The New York Knicks turned NBA Finals Game 4 into the kind of night that makes every halftime certainty look foolish, rallying from 29 points down to beat the San Antonio Spurs 107-106 at Madison Square Garden and move within one win of the championship.
Knicks Complete Historic NBA Finals Comeback
New York now leads the NBA Finals 3-1 after completing the largest comeback in Finals history, a sentence that does not become less strange after reading the halftime score. San Antonio led 76-49 at the break after making 14 three-pointers in the first half, a Finals record and the sort of shooting display that usually sends the losing team into damage-control quotes.
Instead, the Knicks kept cutting into the margin possession by possession. Jalen Brunson finished with 36 points, giving New York the steady late-game shot creation it needed once the Spurs' early rhythm finally cooled. OG Anunoby added 33 points and ended up with the play that decided the game, following a miss and tipping in the winner with 1.2 seconds left.
Spurs Lose Control After Record First Half
The Spurs had opened Game 4 with nearly everything working. Victor Wembanyama had 24 points and 13 rebounds by the end, and San Antonio's spacing in the first half gave New York too many decisions to make at once. Devin Vassell, Dylan Harper and De'Aaron Fox all helped push the pace while the Knicks spent much of the opening half chasing shooters around Madison Square Garden.
But a 29-point lead is only comfortable if the possessions after it still look clean. San Antonio's offense stalled just enough, and New York turned missed shots into the first requirement of any comeback: belief that the opponent might actually cooperate. The Spurs still had chances late, but Anunoby's putback left almost no time to answer.
New York Moves One Win From NBA Title
For the Knicks, the win changes the entire shape of the series. A 2-2 tie would have sent the NBA Finals back into a nervous sprint. A 3-1 lead gives New York three chances to finish a season that already has Madison Square Garden sounding like it is trying to shake loose from its foundation.
The Spurs will have to live with the uncomfortable part of Game 4: they produced a record-setting first half, had Wembanyama on the floor, led by 29 and still lost. That is not a tactical note so much as a bruise. New York did not merely survive San Antonio's best early swing. The Knicks waited it out, took the last shot that mattered and left the Spurs with a long flight and a very short margin for error.