Spurs Ex-Assistant Blames ‘Bad Luck’ for NBA Finals Loss. Knicks Fans Are Having a Field Day.

Sean Sweeney is making himself an easy target for Knicks fans and he probably knows it. The newly hired Orlando Magic head coach and former San Antonio Spurs assistant went on The Ryen Russillo Show and tried to explain why his old team lost the NBA Finals to New York in five games. His explanation? Bad luck and a hypothetical shorter game.

“They told me if the games were like 46 minutes or whatever, we would have won 4-1,” Sweeney said. He added that attrition from previous series played a role too and that his former team just made more mistakes down the stretch. He called out youth as a factor but also said it doesn’t quite add up because the Spurs didn’t suddenly become young overnight.

Let’s be real here. The NBA Finals happened. Jalen Brunson played like a man possessed in the closeout game. OG Anunoby spent the whole series making life miserable for whoever had the ball. And Karl-Anthony Towns stepped up and battled Victor Wembanyama in a way that made people remember he’s still an All-Star caliber player. The series went five games but almost every game was tight late. The Spurs had leads in the fourth quarter of multiple games and coughed them up. New York won those games because they made winning plays. San Antonio didn’t.

Sweeney’s bad luck argument doesn’t hold up under any real scrutiny. NBA games are 48 minutes long. That’s the rule. It’s been the rule forever. Suggesting a 46-minute game would have flipped the series is like saying your team would have won if the other team just stopped shooting threes. It’s hypothetical and pointless. Basketball is played until the clock hits zero. New York out-executed San Antonio when it mattered most.

There’s some irony here too. Sweeney coached Brunson in Dallas. He knows what the guy is capable of. So hearing him say he’s happy for Brunson but also kind of not is just funny. It’s the kind of honesty that leaks out when you’re still processing a loss that stung more than you want to admit.

The Spurs were the youngest team to make the Finals in a long time. That matters. They’ll be back. Wembanyama isn’t going anywhere. But right now, Knicks fans get to enjoy a championship and a former opponent’s coach blaming the universe for the outcome. That’s a pretty good combo.

New York won. The trophy is in the Garden. And Sean Sweeney is in Orlando now trying to build his own thing. But that interview clip will follow him.