Time to hoop like it’s 1999.

Tonight is the start of the championship matchup between two teams who last competed for the Larry O’Brien Trophy 27 years ago, when the Spurs won the first of their five titles, and the Knicks entered a quarter-century of humiliation. The series is also likely to become a flashpoint for many a cultural battle—Texas v. New York, Republican v. Democrat, rural v. urban and…Augustinian v. Salesian?

As America’s executive vice president of sports analytics, I’m here to tell you everything you need to know—as a Catholic and as a sports fan—before Game 1 tips off tonight on ABC at 8:30 p.m.

Why are you writing about the N.B.A. Finals? Isn’t there an encyclical to cover?

I respectfully point you to Paragraph 169 of “Magnifica Humanitas,” which plainly states: “without a proper balance between work, leisure and rest, families are weakened.” So, lest families suffer, let us turn our attention to matters of leisure and rest. Artificial intelligence may be able to take your job, but it will never be able to scream at a TV while Robert Horry drains threes. (Full disclosure: Big Shot Bob retired when I was 5.)

Plus, it turns out this year’s Finals might be the most Catholic in N.B.A. history—or at least since the Boston Celtics stopped staffing their squad entirely with Holy Cross Crusaders back in the day. The New York Knicks are led by a trio of college buddies who won an N.C.A.A. championship for the Villanova Wildcats in Jalen Brunson, Mikal Bridges and Josh Hart. The fourth “Nova Knick,” Donte DiVincenzo, has unfortunately left the team to chronicle the franchise’s journey through the nine circles of Hell, but he deserves an honorary mention nevertheless. I think we know who the Villanova faithful will be rooting for.

One particular graduate of the Augustinian university has also been a focal point in New York’s efforts to divine their first ring in over 50 years: Knicks fans have been actively pursuing diplomatic efforts with the Vatican to secure Pope Leo’s support. Spike Lee, the Knicks superfan and acclaimed film director, is convinced that the “Nova Pope” is on his side. He visited with Pope Leo at the Vatican in November during a special gathering with filmmakers and, of course, gifted the pope a Knicks jersey, number 14. Spike has sported his own custom Pope Leo #14  Knicks jersey at Madison Square Garden for the playoffs. Keep an eye on celebrity row for a potential sighting.

For additional, definitive proof that Pope Leo is rooting for the Knicks: See the Holy Father giving his imprimatur (that’s ecclesiastical Latin for “a thumbs-up”) to a random guy in a Knicks shirt at a recent general audience.

In fairness, the Spurs have Catholic cred of their own. The Salesian Sisters of St. John Bosco have gone viral for their support of San Antonio. Our friends (frenemies? rivals?) over at the National Catholic Reporter recently profiled the Spurs Sisters, who began following the franchise back in the early Tim Duncan days, almost 30 years ago, as a way to connect with their students at St. John Bosco School. The self-described “die-hard Spurs fans” have been praying and rooting for their home team ever since. 

Before Game 4 of the Western Conference Finals, the sisters offered a blessing to Spurs player Luke Kornet, the team’s backup center and a practicing Catholic, who went on to put up a whopping six points and seven rebounds. At least the Spurs went on to win the game against the Oklahoma City Thunder, and the blessing may have played a role in Kornet’s Game 7 block that sealed the series.

What about the basketball?

Going into the series, the Spurs are the favorites to take home the title with a 65 percent chance of winning according to the wisdom of the crowd on Kalshi, despite the Knicks leading the league in both offensive and defensive ratings. They are led by Victor Wembanyama, the 7-foot-4 French phenom who just won Defensive Player of the Year and finished third in league M.V.P. voting at the young age of 22. America has O’Hare Fellows older than Wemby. 

If you have not yet watched Wemby play, do yourself a favor and tune in to the Finals. Watching Wemby is what I imagine watching prime Wilt Chamberlain felt like, when he was averaging an utterly absurd 50.4 points and 25.7 rebounds per game in the ’61-’62 season. (Believe it or not, Bill Russell won M.V.P. that year.) 

While Wemby’s entrance into the G.O.A.T. debate may be a little premature, he is called an alien for a reason. If this is what life on other planets looks like, I pray to God it never makes it to Earth.

The rest of this Spurs team is, unfortunately for Knicks fans, hard to root against. Their young core consists of multiple rising stars, including guard Stephon Castle, who—in the words of my younger, even more Gen Z brother—is “incredibly tough.” Other standouts include De’Aaron Fox and rookie Carter Bryant, who locked up league M.V.P. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander in the W.C.F. against the Oklahoma City Thunder. (For a softer side of the terrifying Wemby, here is a tender moment of him telling Bryant that he is proud of him.)

The Knicks might need more than the power of friendship to best the Spurs, but this veteran squad is playing better than ever at the perfect time. Star guard Jalen Brunson has proven wrong those detractors who claimed he was too small to build a winning team around throughout his career, and center Karl-Anthony Towns has grown into his role as a playmaking point center and defensive anchor in addition to being an exceptionally talented scorer. 

The Knicks have strong, two-way wings aplenty between OG Anunoby, Mikal Bridges and Josh Hart, along with a formidably deep bench, and with tons of rest coming off an astounding 11 consecutive playoff victories and two series sweeps, they have had plenty of time to prepare to face a Spurs team coming out of a brutal seven-game slog.

Who is going to take it home?

The in-house America A.I. bot (ignAtIus) tells me that it will be the Spurs. But as we know, chatbots are prone to hallucination, and Pope Leo warned us to be wary of our impending machine overlords.

I’m going with the Knicks in six all day. A last-second Brunson bomb in the Garden to win it all, just as the basketball gods drew it up. Nothing but orange and blue skies here in New York City. While Manhattan may make Philadelphia’s post-Super Bowl celebration look like a pillow fight in the event of a Knicks victory, the inevitable billions of dollars in damages to city property will be repaid sevenfold in basketball heaven.

Edward Desciak is an O'Hare Fellow at America Media.