NBA Finals: Josh Hart and the art of doing whatever the game asks of you
NBA Finals: Josh Hart and the art of doing whatever the game asks of you
Dan DevineFri, June 5, 2026 at 12:35 AM UTC
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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."
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?
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 seven, there wasn't some grand proclamation of how Hart needed to lock in, or tighten up, or elevate his game. What's understood doesn't necessarily need to be said.
"Yeah, you know what Josh is going to do," Towns said. "He's going to play hard. He's going to be a dawg. He's going to go out there and find a way to get the job done. He's going to do it at a high-energy level and with a lot of physicality and determination.
"You never want to tell Josh to not do something."
Makes sense. It tends to be a much better idea to just let Josh be Josh, and let the basketball gods sort 'em out.
After seeing a steady diet of cross-matching coverage against the Cleveland Cavaliers in the Eastern Conference finals, with big men Jarrett Allen and Evan Mobley playing off him to try to pack the paint and toss some sand in the gears of what's been a well-oiled offensive machine over these past six weeks, Hart — like plenty of pundits (cough, cough) — expected to open Game 1 with Wembanyama nominally guarding him. And yet, surprises abound in the NBA Finals.
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"I think all the questions that I was asked the last three days about Victor guarding me, doing all those kind of things, and obviously we're going through stuff for that," Hart said. "And then, obviously, the first play of the game, I'm bringing the ball up and [Julian] Champagnie is guarding me. I was about to call a timeout and tell him to switch. I was like, 'Hold on, that's not how it's supposed to be.'"
Hart did wind up seeing plenty of Wembanyama, and the Knicks did struggle to score in that alignment. It wasn't for lack of effort, though. Hart didn't just flit off to the fringes of the frame as Wembanyama sagged off him; he sought opportunities to misbehave, to run around and wreak some havoc that might draw the minotaur's attention and lure him out of the center of the maze.
"When you have someone like Victor guarding you, obviously he's very comfortable being around the rim and doing those kind of things, so you want to do your best to draw him out," Hart said. "Especially for me, I'm able to play rifle action or handoffs or ball screens with JB, 'Kal, OG [Anunoby], Landry [Shamet]. If [Wembanyama] is down the floor, as long as I get a good hit on the guards, they're going to have open shots."
Another way Hart could generate open looks? Grabbing the ball off the rim following a Spurs miss and hitting the gas before the big fella could turn and haul his gargantuan self back in transition.
"We've got to make sure we push it," Hart said. "Obviously, they crash the offensive glass relentlessly the whole game. If we do get those defensive rebounds, we're able to get out and push the pace, and we have guys that can finish at the rim, knock down shots. It's definitely a part of how we want to play."
It was effective — the Knicks scored 10 fast-break points to just one for San Antonio in the second half — and particularly effective when Hart was the one kickstarting the runout:
"We understand what Josh is going to do," Towns said. "When the game came down to it and you look at the stat sheet, he led us in rebounds, and it was something that just came with his pure effort. His ability to push the pace for us and be impactful in so many other ways than needing to score the ball is a huge reason why we're here in the NBA Finals."
Perhaps the biggest role Hart plays in the overall health and well-being of a Knicks team currently in the midst of an all-time historic run, though, is in the energy he perpetually provides his teammates each and every day. It's a trait he described in detail Thursday — though, as is so often the case with these Knicks, he wasn't talking about himself when he was doing it. He was recalling his first impressions of Jose Alvarado, with whom Hart first teamed in New Orleans back in 2021 before reuniting when Alvarado joined the Knicks at February's trade deadline.
"You could tell he had the energy around him that was contagious — that he was willing to work," Hart said. "He had a chip on his shoulder and was really willing to do whatever it took to get on the court. I think when you do that and you have the mentality and you start seeing success with it, you kind of double down on that. You see him — he goes out there, pushes the pace, makes us play fast. Defensively, gives good minutes and gives contagious energy. Even when you look at him on the bench, he's up, he's talking, he's doing those kind of things.
"When you've got a guy that's locked in like that, even when he's off the court, as a teammate and a player, you have the ultimate confidence in someone like that."
Those traits sound awfully familiar — and the rest of the Knicks certainly have the utmost confidence in the 6-foot-5 Swiss Army knife that embodied all of them in Game 1.
"It doesn't surprise me," Brunson said of Hart's all-around effort in their shared Finals debut. "I learned that that's just who he is. I mean, he was our leading rebounder in college for [his] final two years. [...] That's just who he is. Yeah, his energy is just relentless. It doesn't stop."
Asked where that boundless energy comes from, and what it takes for him to summon it, Hart turned reflective.
"It takes humility and just a willingness to sacrifice," Hart said with a smile. "We're in the NBA Finals. There's millions of people watching. It's easy to get wrapped up in human nature of wanting to get recognition, wanting to score the ball, wanting to show people what you can do on the biggest stage. That's not everyone's calling, and not everyone's assignment. I know for me, that's not really my assignment.
"It takes a little bit of time to find that humility. For me, I found that with prayer and my faith. [...] When you have that willingness to sacrifice — and I think Jose has it, myself has it, a lot of guys on the team have it, OG at times, Mikal at times, KAT at times — when you have a group of guys that have that willingness to sacrifice and that humility, that breeds a championship culture."
Brunson, for his part, offered an alternate explanation.
"I mean, he eats candy all the time," Brunson said. "That tells you who he is. He's a big kid with an absurd amount of energy."
Source: “AOL Sports”
