The Knicks know they’ll be in their first NBA Final in 27 years.
Now they’re one Oklahoma City win away from knowing they’ll face the Thunder.
As the Knicks rest and recuperate, they won’t play Game 1 until June 3. It’s an eight-day layoff while they watch across the country at the slugfest that is the Western Conference finals.
Top-seeded Oklahoma City held serve at home with a 127-114 victory over the second-seeded Spurs in Game 5, taking a 3-2 series lead and moving a win away from booking a date with the Knicks.
That victory may not come easily or cheaply, with Game 6 on Thursday night in San Antonio (8:36 p.m, NBC).
But a Knicks-Thunder matchup — the league’s biggest market against its best team, the defending champions with the two-time reigning MVP — would be mouth-watering.
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander turned in an MVP-worthy effort against the Spurs, with a game-high 32 points and nine assists.
Yes, he had a half-dozen turnovers and shot just 7-for-19 from the floor against a long, athletic Spurs defense. But he worked his way to the free-throw line at will, going 16-for-17 from the charity stripe.
Even playing without All-Star Jalen Williams and Ajay Mitchell, the Thunder held San Antonio to just 40.2 percent shooting and 12-for-41 from deep.
Alex Caruso had 22 points, Jared McCain — acquired from Philadelphia for a first-round pick and three seconds — added 20, including 18 after halftime.
“We just played to who we were tonight,” Gilgeous-Alexander said on the broadcast. “I might have had the worst start to a basketball game in my career, but the group held it down, kept us in the game somehow. We still won the first quarter. But that’s just a testament to the guys in the locker room. I’ve been saying it all year, one-through-15, we wouldn’t be this deep in the season without the guys, everybody on the team. And it just showed again.”
Oklahoma City built a wall to stop Victor Wembanyama. The towering Spurs superstar came into the night averaging 30.3 points and 13.3 rebounds in this series, but was held to 20 points and six boards — a second straight single-digit night on the glass.
Isaiah Hartenstein and Chet Holmgren held him to just 4-for-15 shooting. They would pose a challenge to Karl-Anthony Towns.
Whichever team the Knicks end up playing will provide an entirely different class of opponent and far tougher test than they faced in the Eastern Conference. After reeling off 11 consecutive wins — including sweeps of the 76ers and Cavaliers — the Thunder and Spurs are on another level.
