We’re about to party like it’s 1999.With their Game 7 win over the Oklahoma City Thunder on Saturday night, the San Antonio Spurs locked in a NBA Finals rematch from the lockout-shortened 1999 season, pitting the Spurs against the New York Knicks. While a No. 2 seed from one conference playing a No. 3 seed from the other doesn’t seem like a wild upset, only two of the 33 members of The Athletic’s NBA staff predicted the matchup before the playoffs started.Accordingly, we’re giving Eric Koreen and Eric Nehm the floor to explain how and why they saw this coming.Koreen: Saturday was a landmark night for handsome geniuses named Eric, Eric. With the Spurs’ win, we correctly predicted the two teams competing in the NBA Finals, unlike all of our colleagues. Should we hang a banner halfway between Toronto and Milwaukee? Apparently that would be in Waverly, Mich.We did it, so we really deserve to take our victory lap, because it’s not like either of us picked the Rockets (Editor’s note: Koreen did) or the Raptors (Editor’s note: Nehm did) to win their first-round series. No, we were perfect.I want to start with the Eastern Conference, simply because that seemed like the more straightforward of the two picks to me, with the predictions of our peers backing that up: The Knicks received the second-most votes to win the conference, behind only the Boston Celtics, while the Spurs were third out West, behind Oklahoma City and the Denver Nuggets. What made you lean toward the Knicks to come out of the East? Like me, did you also find that prediction easier to make than taking the Spurs to represent the West?Nehm: You’re correct. I thought the Eastern Conference was easier to pick than the Western Conference, but that had just as much to do with the Knicks as it had to do with the rest of the conference.The Knicks, in my opinion, had the most talent of any team in the East heading into the playoffs. Jalen Brunson might not be an MVP candidate, but he has been a second-team All-NBA player each of the last three seasons and the undisputed leader of the Knicks since joining the team in 2022. OG Anunoby, Mikal Bridges and Karl-Anthony Towns are all great players who can do a little bit of everything and step up on any given night. And new head coach Mike Brown has maximized the contributions from the rest of the roster in a way that Tom Thibodeau could not during his five-year tenure in New York.When I looked at the rest of the conference, I had too many questions. Detroit had never been through the rigors of a postseason run. Boston had a spectacular regular season, but the Celtics were trying to integrate Jayson Tatum as he made his return from a torn Achilles as they were getting ready for the playoffs. Cleveland had James Harden. And with Tyrese Haliburton and Giannis Antetokounmpo both injured and out of the playoffs, the rest of the conference didn’t have any championship equity. So, it had to be the Knicks.What did you see in the Knicks?Koreen: To me, there were only two teams that I considered in the East: Boston and New York. The Celtics’ close to the season, when Tatum returned from his injury and looked healthy, gave me pause. They looked excellent. Still, the uncertainty over his short-term health made me stick with my preseason prediction for the conference winner — the Knicks.It was funny hearing Knicks fans and observers talk about their season. It was full of angst, and I get it: They’re the Knicks; bad things tend to happen to them. They had some real issues surrounding the constitution of their starting lineup, and the performance of Bridges in particular.They were healthy, though, and they were solid in the macro sense. They ranked fourth in offensive efficiency and seventh in defense. That screams championship contender. My confidence in the Knicks was helped by their season series against the team I cover, the Toronto Raptors, as they swept them 5-0, never winning by fewer than 16 points.