How the Knicks pulled off the greatest comeback in NBA Finals history
By Kyle Feldscher, CNN
(CNN) — When De’Aaron Fox pulled up at the free-throw line and sank a mid-range jumpshot with 9:40 to go in the third quarter, bringing the San Antonio Spurs’ lead to 29, sending New York Knicks fans into the basketball version of Hell.
Their team looked listless in the first half, falling to a 27-point deficit at halftime. The second half was starting off in much the same fashion and San Antonio’s lead was growing. Madison Square Garden sounded more like a library than the world’s famous arena.
A little more than 85 minutes later, Knicks fans were in the basketball version of heaven. They had just seen something so incredible, so unbelievable, so impossible that they couldn’t (or wouldn’t) leave the World Most Famous Arena. What they had witnessed was the largest comeback in NBA Finals history, quite possibly the greatest comeback in NBA history and an all-time iconic American sports moment.
This is the anatomy of a comeback.
Just after that Fox jumper, the Knicks began chipping away at the Spurs’ massive lead. A 13-0 run in the middle of the third quarter chopped the lead down to 16 with five minutes to go in the third quarter. For the first time all game – the Spurs took the lead early in the first quarter and hadn’t looked back – Madison Square Garden started to make some noise.
The Spurs regained control of the game in the end of the third quarter and the beginning of the fourth, once again stretching the lead to 20 points in the opening stages of the final frame.
And then the big push began.
Down 20 points, Knicks guard Jose Alvarado’s corner 3-pointer hit the rim, rolled around a bit, bounced off the backboard and then fell through the hoop with 9:16 to go. In the next five minutes, the Knicks would bring the Garden to life with a 20-4 run that electrified the celebrity-laden crowd and caused the stands – or at least the press box high up in the rafters – to shake.
That run cut the deficit down to four with a little more than three minutes to go in the game after Alvarado hit another 3. By that time, everyone in the Garden was standing and screaming and the ball going through the hoop was greeted by an absolute explosion of noise.
Fox tried to answer back with a 3-pointer of his own but hit the front of the rim and the ricochet fell out of bounds. Jalen Brunson, the Knicks superstar whose blood appears to run ice cold, brought the ball up the court and calmly decided to shoot from beyond the arc over the 7-foot-4-inch Victor Wembanyama. The ball found the bottom of the net and the deficit was just one point with 2:20 to go.
With the crowd losing its mind, the Spurs collapse appeared to be complete on the next possession. Under pressure, Fox tried to pass the ball to a teammate but instead sent the ball to an unoccupied area of the floor. Knicks star Josh Hart grabbed the ball and sprinted down court, leaping toward a sure basket that would put his team in the lead and bring the house down.
Instead, Hart got caught between a layup and a dunk. That last-minute indecision led to an inexplicable brick, the ball sailing off Hart’s fingertips and off the back of the iron, bouncing harmlessly back into Fox’s hands.
The Garden crowd was stunned and then Hart made his mistake even worse, fouling Wembanyama as the French phenom drove toward the Knicks’ basket and giving him two shots from the free-throw line. It appeared, with 1:47 to go, that the comeback for the ages was about to fall agonizingly short.
And then Wemby, all of 22 years old and carrying the weight of the future of the league on his shoulders, faltered. As the crowd rained down jeers, he missed both free throws and the Knicks had a lifeline.
Brunson took the ball back up the court and drove to his left against Stephon Castle, the Spurs defender who has hassled him all series. With a left-hand floater from the paint, the diminutive guard out of Villanova gave the Knicks their first lead since 11:21 of the first quarter. It was now 105-104 with 1:22 to go in the game.
The noise in the Garden was now basically a bewildered jet engine, a roar that was tinged with disbelief. It was the kind of noise where tens of thousands of people are all witnessing the same thing but none of them can quite believe what they’re watching. Thousands of people jumping, screaming, hugging – and still the Spurs controlled their own destiny.
But they seemed intent on giving it away.
The Spurs swung the ball around to Castle, who couldn’t catch the pass cleanly on the far sideline and decided to drive toward the baseline. His out-of-control drive ended with him stepping on the out-of-bounds line, yet another turnover that gave the Knicks the chance to kill the game.
They weren’t able to do it, failing to get a shot off before the shot clock expired and opening the door – once again – to the Spurs. Hart lost track of Castle, who charged toward the rim to grab the rebound off Fox’s missed jump shot. The dreadlocked Spurs star jumped toward the loose ball and all Hart could do was foul.
Clutch Castle made both off his high-pressure shots from the charity stripe, giving the Spurs a one-point lead with 30 seconds to go. It was plenty of time for the Knicks to run their offense and go back to their star, Brunson.
He couldn’t convert. After several passes on the edge of the 3-point line, trying to find an opening, Brunson took the ball and charged toward the paint only to find the massive Wembanyama waiting for him. He tried to find a way pass the Defensive Player of the Year, and missed.
The rebound bounced off Hart’s hands, off a couple Spurs and was deflected down the court. Fox raced ahead of OG Anunoby, collected the ball with 13 seconds left in regulation and appeared set to be able to kill off the clock. Instead, Anunoby was about to write himself into NBA history – with a little help from Fox’s poor decision making.
Instead of dribbling the ball out and killing more time, Fox went straight for the hoop and attempted a layup. Anunoby caught up to him, timed his jump perfectly and got his hand on the ball, sending it directly to Alvarado with nine seconds left. The Puerto Rican raced up the court and drew a foul at half-court with 5.7 seconds to play. The Knicks called a timeout to talk things over, down by one.
Anunoby inbounded the ball from in front of the scorer’s table, with no one from the Spurs guarding him, finding Brunson. With Wembanyama in his face, Brunson fired up a 3-pointer from over 30 feet, hitting the front of the rim.
Charging from the 3-point line toward the arcing rebound was Anunoby, taking one step in the paint and then leaping above Spurs rookie Dylan Harper and Devin Vassell to get a hand on the ball as it hung in the air.
It floated … and hit the back of the iron, dropping through the net with 1.2 seconds left. Bedlam gripped the Garden as Knicks fans lost their minds, a massive delirium gripping the arena, the city, the Tri-State Area and – if we’re being honest – basketball fans all around the world.
The Spurs still had time to run one more play. It was Harper inbounding the ball right next to a dancing group consisting of Taylor Swift, the Haim sisters and actress Mariska Hargitay (a truly unbelievable sequence of words). The massive Karl-Anthony Towns stood in front of Harper, who lobbed a pass in the direction of Castle, who was open.
But the ball had been tipped by Towns just enough to take the speed off the ball and it fluttered short of Castle, allowing Hart and Mitchell Robinson to close in on the Spurs player. Castle came up with the ball but could not get a shot off and the clock expired with the ball ending up in Hart’s hands as the buzzer sounded.
What followed was 50-some-odd years of demons being exorcised in Madison Square Garden. Fans screamed, hugged, stared around them in astonishment at what they had just witnessed. Towns screamed as he hugged teammates, seemingly on the verge of tears.
The greatest comeback in the history of the NBA Finals was over. Just one game now separates them from a title.
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