If you believe in the unseen. If you believe in destiny. If you believe in miracles, then you believe the Knicks are going to be NBA champions in a matter of days.
It seems inevitable after they snatched a 3-1 advantage in the NBA Finals against the San Antonio Spurs by overcoming a near-impossible from a 29-point deficit. The Knicks’ 107-106 win, sealed by a divine tip-in from forward OG Anunoby with 1.2 seconds remaining, was the capstone of the largest deficit overcome in NBA Finals history. The Spurs made league history in the first half, only to see it unfathomably erased by the Knicks over the succeeding 24 minutes.
The Spurs led 76-49 at halftime, the largest road margin (27 points) ever in an NBA Finals game and the third-highest overall. They scored the most points all-time in a Finals first half, while San Antonio’s 14 three-pointers set a new Finals record for makes in a half.
Then the inevitability of the Knicks took hold. The Spurs, who entered the paint at will in the opening two quarters, became allergic to the interior. Instead, they relied on perimeter shooting, misfiring on 10 of 12 attempts from three-point range in the third quarter alone, with little regard for a scoreboard that showed the Knicks eating into their lead bite by bite.
It set the stage for Anunoby’s game-winning basket.
After inbounding the ball to Jalen Brunson—the catalyst for the Knicks’ second-half surge who finished with a game-high 36 points—Anunoby tracked the flight of Brunson’s off-target three-pointer. He soared above Dylan Harper and Devin Vassell for the putback and the most dramatic of his 33 points, creating one of the most consequential moments in New York sports history.
“Right hand from God,” Knicks center Karl-Anthony Towns characterized the split second.
“You gotta have a little luck in life. You gotta have a little luck in sports. But you can also go make your own luck too,” said Knicks head coach Mike Brown soon after his team’s stupefying victory.
Brown entered the expansive postgame press room, located on the arena’s cavernous court level, as stunned onlookers boisterously tried to make sense of what they had just witnessed.
The nearly incomprehensible victory manifested, as Brown and Anunoby both admitted, because the 56-year-old coach had urged his forward to exert force on the boards earlier that day.
“I told OG, as big, as strong, as athletic as he is, he’s got to be a monster on the offensive glass tonight,” said Brown. “I don’t know if there was a bigger play in the history of Knicks basketball. He took on the challenge I called him out for during shootaround today.”
Anunoby confirmed Brown’s account.
“[He] told me I need to get on the glass,” said Anunoby. “And it happened at the end.”
For the Spurs, it was their second crushing defeat of the series after squandering a late lead in Game 2 last Friday and falling 105-104. San Antonio has led with under two minutes remaining in every game of these Finals.
“We’re all definitely hurt,” said Spurs center Victor Wembanyama, who despite scoring 32 points missed two critical free throws with 1:47 left and the Spurs up 104-103.
“…It was painful of course…,” he continued. “What’s going through my mind right now I think it’s going to go one of two ways – one of two ways. And a bad one and a good one. And I know the bad one would be giving up. The good one would be getting stronger after this and work together. And I know this is what we’re going to do.”
Harper echoed his teammate.
“Hurt. I mean angry. But I feel like this is all fuel to the fire for us and I think that we’re just going out next game with a sense of fire and we’re just going to focus on Game 5.”
Spurs head coach Mitch Johnson summarized the Spurs’ disheartening evening.
“Kinda didn’t finish the job and we stopped putting energy into the right spots that got you that lead.”
Now the series goes back to San Antonio for Game 5 on June 13 at 8:30 pm. The outcome is binary. Either the Spurs will make a return trip to New York or the Knicks will celebrate the franchise’s first NBA championship since 1973. And last night, Wednesday night at the Garden, will be remembered as an even more glorious occasion.
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