the Spurs' layoff after sweeping Portland in the Western Conference finals, it barely showed. "We knew we'd come out a little rusty," Duncan said. "It took about a quarter to get everything going, a half to really get back to where we were." Latrell Sprewell and Allan Houston had 19 apiece to lead New York, which got an emotional boost -- but little else -- from the unexpected return of Larry Johnson from a sprained knee. The Knicks scored just 10 points in the second quarter and 14 in the fourth, undoing all the damage they did by getting off to a strong start and staying within striking distance most of the way. "The problem was not how we started, but the droughts in the second and fourth quarters," Van Gundy said. "That's not going to get it done, but that's a credit to their defense as well." New York was still hanging around early in the fourth, pulling within six points on two occasions. Both times, Jackson stopped them from getting any closer by hitting 3-pointers. The second one gave the Spurs a 77-68 lead with 8:06 left. The Knicks missed their next seven shots, committed two turnovers and lost Marcus Camby and Johnson to foul trouble in the next three minutes. "We've got to take away Jaren Jackson," Van Gundy said. "Obviously, Duncan's going to score. We've got to take everything else anyway." Duncan scored from in close to make it 80-68, then banked in another shot from the same spot to take a 14-point lead. That was about all the Spurs needed, and they practically coasted the rest of the way. "No question, this is the most fun," Robinson said. "Winning makes the fun factor a lot better." This was the first time in this postseason that the Knicks have lost the opener of a series. They won against Miami, Atlanta and Indiana -- all on the road. "I think this makes us more hungry," Houston said. "You can't expect to go out and win every Game 1 just because you did in the past." Johnson was on the court for only 2:11 at the start of the game, and it was foul trouble, not his sore knee, that sent him to the bench. Kurt Thomas replaced him and made an impact in the first quarter, grabbing seven rebounds -- the same as all the Spurs combined -- and scoring six points to help New York take a 27-21 lead after the first quarter. The Knicks managed to hang onto that lead through the early part of the second quarter, but their fouls were adding up. Johnson and Camby drew their third personal each before the midpoint of the quarter. Houston picked up his third foul late in the period, which ended with San Antonio ahead 45-37. Duncan had 19 points and 10 rebounds at the half, while Robinson had 11 points. New York shot just 3-for-18 in the second quarter. The Knicks knocked their deficit down to five early in the third period, but Duncan kept them from getting any closer. He hit three straight shots in a span of two minutes to give the Spurs a 60-50 lead with 4:51 left, and Sean Elliott and Jackson had 3-pointers to help San Antonio take a 71-63 lead entering the fourth. Notes: Hall of Famer George Gervin threw up the ceremonial jump ball, using a red, white and blue ABA ball. The Spurs played in the ABA from 1967-76. ... The Spurs are trying to become the ninth team to win the NBA championship in their first finals appearance. It has been done only twice since the ABA-NBA merger in 1976, by the Chicago Bulls in 1991 and the Portland Trail Blazers in 1977. ... Of the 266 best-of-7 series in NBA playoff history, the team that has won Game 1 has gone on to win the series 211 times (79.3 percent). ... This is the Knicks' eighth trip to the finals. They won titles in 1970 and 1973 and lost in 1994, 1972, 1953, 1952 and 1951. ... The attendance was 39,514. The finals record is 41,732 at the Silverdome for a Lakers-Pistons game June 16, 1988.   Related information Stories On the Court with SI's Marty Burns One-on-one with Tim Duncan Knicks fighting history, not to mention Spurs Spurs' Jackson unstoppable in clutch Spurs second-quarter defense put clamps on Knicks Stats Knicks-Spurs Game 1 Summary Multimedia The Knicks got off to a quick start in the first quarter. (1.11 M) Young Tim Duncan is pointing the Spurs in the right direction.   • Start(824 K .MOV) Jaren Jackson came off the bench to score big for the Spurs. (1.20 M) Tim Duncan says Game 1 of the finals was not an easy game. (118 K) Spurs coach Gregg Popovich says this was the kind of game he expected. (174 K) David Robinson says he was looking for Tim Duncan. (170 K) David Robinson says this playoff run has been fun. (317 K) Tim Duncan says the Spurs are a confident team. (94 K) Click here for the latest audio and video Search our site Watch CNN/SI 24 hours a day Sports Illustrated and CNN have combined to form a 24 hour sports news and information channel. To receive CNN/SI at your home call 1-888-53-CNNSI. The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Copyright © 1999 CNN/SI. A Time Warner Company. All Rights Reserved. Terms under which this service is provided to you. Read our privacy guidelines.