The 2026 NBA Finals are a Spurs–Knicks rematch of 1999, but the headline act is new: Victor Wembanyama vs Karl-Anthony Towns — two of the most skilled big men in the league, set to guard each other for a championship.
Here is how their 2025-26 regular seasons compare, per game:
| Stat | Wembanyama (SAS) | Towns (NYK) |
|---|---|---|
| Points | 25.0 | 20.1 |
| Rebounds | 11.5 | 11.9 |
| Assists | 3.1 | 3.0 |
| Blocks | 3.1 | 0.5 |
| Steals | 1.0 | 0.9 |
| FG% | 51.2 | 50.1 |
Regular-season averages. Official, certified stats live at NBA.com.
Where they’re alike
On the glass and as passers they are nearly identical — both clear roughly 11 rebounds and hand out about three assists a night. Both stretch the floor, too: Wembanyama knocked down 1.9 threes per game, Towns 1.5. Neither is a back-to-the-basket throwback; each can pull an opposing center 25 feet from the rim and punish him from there.
Where the series turns
The separation is on defense, and it lives in one line of the table: 3.1 blocks for Wembanyama, 0.5 for Towns. That gap is the whole series in miniature. San Antonio can let Wembanyama roam as a help defender and rim eraser; New York cannot ask the same of Towns. When the Knicks attack the paint, Wembanyama is the deterrent the Spurs build everything around — and the reason he was a near-unanimous Defensive Player of the Year.
The matchup within the matchup
The fascinating wrinkle is that both players drag the other away from his comfort zone. When Towns drifts to the arc, most rim protectors have to choose between contesting the three and guarding the basket. Wembanyama, with his reach, can do both — closing out and still recovering to the paint. And when Wembanyama floats out to shoot, Towns has to leave the safety of the lane to follow a seven-footer who handles like a wing.
Whoever wins that nightly chess match — keeping his own offense humming while taxing the other’s — tilts the series. We’ll track every game here as it’s played: the live playoff averages, the result, and an auto-updating recap for each game.