1m ago / 5:33 PM EDTThe memory of Karl-Anthony Towns’ late mother gives Knicks’ star peace in NBA Finals debut In arguably the biggest game of his career, Knicks center Karl-Anthony Towns wasn’t scared or overwhelmed. Instead, when Towns stepped onto the court on Wednesday night in his first-ever NBA Finals game, he felt an odd sense of peace.“I don’t know what it was,” he told the "Inside the NBA" crew after a 105-95 Game 1 win over the Spurs, “but I just felt a calm and a peace that I know had to come from the woman above. So I felt really confident about today.”The woman he’s referencing is his late mother, Jacqueline Cruz-Towns, who died in April 2020 due to complications from covid at the age of 58. 15m ago / 5:20 PM EDTSpurs' Julian Champagnie trying to bring a title back home to New YorkJulian Champagnie wants the Larry O'Brien Trophy to come to New York this offseason. And he wants to be the one carrying it — as a Spur. The Brooklyn native, 24, was raised in Kensington and went to high school only a short walk from the Brooklyn Nets' arena. He stayed home to play collegiately in Queens at St. John's. In the NBA after he was cut by Philadelphia, he was signed by San Antonio in 2023, and the former castoff has been integral in San Antonio making its first NBA Final since 2014, making six 3-pointers in Game 7 of the Western Conference finals. That win set up a showdown against his hometown Knicks with a title on the line.Champagnie made five 3-pointers in the first half of Wednesday's Game 1 loss, but was held in check after."Obviously I’m from there. I lived there. I grew up there. I went to school there and all that good stuff," Champagnie said Thursday. "Being able to bring one of those [trophies] back to the hood, it would be real good."So, no, Champagnie was not surprised to hear how vocal some New York fans were despite Game 1 taking place in Texas."I know how New York fans travel and stuff like that, so I kind of expected that," he said.28m ago / 5:06 PM EDTThe Knicks’ Jalen Brunson can already do what the Spurs are still figuring out In Game 1 of the NBA Finals on Wednesday, the New York Knicks’ Jalen Brunson scored 13 points in the fourth quarter to lead the Knicks to a 105-95 victory over the San Antonio Spurs and a 1-0 series lead. The Spurs, meanwhile, scored only 19 points over the final period and looked discombobulated.What has made Brunson one of the NBA’s premier playoff performers over the last few seasons is how well he operates when the Knicks desperately need a bucket.Since the start of the 2023 postseason, no other player has made or attempted more clutch field goals than Brunson. (Clutch is defined as a game within five points with under five minutes to go.)And only 14.8% of Brunson’s clutch makes have been assisted, the lowest percentage of any player with at least 100 clutch attempts. That means not only that Brunson is unafraid to take and make the biggest shots — but that he often does so creating entirely for himself.“In the biggest moments, he shows up, and that’s what MVPs are supposed to do,” New York head coach Mike Brown said. “We put the ball in his hands and said we are going to live and die with him. And he got it done for us, and that’s happened time after time after time. He got to his spots, and he made plays.”40m ago / 4:54 PM EDTSpurs 'don't think we have anything to be too worried about'Trailing 1-0 in his first Finals, Victor Wembanyama exuded calm when talking Wednesday night after New York's opening win."We’ve been down in a series before, never in the Finals, obviously, but I’m not kicking myself about anything really," the San Antonio star said. "I’m not worried the slightest."A day later, teammate Stephon Castle echoed that sentiment as the Western Conference champions prepared for Game 2. “Vic said it best, I don’t think we have anything to be too worried about,” Castle said. Obviously, we feel like we’re the better team. We didn’t play well, still had a chance to win."With an average age of 24.4 among rotation players, Spurs are the youngest team to make the NBA Finals since 2016, and one of the youngest of all time."I don’t know if (our confidence) is our youth talking," Castle said. "It might just be more of what our character is like. I don’t think we’ll ever change from being this way, having this kind of confidence in each other, no matter how young we are."It helps, perhaps, that San Antonio made the Finals despite trailing the Western Conference finals 3-2 before winning the final two games against the reigning NBA champion Thunder. Wembanyama made only six of his 21 shots from the field in the opener against the Knicks."When we play bad, when I play bad, is when we shoot ourselves in the foot," Wembanyama said. "This is why I’m not worried. We’re going to be so much better. I’m going to be so much better."40m ago / 4:54 PM EDTBrunson combines IQ and footwork to be potentJim Jackson joins the Dan Patrick show to discuss the NBA Finals with Jalen Brunson leading the New York Knicks as they face the San Antonio Spurs.