The New York Knicks stared into the abyss and somehow found a way out.
Facing a 29-point deficit in front of a shell-shocked Madison Square Garden crowd, New York completed the largest comeback in NBA finals history on Wednesday night when OG Anunoby’s tip-in off a Jalen Brunson missed three-pointer with 1.2 seconds left made the difference in a 107-106 win over the San Antonio Spurs in Game 4. The Knicks are now within one win of their first NBA championship in 53 years.
“Right hand from God,” Knicks center Karl-Anthony Towns said of Anunoby’s winning basket.
The stunning result gave New York a 3-1 lead in the best-of-seven series and sent thousands of fans pouring into the midtown Manhattan streets chanting and celebrating after the final buzzer. The Knicks can secure their first title since 1973 when the series returns to San Antonio for Game 5 on Saturday night.
For much of the evening, that possibility seemed absurd. The Spurs seized control of Game 4 almost immediately from the opening tip. Towns was whistled for a defensive foul 18 seconds into the game, then a second just 65 seconds later when San Antonio successfully challenged a foul call on Wembanyama and had it overturned into an offensive foul on the Knicks center, prompting chants of “Fuck you, Wemby!” during the official’s review. With Towns headed to the bench before the game was three minutes old, the Spurs raced to a 12-2 lead.
San Antonio buried 11 of their first 16 attempts from beyond the arc and led 41-22 after the opening quarter before extending the margin to 71-42 on a Dylan Harper running lay-up. By the intermission, San Antonio held a 76-49 lead, the largest half-time advantage ever held by a visiting team in an NBA finals game.
The turnaround began taking shape in the third quarter, when New York held San Antonio to just 14 points on 4-for-20 shooting. Wembanyama managed only three points in the period and the Spurs failed to score a single basket in the paint, allowing the Knicks to chip a 29-point deficit with 9:40 left in the third down to 15 entering the final period.
“We’re a resilient group. We’ve been through a lot,” Anunoby said. “We’ve come back plenty of times when we’re behind. Just staying with it, weathering the storm, not being too down or angry or frustrated.”
Then in the fourth, it changed in a blur. The Knicks ripped off a 28-9 run in a seven-minute stretch, all light and flash, turning every defensive stop into a fast-break opportunity and every basket into a fresh wave of belief. The deficit shrank possession by possession until Brunson finally delivered the breakthrough, knifing through traffic for a layup with 1:22 remaining to give the Knicks their first lead of the game at 105-104.
“You look at it when you’re down 29 of, ‘OK, let’s get it to 20,’” Josh Hart said. “There’s three minutes left in the third quarter, we’re down 18, you’re thinking, ‘Let’s get it to 10.’ In the fourth quarter, you’re like, this is winning time. Anything can happen.”
After the Spurs wrested back the lead once more on a pair of Stephon Castle free throws, Brunson missed a contested three in the closing seconds. But Anunoby slipped through the defense and tipped in the winning basket to set off scenes of delirium in the Garden. The Knicks led for a total of 53.8 seconds all night. The final 1.2 made all the difference.
Anunoby finished with 33 points and buried seven of his nine attempts from beyond the arc, both playoff career highs, delivering one of the defining performances in Knicks postseason history. Brunson added 36 points and seven assists, while Jose Alvarado supplied an unexpected lift off the bench with eight points during the decisive fourth-quarter rally.
No team had ever come back from more than 24 points down in an NBA finals game. The previous mark belonged to the Boston Celtics, who erased a 24-point deficit against the Los Angeles Lakers in 2008.
Wembanyama finished with 24 points, 13 rebounds and three blocks for San Antonio, who had appeared poised to seize control of the series after winning Game 3 and opening a 29-point lead on Wednesday night. Harper added 21 points while De’Aaron Fox and Devin Vassell scored 18 apiece for the Spurs, who were outscored 58-30 in the second half and shot just 3-for-17 from three-point range after the break.
Instead, the Spurs were left to contemplate a collapse for the ages.
Taylor Swift was among the celebrities at courtside for Wednesday’s game, arriving in a blue-and-orange “Stevie Knicks” T-shirt with friends and collaborators Alana and Este Haim and taking her seat alongside familiar Garden regulars Spike Lee, Ben Stiller and Tracy Morgan. Her presence added another flicker of star power to a series that has captivated New York as the Knicks close in on the third championship in their 80-year history.
Only one team – LeBron James’s Cleveland Cavaliers in 2016 – has overturned a 3-1 series deficit to win the NBA finals. The Spurs now must become the second if they are to deny a Knicks team that suddenly stands on the brink of ending one of the longest title droughts in North American sports.
