Cavaliers guard Jaylon Tyson, top, collides with New York Knicks guard Jalen Brunson during the first half of Game 4 in the Eastern Conference finals of the NBA playoffs in Cleveland on May 25. (AP photo)

NEW YORK — Getting to the NBA Finals proves that the New York Knicks and San Antonio Spurs have made plenty of smart moves along the way.

You need a star, like a Jalen Brunson or a Victor Wembanyama. They need some help. They need the right coach.

But this finals matchup, which starts Wednesday night in San Antonio, also shows that there’s no single way to get all those things done. Of the 10 players that the Spurs are most likely to have in the regular rotation for this series, six were drafted by San Antonio. Of the 10 most likely to appear for the Knicks, only one was drafted by New York.

It’s Biggest Market vs. Smaller Market. Shopping vs. Drafting. Knicks vs. Spurs isn’t just a clash for the NBA title, it’s a clash in styles as well — with Knicks President Leon Rose seeming to constantly tinker until finding the right mix, and the Spurs building through the draft instead.

“I’ve said it before, I’ll keep saying it: Leon and his staff have done a freaking fantastic, fantastic job,” Knicks coach Mike Brown said.

Whether it was LeBron James, Kevin Durant or some other megastar, there was always hope that someone would eventually come save the Knicks — who are in the finals for the first time since 1999. They missed the playoffs 16 times in the 27 seasons that followed, including a nine-year stretch (and it wasn’t that long ago) where they failed to win a single playoff series. Whatever the approach was, it wasn’t working.

Constructing a championship contender takes good luck — the Spurs know that part well, with a slew of good lottery fortunes including the one that landed them Wembanyama in 2023 — but also good leadership. It takes bold decisions, such as committing more than $100 million to a former second-round pick in Brunson who had largely been a backup in Dallas, or trading a whopping five first-round picks to land Mikal Bridges, who has never even been an All-Star but has become an integral part of this Knicks run.

“It took a long time for us to get here,” Spurs forward Keldon Johnson said. “It took a village.”

The Knicks can say the same. They just took a different route.

Rose was hired in March 2020. He was a longtime agent, and James was one of the players once on his talent roster. Rose’s arrival was right near the end of a typically turbulent season in New York, when the coach (David Fizdale) had been fired early in the season, and later the president who fired him (Steve Mills) was also ousted.

One of Rose’s first moves was to hire the coach who would set the organization’s standard and culture — Tom Thibodeau. And Thibodeau won, though evidently didn’t win enough. So, the Knicks turned to Brown this season, another example of the constant tinkering.

The Spurs, meanwhile, embrace continuity. They haven’t had a coaching search in more than three decades; Gregg Popovich named himself coach in 1996 and when he had a stroke in November 2024, Mitch Johnson replaced him on an interim basis. Johnson got the job full-time last spring, and it was never a question that the Spurs were going in that direction.

“This team,” Johnson said, “has now been pretty damn consistent for a long time.”

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Reynolds reported from San Antonio.

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