ESPN's basketball daily cheat sheet is your pregame destination before you lock in daily fantasy and betting decisions for that night's games. Here you'll find our top insights for the slate, including players to target for your daily fantasy rosters, along with game-by-game injury reports.
Game 5 projections and injury reports
Basketball Power Index by ESPN Analytics. Injury aggregation by Rotowire.com. Odds provided by DraftKings Sportsbook
New York Knicks at San Antonio Spurs 8:30 p.m. ET
Line: Knicks +5.5 (-112) | Spurs -5.5 (-108) Money line: Knicks +160 | Spurs -192 Total: 216.5 (-110 O, -110 U) BPI Projection: Spurs by 2.3, straight up 57%, 216.6 total points.
Injury report:
Knicks: None reported
Spurs: David Jones Garcia, (OFS - Ankle)
The New York Knicks won their last NBA title back in May 1973. That was 2,770 weeks, or 19,392 days, ago. The San Antonio Spurs will seek to extend that drought at least a few more days as they host a must-win Game 5 on Saturday night.
NFL Survivor
Make one pick each week. Create up to 25 entries and play for the $25,000 Grand Prize! FREE to play. Make Your Picks
This marquee matchup, which airs at 8:30 p.m. ET on ABC, features two healthy and supremely motivated rosters. The Spurs, famous for getting off to fast starts in this series and throughout the postseason, enter as 5.5-point favorites on DraftKings Sportsbook. The Knicks remain sizable title favorites (-500), but given the odds, there is still work to be done.
A driver of Game 4's comeback was the Knicks' success running Victor Wembanyama into ball screens with Jalen Brunson probing for angles. The volume of those actions created advantages for Brunson and his teammates, taxed Wemby's energy, and pulled him away from protecting the rim. A major early factor will be how the Spurs adjust to that workload and navigate the added gauntlet of screens New York is likely to deploy.
Even as the series sits at 3-1 in New York's favor, the Knicks are up just eight points in the aggregate, signaling how competitive each game has proved to be. This series marks only the third time in NBA history that the first four games of a Finals were all one-possession games in the final two minutes. If there is one consistent element in this series, it is the presence of clutch-time scenarios.
When it comes to evaluating rotation patterns for player props and DFS decisions, the Spurs run the tighter and more predictable rotation. The Knicks, evidenced by Game 4's unexpected inclusion of Jose Alvarado, have a more diverse and challenging set of lineup outcomes to consider.