Knicks make NBA Finals history, overcome 29-point deficit to beat Spurs in Game 4 at MSG

It might have seemed as if there was no reason for this to happen, for the 19,512 fans to still be in their seats, or standing on them, shouting wildly, and for OG Anunoby to be running through the lane to the rim and leaping, hand outstretched, to tip in a missed shot with 1.2 seconds remaining in a game that just had to be over long before this.

With the Knicks trailing  by 27 points at halftime Wednesday night,  the coaches didn’t put on any film, instead just letting the players talk, soak it in and find their way back. They fell behind by 29 in the third quarter. And now, as Anunoby reached up and back, catching the ball and guiding it to the rim where it fell through, you had this.

“This” is the sound, the deafening roar of a crowd that after all the talk about ticket prices maybe didn’t pay enough for this show, It was a roar that seemed ready to lift Madison Square Garden off its foundation, that likely rattled the train tracks in Penn Station down below.

With the Knicks down by one, Jalen Brunson launched a long three-point attempt over Victor Wembanyama’s outstretched hand that bounced off the rim, but Anunoby charged toward the backboard, went high to tip it in and capped the craziest comeback in the history of the NBA Finals, a 107-106 piece of history.

Every time the Knicks appeared to be on the ropes, somehow they pulled themselves together like something out of a “Rocky” movie into one more comeback. On the court, Jose Alvarado looked up at the crowd and said, “This is crazy.”

It was, and it moved the Knicks within one victory of their first NBA title in 53 years. The Knicks lead the series three games to one, with a chance to close it out in San Antonio on Saturday night.

When the buzzer finally sounded, not a fan had left, standing, cheering and maybe sweating as much as the exhausted players who had fought back  from the third-largest halftime deficit in NBA Finals history.

THE MOMENT. pic.twitter.com/TY3dXEEU1s

— NEW YORK KNICKS (@nyknicks) June 11, 2026

POV: you witnessed the game winner in person 🥹 pic.twitter.com/uCAK3ozuP8

— NEW YORK KNICKS (@nyknicks) June 11, 2026

THE PLAY THAT PUT THE KNICKS UP 3-1. pic.twitter.com/l4c1ZCRnNC

— NEW YORK KNICKS (@nyknicks) June 11, 2026

OG ANUNOBY’S GAME WINNING TIP IN. pic.twitter.com/5GOGHutoYc

— NEW YORK KNICKS (@nyknicks) June 11, 2026

This team has shown resiliency and fight throughout the season and in the playoffs last year and this year, but never quite like this, not with this much at stake.

“When you do it once,” said Anunoby, the quietest voice on the team, “you know you can do it again.”

When do you know you can do this, though? The Knicks —  no one, for that matter — had ever done this in the NBA Finals. The comeback from a 29-point deficit for the victory was unprecedented in Finals history. 

 The Knicks -- who trailed 41-22 after a quarter, fell behind 71-42 late in the second quarter and trailed 81-52 early in the third quarter -- took their first lead of the game with 1:22 to play when Brunson drove through the teeth of the Spurs’ defense and banked in a layup. And from there it was a matter of desperately trying to hang on.

The Spurs took the lead back on a pair of free throws by Stephon Castle with 30.3 seconds left after Josh Hart missed a boxout and  fouled him as they battled for a rebound The air seemingly was taken out of the arena.

When Brunson misfired on a floater over Wembanyama with 16 seconds left, De’Aaron Fox raced out with the loose ball. Rather than attempt to kill the clock or draw a foul, he went to the rim, and  Anunoby chased him down and blocked the shot. The Knicks retrieved the loose ball and called time with 5.7 seconds left, setting up the tip-in. Still, they had to survive one more possession.

Karl-Anthony Towns guarded Dylan Harper as he inbounded the ball and got a fingertip on Harper's pass toward Castle near the rim, partially deflecting it. That was fortunate for the Knicks, because Hart had been screened by Wembanyama and Castle was momentarily open. Castle couldn't get a shot off and Hart wound up taking it away from him.

“I felt for all of y’all who were at the game,”  Towns said. “Obviously, you could feel the abundance of joy at one time from everyone at one time, the collective joy that came out of everybody for that one moment, to hear the buzzer going off and not to see the ball go in the basket, I think we all felt something, like that emotion that was special. It’s something that MSG hasn’t had that kind of moment in a long time.”

Anunoby's tip-in gave him 33 points in 41 minutes. Brunson led the Knicks with 36 points in 44 minutes. Timeouts were the only respite for the two as the Knicks hesitated to go deep into their bench in the second half, relying on the duo to carry them.

It seemed almost insignificant when Wembanyama (24 points, 13 rebounds, three blocked shots) was called for a flagrant 1 for an elbow to the chin of Towns with 9:27 left in the third quarter and the Knicks down 81-52. But the Knicks scored 13 straight points, and by the time the fourth quarter began, they were within 90-75.

After allowing 76 points in the first half, the Knicks held the Spurs to 30 in the second half (Anunoby and Brunson totaled 36 after halftime). San Antonio shot 14-for-26 from three-point range in the first half (28-for-47 overall) and 3-for-17 in the second half (8-for-39 overall).

Even with the disappointing four-point loss in Game 3 on Monday night still fresh in their minds, the Knicks seemed confident that the flaws had been found, and resilience has been a trademark of the team. Madison Square Garden chairman James Dolan went on the radio, mostly to talk about the political feud with the city over the watch parties outside the Garden being called off after a squabble, but he also offered a prediction.

“I expect to win tonight,” he said on WFAN just hours before tipoff, joking, “if I make predictions here, they come true. We’re going to win tonight, and we’re going to win the Finals.”

It’s difficult to argue with the predictions now after this.