My friends who don’t watch sports don’t get it. I try to tell them that sports have the capacity to create incredible stories out of thin air. Organically, with no author, no script, tales of redemption and failure construct themselves. The glory of triumph and the agony of defeat. Et cetera.
On April 25, on this very blog, I asked aloud if the Knicks were in panic mode. CJ McCollum had reminded everyone of his playoff chops to put the Knicks in a 2-1 First Round hole. All season, the Knicks had been a good, but not great team. I wrote of how the Knicks starting five had a negative net rating during the. I hadn’t loved the decision to fire head coach Tom Thibodeau, after he had brought the Knicks to their first conference finals in my lifetime, and bring in Mike Brown, who after leading the Sacramento Kings to their first playoff berth in 17 years (as a 3 seed no less, snapping the longest postseason drought in the history of the league) and being named the first-ever unanimous Coach of the Year, was fired after a 13-18 start the following season.
In hindsight, I probably overreacted. The Knicks lost Games 2 and 3 to the Hawks by a single point each. But I would never have forecasted that the Knicks would put together one of the best runs in postseason history. In the deciding Game 6 in Atlanta, New York scored 40 first quarter points to the Hawks’ 15 in route to a 140-89 blowout of historic proportions. They swept Philadelphia in a series with only one competitive game – and Game 4 was a 30 point victory. After the insane heroics of Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals, they did the same to Cleveland.
The magic has carried over to the NBA Finals, where the San Antonio Spurs, despite their youth and inexperience, were a prohibitive favorite after dispatching the defending champs. In Game 1, the Spurs held a 14 point lead in the third quarter. Karl-Anthony Towns led a 20-6 Knick run to get the Knicks back in the game. And who else but Jalen Brunson scored 11 straight in the fourth to secure an upset victory on the road. Game 2 felt similar. After a raucous night out, I was watching on my phone as I traveled to the small island of Kashima. The Knicks, after surviving an early San Antonio push, outscored the Spurs 31-18 in the second corner, and then came out of halftime like gangbusters. With a 14 point lead and six minutes to play, I turned my phone off as I boarded the ferry, figuring the Knicks had it.
All of the sudden, Mete was blowing up my phone informing me of the rapid Spurs comeback. I hastened to setup my laptop (which I had brought to watch the game on – I remembered to bring that, but not a change of socks or a towel) and there I was, wedged in between ignorant Brits and knowledgeable Filipinos on the beach as San Antonio capped off a 21-5 run with a tough Wemby and-one jelly lay. Brunson responded with an insane Dirk-esque one-legged fadeaway to tie the game with 40 seconds left – as he sized up the defense, I told anyone who would listen “that’s Jalen Brunson, he’s going to make this shot.”
A few possessions later, Brunson tried to shoot over Wembanyama for the win, and missed. Wembanyama grabbed the rebound and, with ten seconds left in a tie game, looked to push. He threw the ball to Stephon Castle, who… wasn’t looking, and the ball hit him squarely between the shoulderblades. Brunson snagged the loose ball, was fouled, and hit a one of two free throws. Wembanyama had a decent look from midrange to win it, but hit the back iron to give the Knicks a pair of road wins in San Antonio. Here I go again doing the play-by-play – I tried not to this time. But while Wemby has shouldered much of the blame for this ghastly blunder, I think Castle deserves some as well. You simply must have more situational awareness, especially as the alleged point guard.
Game 3 in New York was weird from the jump. Trump was in the house, which meant every fan was subjected to TSA-style security, delaying everything. Watch parties and gatherings of fans outside of Madison Square Garden were dispersed by police. Trump was sitting in a luxury box with Knicks owner James Dolan – who could be regarded as the worst owner in pro sports since the ouster of Dan Snyder – and was soundly booed during the national anthem when he was shown on the Jumbotron. Mike Breen at one point referred to Trump as a “big Knicks fan” which I think is patently false, as photographs indicate that Trump hasn’t been to an NBA game since 2014 (I guess he was busy being president or whatever). How many Knicks could Trump name, from any era? More than 5? I highly doubt it.
The game itself was chippy, with some questionable officiating. The free throw disparity in the 2nd half was 24-8 for San Antonio. But the Knicks did not play their best. They had 10 less assists than San Antonio, and gave up 21 points off turnovers to the Spurs’ 7. Wembanyama was great from beginning to end. Not only did he play closer to the basket, but he also splashed some deep threes. He finished with 31/8/6 on an efficient 11/18 from the field. The Knicks 13 game playoff win streak – second longest ever – was snapped.
And then the Spurs came out for Game 4 with flames shooting out of their asses. They shot an absurd 28/47, 60% (14/26, 54% from three) from the field in the first half for 76 points. Usually that’s the type of first half an elite team puts up against a tanking squad in March – not in the NBA Finals. The Knicks were getting boat-raced. At halftime I couldn’t believe it. San Antonio led 76-49 – a margin of 27. The Knicks had squandered those two wins in San Antonio and would be going back there for Game 5 with the series tied at two games a piece. Unbelievable. James Dolan and Trump had cursed the Knicks – Dolan had guaranteed a Game 4 victory and a Knicks championship on the radio. Usually in sports, guaranteeing victory is never a good idea. My mind instantly goes to when Alex Ovechkin guaranteed that our Washington Capitals would win Game 7 against the New York Rangers – and of course we lost. Wu-Tang Clan was performing to an emotionally defeated crowd.
But these Knicks are special. We’ve seen it all season. Usually over the course of a playoff run, some guys on a given team rise to the occasion, and some guys shrink from the moment. Everyone on the Knicks is playing the best basketball of their career. The team fits together perfectly like puzzle pieces. So when the Knicks slowly began to chip away at the gargantuan lead, you could feel some hope being breathed back into the Garden. A few blocks away, my friend Jack from Kochi was on life support at a bar in K-Town. The Knicks put together a 20-6 run as the Spurs took 20 shots and made just 4 (2/12 from three) in the third quarter. It was 90-75 Spurs at the end of three quarters, but despite the fifteen point cushion, all the momentum was on the Knicks’ side.
The Knicks kept pushing, and Brunson hit a step-back three over Wemby with about two and a half minutes left to cut the previously 29-point lead to just one. A horrible De’Aaron Fox turnover lead to a Josh Hart runout that should have been a guaranteed two points, but he wasn’t sure if he wanted to lay it up or dunk it and ended up missing a point-blank wide-open layup, which almost killed Larry David sitting courtside.
Wembanyama, who finished with 24 points and 13 rebounds but went just 2/9 in the fourth quarter, missed two clutch free throws to give the Knicks the ball back. Brunson hit an impossible floater to take the lead. The Knicks had come back from the largest deficit in the history of the NBA Finals. On the other end of the floor, Castle stepped out of bounds and the Garden was going ballistic. But the Knicks committed a shot-clock violation to give the ball back to San Antonio. The Spurs were down just one with 40 seconds left. Castle, fouled on a putback attempt, hit two clutch free throws to put the Spurs back up 106-105. The Knicks drew up their standard “give it to Brunson and get TF out of the way” play, but tenacious perimeter defense from Vassell and rim protection from Wembanyama led to a fast break for De’Aaron Fox.
It is here that some questionable judgment was exercised by Fox. With a one point lead and 13 seconds left, he probably should have held the ball and forced the Knicks to foul him. As a 76% free throw shooter, he probably could have hit both shots to put the Spurs back up three and ensure that, at bare minimum, we would have overtime. Instead, he tried to lay the ball up over OG Anunoby. But this is All-Defense OG Anunoby, with a 7′ 2″ wingspan. Anunoby blocked Fox cleanly, and the ball found its way into the hands of Jose Alvarado. Alvarado, a trade-deadline acquisition and NYC native, was a big catalyst off the bench for the Knicks in this game. While plus-minus is a stupid stat (as we’ve discussed), Alvarado was +11 in 16 minutes, replacing Bridges in the lineup (-14 in 28 minutes). Alvarado got the ball across midcourt – nearly committing a backcourt violation – and the Knicks called timeout. 5.7 seconds left, still down one, to draw up a game winning play.
Anunoby was the inbounder for New York, and Fox had his back to him. This is a strategic tactic, to ignore the inbounder and use five defenders to guard four offensive players trying to receive the ball. But it’s a relevant detail for what’s about to happen. Brunson switched onto Wembanyama and caught the inbounds near halfcourt. Fox came over to double, Brunson took one dribble and pulled up from damn near 30 feet. It was the type of shot, that given the distance and the gravity of the moment, nobody not named Stephen Curry, Damian Lillard, or Luka Doncic should be taking. Anunoby ran unmolested to the rim, and found himself in perfect position to tip Brunson’s shot – which bounced off the front rim – into the net. Pandamonium.
The Spurs still had about a second left on the clock, and drew up a decent play in which Castle was open going to the rim. You can see how open he was.
But Karl-Anthony Towns got his fingertips on the inbounds pass, tipping it and disrupting the play to cement a Knicks victory for the ages.
Closer inspection of the footage reveals that Towns encouraged Knicks fans sitting courtside to crowd Harper to make his pass more difficult.
It was the most magical moment of a Knicks run that has too many to count. This is one of those times where sports transcends reality and can feel more like fiction, like a sports movie that’s too cheesy to feel real. But this is real. And nobody deserves it more than the Knick fans, who stood by their team through thick and thin. Tracy Morgan and Ben Stiller were courtside to watch Iman Shumpert and Mario Hezonja. And the Knick faithful in the streets, the true lifeblood of the city, the working class who can’t afford Finals tickets that cost more than a car, were watching the game projected onto the sides of buildings and in dive bars and barber shops.
After decades of agony, the New York Knicks are a team of destiny and will be the 2026 NBA Champions.
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