The San Antonio Spurs didn’t lose the NBA Finals because the New York Knicks were simply better. They lost because, in the moments that mattered most, they looked exactly like what they are: a brilliant young team that had never been there before.

Inexperience was the culprit- and two-time All-Star Isaiah Thomas believes he knows exactly what was missing.

“I said this last night, too, I believe if they had Chris Paul on this roster, they would have won the finals,” Thomas said on his Point Game podcast. “And I’m not even saying Chris Paul to get out there and play. Like he doesn’t even have to give valuable minutes but his experience and who he is his Hall of Fame career would have helped De’Aaron Fox, would have helped Castle, would have helped Harper, would have slowed that whole team’s mind down in those situations.”

Thomas added, “Where it’s time to execute, ‘We need a basket, we need a good shot.’ So that is something that I think they need: a veteran point guard that can still play at a high level, but opportunity maybe he doesn’t play, but he’s been in these situations. He understands it.”

The Spurs were good enough to reach the Finals. Good enough to build historic leads- 27 points at halftime in Game 4, 16 points midway through Game 5. Good enough to dominate New York in ways that made a championship feel inevitable.

But when pressure came with the clock running down, they looked like a young team learning on the fly. Despite building double-digit leads in all five games, the Spurs repeatedly allowed the Knicks to stage massive comebacks, most notably, blowing what became the largest 29-point lead in NBA Finals history in Game 4, and a 16-point advantage in Game 5 (at home).

That’s where Thomas’s take carries real weight. Not just because he said it, but because he saw it coming. Back in 2024, when Paul first signed with San Antonio on a one-year, $11 million deal, Thomas had already called it a perfect fit- tweeting “Damn that’s a good pickup!! Perfect PG to help mentor Wemby.”

Paul delivered.

Over 82 starts in 2024–25, he averaged 8.8 points and 7.4 assists, steadying a roster that had previously been one of the youngest in the league. He built the Paul-to-Wembanyama lob connection, assisted on 98 of Wemby’s points in the early weeks of that season alone, and mentored Stephon Castle, just as he once mentored Shai Gilgeous-Alexander in Oklahoma City.

But instead of returning to San Antonio, Paul chose to spend his final NBA season with the Clippers, a farewell tour closer to his family in Los Angeles. It fell apart almost immediately. He was benched, sent home, traded to the Toronto Raptors in February 2026, waived shortly after, and retired days later, without ever playing again after December 1, 2025.

The window for the Spurs to add him as bench insurance opened briefly in December. They didn’t call.

The Spurs’ guard rotation in this series was a study in inexperience under pressure. Fox was the most criticized Spur in the Finals, averaging just 12.8 points on 34.3% shooting and 14 total turnovers alongside Castle across five games.

The defining moment came in Game 4 with 15 seconds left: Fox chased down a loose ball with the Spurs clinging to a one-point lead and, instead of pulling it out to burn clock and force a foul, drove to the rim and was blocked by OG Anunoby, who then tipped in the game-winner on the other end with 1.2 seconds left.

Magic Johnson, the gold standard for late-game point guard execution, didn’t mince words:

“De’Aaron is a PG. You gotta know every situation. My job as a PG was to know every situation. I think he should’ve pulled that ball back out.”

In Game 5, Fox and Castle combined for 13 points on 4-for-25 shooting as the Spurs were outscored 29-18 in the fourth quarter and fell 94-90.

It was exactly the kind of moment Thomas and five-time All-Star Reggie Miller before him had been pointing to.

“When the Clippers let Chris Paul go, Chris Paul had played a season with the San Antonio Spurs. I wish that they would have picked up Chris Paul just as an insurance vet on that bench for moments like the finals.”

Chris Paul’s own mistakes overshadow Spurs’ downfall

While on paper, CP3’s inclusion and mentoring of Wemby is solid, Paul himself never solved the “closer” question. In his two decades of deep playoff runs, he has never lifted the trophy. In fact, the Point God’s own postseason history is marred by high-profile injuries and blown series leads.

This includes the Phoenix Suns blowing a 2-0 series lead to lose 4-2 to the Milwaukee Bucks. Paul’s uncharacteristic performance included 5 costly turnovers in Game 4.

Plus, at 40 years old, his defensive limitations would have made him a massive target for the Knicks. Maybe nothing changes if CP3 is there.

Yet Thomas and Miller aren’t talking about Paul the player. They’re talking about Paul’s presence.

One timeout at the right moment. One timeout in the huddle during a Knicks run in the third quarter. One veteran voice in Fox’s ear before the final possession of Game 4, telling him: pull it out, make them foul you, don’t go for the hero play. Victor Wembanyama himself acknowledged as much after the series:

“The margin of error is very, very thin. We absolutely dominated for most of the series, but our mistakes are punished so hard.”

Paul’s exit from San Antonio a year earlier, and the Spurs’ decision not to bring him back in December when he became available, may have cost them the one thing no amount of talent can replace: someone who had already survived those moments.

Moving forward, the questions will pile up, whether to move on from Fox’s $229 million contract, whether to hand Harper the starting role outright, and how to build the experience around Wembanyama that this roster still clearly lacks.

But the defeat in the Finals is not on Fox’s shoulders alone. Wembanyama missed two crucial free throws late in Game 4, shot 9-for-25 from the field that night, and coach Mitch Johnson’s late-game decisions drew scrutiny throughout the series.

The Spurs were the better team for three quarters of nearly every game. They just weren’t ready to close.