OK, quick update: the Knicks now have the best three-game span in NBA playoff history in terms of net point differential, the two best four-game spans, the four best five-game spans, the four best six-game spans, the four best seven-game spans, the six best eight-game spans, the seven best nine-game spans, the six best 10-game spans, the five best 11-game spans, the four best 12-game spans, the three best 13-game spans, the two best 14-game spans, the two best 15-game spans, the two best 16-game spans, the two best 17-game spans, the two best 18-game spans, and the best 19-game span. (Some of these spans dip into last year’s postseason run; their losses to end last season’s playoffs don’t offset how historically dominant they are right now.)

Even if we include regular season games, the Knicks have the two best eight-game spans, the three best nine-game spans, the three best 10-game spans, the two best 11-game spans, and the two best 12-game spans of any team in NBA history. I’m not making this up!

Mike Vorkunov pointed out that of the 130 best-ever 12-game spans in NBA regular season or postseason history, only the Knicks’ spans are from the playoffs. It’s supposed to get harder to win a bunch of games in a row by a lot of points in the postseason!

Anyway, back to my thesis: The Knicks have won so many games against so many teams because they’re able to adapt. Against the fast-paced Hawks, it benefitted them to play slowly, so they did. Against the sluggish Cavs, it benefitted them to get out in transition, so they did. They’ve won games with offense and they’ve won games with defense. They can play a two-big lineup with Karl-Anthony Towns and Mitch Robinson, or they can play five-shooter lineups.

The Knicks’ best five-shooter look — OG Anunoby, Mikal Bridges, Landry Shamet, Brunson and Towns — has outscored opponents by 41 points in 23 minutes. When their opponents are well-suited to stopping Brunson, Towns runs the offense. When they’re well-suited to stopping KAT, it’s Brunson time. (It’s also Brunson time every single fourth quarter.)

The Spurs are not like this. When they bench Victor Wembanyama, they play Luke Kornet, and instantly go from one of the best defensive teams in the world to a mediocre unit. The Knicks’ comeback last night was sparked by two brief stints when Kornet took the floor. New York outscored San Antonio 14-4 in two minutes and 52 seconds of Kornet action in the second half.

In the second quarter, San Antonio briefly tried guarding Brunson with Carter Bryant, a rookie who is generally considered a good defender. Knicks coaches clearly told Brunson and company to attack this matchup viciously. In six possessions with Bryant guarding Brunson, the Knicks scored 10 points, with Brunson going 3-for-4 from the field.

The Knicks aren’t as vulnerable to lineup rotations like this. When Jalen Brunson went out with multiple injuries in Game 1, in came Jose Alvarado … who held his own. The Knicks were actually plus-4 in his minutes.

I saw people write about how the Knicks are particularly well-suited to stopping Wemby’s offense. And in Game 1 they were — he went just 6-for-21 thanks to brilliant defense from Towns and Robinson. But I think the Knicks won the game with their ability to draw Wemby, the greatest rim protector the league has ever seen, away from the basket. The Thunder went 1-for-5 at the basket with Wemby on the court in their Game 7 loss. The Knicks went 6-for-8 in Game 1 — more makes than the Thunder had attempts!

That’s why these Knicks are so much more effective in 2026 despite having roughly the same roster they had in 2025. With all due respect to the team’s last coach, Tom Thibodeau, he is famously set in his ways, and had very specific ideas about how basketball should be played. And under Thibodeau, the Knicks’ playoff runs fell short because of the team’s rigidity and inability to adjust. Their all-Jalen-all-the-time offensive strategy got solved, their starters got too tired, and their bench was too untested to help. They only had one way to win, and when that didn’t work, it was over.

I understand why people saw this matchup and picked the Spurs. Looking at what Wemby can do, it makes sense. Even someone who has never watched basketball before can look at the screen and think WHY IS THAT GUY SO BIG. HE’S UNSTOPPABLE.

But the Knicks are hoops chameleons. It’s harder to see what makes them great, but when you figure out exactly what they’re doing, it’s impossible not to be awed.

Poland’s Maja Chwalińska has come out of the qualifying tournament to reach the women’s final. Chwalińska, ranked 113th in the world, had a grand total of one career win at a Grand Slam: a first-round win at Wimbledon in 2022. She was previously known to tennis fans as “the woman applying ice to Iga Swiatek’s head.”

Chwalińska is just the second player, male or female, to reach a Grand Slam final after playing their way into the main draw from a qualifying tournament (the first was Emma Raducanu at the 2021 US Open.) And she’s just the third player to make their first WTA final appearance in a Grand Slam (the others being Raducanu and Venus Williams.)

Chwalińska’s run is probably a little bit more improbable than Raducanu’s, who was being hyped as a breakout tennis prospect and had reached the Round of 16 at Wimbledon months before. Chwalińska is 24 years old, older than Raducanu is today.

Chwalińska has earned $1.6 million for reaching the final, about three times her total career earnings to date. However, she was concerned she wasn’t going to be able to afford her extended stay at a Paris hotel the deeper she got in the tournament. As she noted in a press conference, she might have already earned all that money, but it’s not going into her bank account until after the tournament. (This is probably the best use case ever for credit cards, Maja!) Luckily, a Polish energy drink company has stepped in to cover her stay.

The men’s side doesn’t have anybody as off-the-radar as Chwalińska, but we’ve still got four potential first-time Grand Slam champions now with Jannik Sinner and Novak Djokovic both out and Carlos Alcaraz injured.

Since 1980, 19 men’s players have won exactly one (and no more) Grand Slam tournament. Eight of those 19 — 42 percent! — were French Open champions. Four of the last seven Grand Slam finals between two players who had never appeared in a Grand Slam final before have been at the French Open.

From 2002 to 2004, we had a back-to-back-to-back string of one-time winners in Albert Costa, Juan Carlos Ferrero and Gastón Gaudio.

You know I’m a big fan of one-moment-in-the-sun breakout championships — shouts to Aaron Rai — so I’m cheering on our French Open randos!

Texas, the defending champions, was six outs away from elimination on Sunday and getting no-hit by Jordy Frahm. (Who is pregnant!) Then Katie Stewart hit a game-winning three-run home run, and Texas won back-to-back games against Tennessee to make the championship series.

Texas Tech’s route was even wilder. The Red Raiders scored during their final out against Tennessee to force extra innings, then lost on a ninth-inning walk-off home run. Then they were an out away from beating UCLA, gave up a home run to force extras, and then won that game in the ninth. And then they gave up a seventh-inning game-tying home run against Alabama only to advance on a walk-off Mia Williams home run in the bottom of the inning.

They crossed paths with the former teams of a bunch of their star players on their way to the championship series. Williams, a transfer from Florida, was hit by five pitches in Texas Tech’s Super Regional series with the Gators, in which she also hit a go-ahead home run.

Williams’ father, former NBA and Florida hoops star Jason Williams, claimed that Florida’s coach intentionally got ejected from the final game of the series to avoid having to shake his daughter’s hand. (White Chocolate, btw, has now left Oklahoma City; he was repeatedly going viral for reacting to Tech’s ridiculous wins, and decided to go home so he wouldn’t be a distraction.)

And then Tech played against Tennessee, where Taylor Pannell used to play. Pannell accused Tennessee’s coach, Karen Weekly, of telling her she made a mistake transferring during their post-game handshake. Weekly called the allegations an “outright lie” and ESPN went full Zapruder showing handshake replays that seem to clear Weekly.

Multiple stories have called Texas Tech the villains of college softball and I’m like … really? We’re mad at the school with exactly three NCAA championships across all sports in school history for spending millions of dollars on transfers to create a superteam in a women’s sport? Are we rooting for the literal richest athletic program in the country to defend its title instead????

Anyway, Texas leads the series 1-0 heading into Thursday night’s Game 2. And even if you do buy the Texas Tech villains arc, I think everybody but the Longhorns should be rooting for a Game 3 here.