The San Antonio Spurs dropped Game 1 of the 2026 NBA Finals at home, falling 105-95 to the New York Knicks on Wednesday night. It was a heartbreaking loss for a franchise that went 62-20 in the regular season, the second-best record in the league, and entered the series with genuine title aspirations.
Their gravitational force, Victor Wembanyama, put up a double-double with 26 points and 12 rebounds, but his efficiency was the real story. He shot just 6-for-21 from the floor and 2-for-9 from three-point range. He admitted post-game that he "was bad tonight."
The rest of the roster shared that frustration after letting home-court advantage slip away. Up in the executive suite, team president Gregg Popovich was having the same feeling as he missed coaching this young roster and wished he were on the sideline.
Antonio Daniels, a 13-year NBA veteran, 1999 champion and current SiriusXM NBA Radio analyst, revealed on the Game Over podcast that he watched Game 1 alongside Popovich in the suite and asked the legendary coach a simple question.
Daniels did not hide the words that Pop told him. The former Spurs guard said Popovich made clear he still has the fire, even if the sideline is no longer his.
"We watched the game tonight in Pop's suite with him," Daniels said. "I asked him tonight, 'Do you miss it?' And he said, 'You have no idea how much. I wish I was down there right now.'"
Antonio Daniels shares a conversation he had with Coach Pop in the suite during Game 1:
“We watched the game tonight in Pops suite with him. I asked him tonight ‘Do you miss it?’ And he said ‘You have no idea how much. I wish I was down there right now!’
(Via Game Over) https://t.co/1DCaPC9NAO pic.twitter.com/cWjkfiuLf4
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At 77, Gregg Popovich stepped down as the San Antonio Spurs' head coach in May 2025 after facing several health setbacks, including a mild stroke in November 2024. He retired as the NBA’s all-time wins leader with a 1,422–867 record and five championships over 29 seasons.
Pop then took a full-time front-office role as the president of basketball operations, while Mitch Johnson, who had been filling in as interim coach, was promoted to head coach.
The irony here is hard to miss. Popovich built this team from the front office, drafted Wembanyama, and prepared the team for a 62-win season. Now, with the Spurs in the Finals for the first time since 2014, he has to watch from a suite as a 14-point lead turns into a fourth-quarter collapse.
The Spurs need Wembanyama to play better in Game 2 on Friday to tie the series. But for Popovich, watching a problem he cannot fix from behind the glass is the hardest thing for him to imagine.
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