The New York Knicks just completed the most absurd comeback in NBA history—rallying back from a 29-point deficit to steal Game 4 of the Finals and put themselves one win away from their first championship in 53 years.
Long before OG Anunoby made the greatest tip-in since James Naismith nailed up the original peach basket, the grandest stage in New York City was set for an epic Game 4. The main characters were a blundering San Antonio offense that looked unstoppable early on in the game but morphed into a mess when it mattered most and a gritty cast of veteran Knicks who have coalesced into the league’s most resilient and clutch ensemble.
The Spurs led 76-49 at halftime and 90-75 entering the fourth. From there, a Knicks avalanche ensued, until Anunoby’s bucket, with 1.2 seconds remaining, sent Madison Square Garden into bedlam and treated New York fans to one of the most improbable outcomes in sports history. Here’s how and why it happened.
Let’s start with the Spurs offense. After a face-melting shooting display in the first half—they made 60 percent from the field and 54 percent on 3s—the Spurs picked a terrible time to have their worst-scoring quarters of these Finals. Look at this:
San Antonio managed only 30 points in the final 24 minutes, opening the door for New York, which has built a reputation for thriving in winning time. The third and fourth quarters on Wednesday night were the Spurs’ two lowest-scoring quarters of the entire playoffs.
Victor Wembanyama logged what might go down as the worst half of his basketball career, shooting just 3-of-14 and missing two massive free throws after Josh Hart blew a fast-break layup on the other end. It was Nick Anderson all over again. Wembanyama has been an 85 percent free throw shooter in these playoffs, so it’s hard to chalk these massive misses up to anything other than nerves.
There’s no doubt that the 22-year-old Wemby’s best days are ahead, but this game also revealed a crucial gap he needs to address as a scorer and as a leader: He lacks a go-to move in half-court sets that he can use when his team is mired in a shooting slump. Time after time in the second half, the Spurs offense looked rudderless. These stretches happen in the NBA, but while Wembanyama’s Fundamental forefather in San Antonio had an arsenal of moves on the left block to deploy when his team desperately needed a bucket, Wembanyama is still searching for his equivalent bag.
Without a reliable way to get half-court buckets, San Antonio shot just 20.5 percent in the second half. Seventeen of the Spurs’ 39 shots came from outside the arc, and they made just three of them.
De’Aaron Fox, the Spurs’ highest-paid player, wasn’t much better. The former Clutch Player of the Year was anything but in the biggest moments of his nine-year career. He went 2-for-8 in the second half and also committed a series of unforced errors that put San Antonio in tough spots down the stretch. It’s especially brutal because Fox is both the vet and the quarterback of this impossibly young roster. These are the situations when the team desperately needs a steady hand.
On the Knicks’ side, Anunoby just became a Big Apple icon. He’s been marvelous all playoffs long, but he painted his masterpiece in this epic comeback. Anunoby finished with 33 points on 15 shots. His 19 points on just nine second-half shots is incredible, and he saved the best for last, logging one of the finest sequences in Finals history. He had his LeBron-Iguodala moment when he turned Fox’s foolish late-game layup attempt into the game’s most vital change of possession. Then, seconds later, he tapped in the put-back heard round the world. Bobby Thomson. Aaron Boone. David Tyree. OG Anunoby. That’s New York lore for the ages.
Jalen Brunson also got going, and without his 17 points—and crucial playmaking—in the second half, the Spurs would’ve tied this series up as it heads back to San Antonio. But as the face of this squad, Brunson exudes the exact kind of poise and calm under pressure that the Spurs lacked. Since 2023, both Brunson and Fox have won the NBA’s Clutch Player of the Year award, but only one of them looked deserving of that accomplishment on Wednesday night.
Led by Brunson and Anunoby, the Knicks scored 32 points in the fourth quarter, their second-highest output in any quarter during these Finals.
Starting with a made Jose Alvarado 3 with 9:16 left in the game and up until Hart’s missed layup with 1:57 remaining, the Knicks hit 10 straight shots. They brought Wembanyama into the pick-and-roll over and over and pinged the ball around to find open 3s that they just would not miss.
Which brings us to one more reason the Knicks were able to pull off this miraculous comeback: Mike Brown. In his first season in New York, Brown leaned into depth in ways that his predecessor never did, and that became a sneaky reason the Knicks pulled this off. Alvarado made two huge baskets in the clutch. Brown had him in the game over Mikal Bridges—a gutsy choice in a giant moment that paid off, as Alvarado’s ability to handle the ball next to Brunson played a crucial role in the team’s offensive turnaround.
The Knicks brought in Brown to help this team get over the hump, and he and his staff deserve credit for doing what a lot of coaches simply would not have done. This was grand theft, indeed. Alvarado, Anunoby, Brunson, and Brown may have just stolen the NBA championship.
