NBA Finals: Josh Hart and the art of doing whatever the game asks of you

SAN ANTONIO — Even as someone who’s spent an awful lot of time witnessing what Josh Hart’s capable of on the basketball court, Mikal Bridges kind of couldn’t believe what he saw in Game 1 of the 2026 NBA Finals.

“I talked to him after the game, and just reading his stat line — I think it was like 3 [points], 15 [rebounds], 6 [assists], 4 steals, something like that,” Bridges said Thursday at the Knicks’ practice session. “It’s a crazy stat line.”

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Like, Bill Russell crazy.

You know what’s funny? That might not even be the craziest part.

“I think even that sheet doesn’t even show what he was doing,” Bridges said.

Knicks head coach Mike Brown agreed wholeheartedly.

Yes, Jalen Brunson’s fourth-quarter shot-making explosion was obviously going to draw the headlines. And sure, Karl-Anthony Towns’ ongoing two-way excellence — exemplified by the yeoman’s work he put in on both ends of the floor to help limit Spurs superstar Victor Wembanyama — was the ready-made B story.

It’s a little bit harder, though, to lure millions of eyeballs to the importance of ratcheting up your transition frequency, playing with a faster pace in the half-court and playing disruptive help defense on the weak side of the opponent’s offensive action. Compilations of well-timed off-ball screens, out-of-area rebounds, ball denials and successfully navigated (or just utterly blown-up) ball screens don’t exactly pay the mortgage at the House of Highlights, y’know?

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And yet:

“He impacted the game in so many different ways for us,” Brown said. “You know, when you look at what he shot from the field, you wouldn’t think that he was probably the most impactful guy in the game last night.”

Especially if you only caught the first half, when Hart picked up three fouls in just over seven minutes of work — “three of probably my dumbest fouls,” he said in the Knicks’ locker room after the game — and spent all but 37 seconds of the second quarter riding the pine.

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When New York headed back to the locker room trailing by…

Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/nba/article/nba-finals-josh-hart-and-the-art-of-doing-whatever-the-game-asks-of-you-003501110.html

Author : Dan Devine

Publish date : 2026-06-05 00:35:00

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