2026 NBA Playoffs: Every Series Result and How the Knicks Won It

Published April 19, 2026 · Updated August 15, 2026 · By The Basketball Fans Editors

The New York Knicks won the 2026 NBA championship, beating the San Antonio Spurs four games to one and ending a drought that ran back to 1973. They did it as the East’s third seed. San Antonio, the West’s second seed at 62-20, got there by beating the 64-18 Oklahoma City Thunder in a seven-game Western Conference Finals. The two most disruptive first-round results were Philadelphia knocking out Boston as a seven seed and Minnesota beating Denver as a six.

The complete bracket

Seeds in parentheses. Winners in bold.

First round

Conference semifinals

Conference finals

New York (3) def. Cleveland (4), 4-0. San Antonio (2) def. Oklahoma City (1), 4-3.

NBA Finals

New York (3) def. San Antonio (2), 4-1.

The two upsets that broke the bracket

Both one seeds went out, and neither loss came in the round anyone expected.

Philadelphia over Boston, 4-3. The Sixers finished seventh and beat the second-seeded Celtics in a full seven games. It is the single result that most shaped the summer: Boston’s front office responded by trading Jaylen Brown to Philadelphia for Paul George and draft compensation, and Philadelphia then signed LeBron James in July. New York swept them in the next round, which is the part usually left out.

Cleveland over Detroit, 4-3. Detroit finished first in the East and lost a seven-game semifinal to the fourth-seeded Cavaliers. Cleveland then ran into New York and lost 4-0, so the East’s top seed and the team that eliminated it were both swept out by the eventual champion.

The Spurs run, and what it was worth

San Antonio beat Portland 4-1, Minnesota 4-2, and Oklahoma City 4-3. That last series is the one worth keeping: the Thunder had not lost a playoff game before it, having swept both Phoenix and a Lakers team that included LeBron James in what turned out to be his final games in Los Angeles.

Victor Wembanyama had already won Defensive Player of the Year by then, unanimously, the first unanimous winner in the award’s history and the youngest at 22. He finished third in MVP voting behind Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Nikola Jokic.

Then the Finals went 4-1 the other way. The Spurs won Game 3 at Madison Square Garden and led Game 4 by 29 points in the third quarter before losing it, which remains the largest comeback in Finals history.

What the postseason set up

Almost every major move of the 2026 offseason traces back to a series above.

Boston losing in the first round produced the Jaylen Brown trade. Philadelphia’s run to the second round, plus that trade, produced a roster good enough to attract LeBron James. Milwaukee, who did not make this bracket at all, traded Giannis Antetokounmpo to Miami nine days after the Finals ended. Portland lost 4-1 in the first round and then acquired Ja Morant. Minnesota beat Denver, reached the second round, and still traded for LaMelo Ball.

New York, meanwhile, returns as champion with the roster largely intact, and opens the 2026-27 season at home against the Sixers and LeBron James on October 20.

Related reading

• Jalen Brunson scores 45, Knicks win the 2026 title
• Thunder vs Spurs, the 2026 Western Conference Finals
• Every NBA Finals MVP in order
• Victor Wembanyama
• New York Knicks franchise history

Sources

Full bracket, seeds and series results parsed from the bracket template on Wikipedia’s 2026 NBA playoffs page. Regular-season records for Oklahoma City (64-18), San Antonio (62-20) and New York (53-29) verified individually against each team’s Basketball-Reference season page. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander’s 2025-26 averages (31.1 points, 6.6 assists, 4.3 rebounds, 1.4 steals on .553/.386/.879 in 68 games) from Basketball-Reference. Wembanyama’s unanimous Defensive Player of the Year vote (every first-place ballot, announced April 20, 2026) from NBA.com. Finals result, Brunson’s 45-point Game 5 and the Game 4 comeback from NBA.com’s Finals coverage.