Sean Sweeney isn’t going back to watch the tape. Not now, not ever. The former San Antonio Spurs assistant coach made that much clear when asked if he’d revisit the 2026 NBA Finals, where the Spurs lost to Jalen Brunson and the New York Knicks.
Appearing on The Ryen Russillo Show, Sweeney didn’t sugarcoat how much that series still bothers him. Absolutely, no, I don’t lose a lot of sleep over games. I’ve lost a lot of sleep over that series. Yeah, not fun. But thanks for bringing it up,
he said.
That’s a guy who still feels it. The Spurs were up against a Knicks team that just had their number. Sweeney pointed to a few reasons why it went wrong. First, the Spurs were spent from a brutal Western Conference run. Second, he hinted at some bad luck. You know, they told me if the games were like 46 minutes or whatever, we would have won 4-1,
Sweeney said.
The third and biggest reason? Jalen Brunson. Sweeney knows Brunson well from his time coaching him in Dallas. Jalen obviously had a monster game in that last one. You know, coached him in Dallas, like happy for him, kind of. But like, I think there’s some of that. And I think we just made more mistakes than we had made in the previous series.
The Knicks were just better when it mattered. The Spurs had openings — a few games could have swung the other way — but they couldn’t close. That series loss still sits with Sweeney, even now that he’s moved on to a new role as head coach of the Orlando Magic.
Sweeney doesn’t have to rewatch that finals to know what happened. He’s already living with the memory. The Magic hired him to build something new, and he seems ready to focus on that. But the sting of 2026 isn’t fading fast.
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