Barbara Barker: Knicks' Game 4 comeback victory — 'I do not believe what I just saw'
Knicks players surround OG Anunoby, who made the winning basket in a victory against the San Antonio Spurs in Game 4 of the NBA Finals at Madison Square Garden on Wednesday. Credit: Getty Images/Dustin Satloff
Fans were crying. Fans were jumping into strangers' arms. Fans were refusing to leave the arena.
A Knicks team that already had provided so many great moments in this postseason played a game Wednesday night that people will be talking about for generations, regardless of whether they were at Madison Square Garden or at a watch party somewhere or at home on television.
Fans will remember where they were. They will remember how they felt. They will remember how their hearts rose up into their throats when OG Anunoby went high to tip in Jalen Brunson’s long three-point attempt to complete the largest comeback in NBA Finals history and secure a 107-106 victory in Game 4.
Anunoby’s basket with 1.2 seconds left should go down as one of the most talked about in Knicks history; it completed a comeback from a 29-point deficit and moved the Knicks within one win of clinching their first NBA title in 53 years. Game 5 is Saturday in San Antonio.
“I don’t believe what I just saw!” ESPN’s Mike Breen said as fans stormed the court.
Knicks coach Mike Brown was still processing the moment 30 minutes after the game.
“It was unbelievable,” he said. “You know, the tip, how he had to control it and tip it in . . . You know that has to be the iconic shot in the history of New York basketball.”
The Knicks have come back from 20-point deficits multiple times in the playoffs during the past two years, but to do what they did Wednesday night to a young team has to be devastating. In the previous round, the Knicks set the tone of their sweep of Cleveland when they came back from a 22-point fourth-quarter deficit to win Game 1 in overtime.
For a good chunk of Wednesday's game, it looked as if the Knicks were in big trouble. They had had a 13-game postseason winning streak snapped two days earlier when San Antonio won Game 3, and in the first half, it looked as if the teams would be returning to San Antonio with the series tied at 2-2.
Much to-do had been made of the physical nature of the Spurs' Game 3 win, with the video of Victor Wembanyama’s violent shove of Brunson replayed again and again by Knicks fans who were incredulous that no foul was called. Yet it was the Spurs' incredible three-point shooting — they made an NBA Finals-record 14 in the first half — that helped them build a 76-49 halftime lead.
The Knicks had two days to absorb the shock of their Game 3 loss. Judging from the way they opened, they could have used at least one more.
After a subpar Game 3, Towns charged out of the gate aggressively. Perhaps a little too aggressively, picking up his second foul 65 seconds into the game. Credit Spurs coach Mitch Johnson for that one.
Johnson called for what might have been the earliest challenge ever recorded in an NBA Finals game after Towns drove to the basket and Wembanyama was called for a foul. Wembanyama's foul was overturned and it was ruled an offensive foul on Towns, sending the Knicks center to the bench.
The whole early turn of events seemed to leave the Knicks completely discombobulated, and the result was their worst first half of basketball in the playoffs, if not the entire season.
It looked over for the Knicks when they finished the half trailing by 27, the biggest halftime deficit by a home team in NBA Finals history. But they outscored the Spurs 26-14 in the third quarter and 32-16 in the fourth quarter.
And the rest is history.
Barbara Barker is an award-winning columnist and features writer in the sports department at Newsday. She has covered sports in New York for more than 20 years.
