San Antonio Spurs vs New York Knicks: New York completes greatest comeback in Finals history, wins Game 4

What. A. Game.

The Knicks were down 27 at the half but showed the grit and determination we have seen all season, while the Spurs just went ice-cold and couldn’t handle the moment.

OG Anunoby wins it with a tip-in (the Spurs failed to get off a shot in 1.2 after a fumbled inbounds pass.

The Spurs forced Brunson into a contested three, but nobody put a body on Anunoby, who crashed from the 3-point line and tipped in what might be the game-winner. Brilliant play.

The Spurs get one last chance.

De’Aaron Fox has had a rough second half and did it again. The Spurs stripped the ball from Brunson on his drive with 15ish seconds left, the ball got tipped into the back court, Fox got it and rather than dribble it out and force the Knicks to foul, he went for the layup and got blocked by Anunoby.

The Knicks get the final shot.

The Spurs wanted a 2-for-1 at the end of the game and got it with a Fox jumper, he missed but Stephon Castle crashed hard, got the offensive rebound and was fouled on the putback by Hart.

106-105 Spurs with 30.3 left.

What. A. Game.

New York is on the verge of the greatest comeback in NBA Finals history.

Spurs ball, but they need a bucket and have not been able to buy one in the second half. It took Mitch Johnson way too long to call a timeout during this run.

Josh Hart missed a dunk for the lead, Wemby missed two free throws to pad the lead.

The Knicks are on a 20-4 run to cut the lead to just four. San Antonio is 2-of-14 shooting in the fourth after an ice-cold third.

There is more than half of the fourth quarter remaining and we may have a wild ending.

The Knicks crowd is energized after an understandably quiet first half.

The control is impressive... and it helps to be 7'5".

The Spurs pushed the lead out to 20, but the Knicks went on a 5-0 run and forced a Spurs timeout with the lead at 15.

Victor Wembanyama is completely gassed, but can Mitch Johnson afford to take him out?

New York started playing better defense, the Spurs went cold on the shots they should make, and the Knicks have a chance entering the fourth quarter, down 15.

San Antonio shot 4-of-20 in the third, including 0-of-5 in the paint and 2-of-12 from 3-point range. The Spurs had more turnovers (five) than made field goals (four) in the third.

The Knicks were 5-of-10 from 3 and trimmed a 27-point halftime deficit to something where they have a chance.

Jalen Brunson has 8 in the third quarter, and the Spurs have cooled off, shooting 3-of-14 in the frame, and it’s down to a 17-point game (87-70), and Knicks fans are getting loud in the Garden, thinking they have a chance.

This is a real test for the young Spurs. We’re going to learn a lot about them in the next 15 minutes.

The Spurs shooters have gone cold, and there is a little hope in Madison Square Garden. There’s a lot of game left, but still a lot of ground to make up for New York.

This was unquestionably a deserving Flagrant 1 foul.

Victor Wembanyama was trying to get around Karl-Anthony Towns and elbowed him in the head. It was the right call.

Wemby is now one more flagrant foul away from a one-game suspension — a player is automatically suspended for a game when they reach four flagrant foul points, and Wembanyama already had two from his ejection in the Minnesota series for the shot to Naz Reid. This makes three points.

Yes, Knicks fans, if the flagrant that should have been called on him in Game 3 had been called, he’d be suspended next game. If you’re wondering why the league didn’t raise that to a flagrant postgame, well...

What is the largest halftime comeback in NBA Finals history? It was 21 points. In 1948.

The Knicks are down 27 at home and need to make history, or they are in a best-of-three series and without the momentum.

In Game 3, the Spurs put up a 119 offensive rating that was right at their regular season average and a 15 points per 100 jump from Game 2.

In the first half of Game 4, the Spurs have an offensive rating of 161.4. With that, they have a 27-point lead at halftime, 76-49.

Victor Wembanyama has 16 points with six rebounds and a couple of blocks.

Devin Vassell (5-of-5 from the floor) and Dylan Harper (6-of-7) each have 15 points. As a team, the Spurs are shooting 59.6% and are 14-of-26 (53.8%) from 3-point range — 14 3-pointers in a half is an NBA Finals record.

Jalen Brunson has 19 points, OG Anunoby has 14, and the rest of the team is shooting 35.3% from the floor.

The Knicks have a 104.5 offensive rating, which isn’t far off what they had in Game 2 when they won in San Antonio (105.1), but it doesn’t matter if you can’t get stops.

This is the quietest Madison Square Garden has been this postseason.

She isn’t just showing up with her fiancé to Cavaliers games, she’s going to Knicks games, too.

The Knicks are missing rotations, not getting back and are generally a defensive mess. Comebacks start with stops and the Knicks need a few. More than few, but let’s start there.

The Spurs are up 25 midway through the second quarter.

San Antonio is 11-of-16 from 3. That’s the biggest story of the game, but there’s more.

If you’ve ever watched Victor Wembanyama’s warm-up about 50 minutes before a game, it is the most physical warm-up I’ve ever seen in terms of assistant coaches just going hard at him, pushing and beating on him, being physical like it’s a game. Not just before the playoffs, but on a random Tuesday in February.

The Knicks are trying to push Wembanyama around in Game 4, but he thrives in that more than you think he should. He’s thriving in this game with 14.

The Knicks have owned second quarters in this series, they are going to need to again being down 19, 41-22, after one quarter of Game 4.

Victor Wembanyama has 13 points and the Spurs as a team are shooting 65.2% overall and are 6-of-10 from 3. The Knicks are shooting 29.4% overall and Jalen Brunson is 0-of-3 from the floor.

Live betting odds:
Spurs (-500), Knicks (+340
Spread: Spurs -10.5
Total: 222.5

This is not exactly going to quiet the debate about the officiating.

KAT is in early foul trouble and Mitchell Robinson has now picked up a flagrant foul on Victor Wembanyama.

That high elbow absolutely is a flagrant. Because the refs missed one last game (and the league didn’t elevate it to a flagrant upon review for reasons that evade me) doesn’t mean this should not be called a flagrant.

Spurs push lead to 21.

San Antonio has started this game 12-of-18 (66.7%) and 6-of-8 from 3-point range, while New York is 5-of-14. That’s the story. The Knicks inability to slow the Spurs offense has been a story for a couple of games now.

KAT in foul trouble and an early Spurs run has sucked some of the air out of Madison Square Garden.

San Antonio is up 12-2 with 9:16 left in the first quarter, behind six points from Devin Vassell and 4-of-6 shooting to start the game. If you scroll down and check out the things to watch for in this game, the Knicks slowing the Spurs offense — which has not happened yet — was one of them.

This is not good for the Knicks — Karl-Anthony Towns has gone to the bench after picking up two fouls in the first minute.

They were both pretty soft — Zach Zarba’s crew seem to be calling this one tight. The second came when Wembanyama was hit with a foul on a driving Towns, the Spurs challenged that KAT hooked Wemby — he kind of did at first, but Wemby kept his arm in there — and the challenge was successful, overturning the call.

A pivotal swing game in these NBA Finals has tipped off, with the Spurs getting the ball, De’Aaron Fox driving and drawing a foul on Karl-Anthony Towns, hitting both to give the Spurs a 2-0 lead.

The San Antonio Spurs and New York Knicks have, as expected, made no changes to their respective starting lineups for Game 4 of the NBA Finals.

De’Aaron Fox, Stephon Castle, Devin Vassell, Julian Champagnie and Victor Wembanyama will start for the visiting Spurs, who need a win to even the series at two games apiece.

The Knicks counter with Jalen Brunson, Mikal Bridges, Josh Hart, OG Anunoby and Karl-Anthony Towns. A win would move New York to within one game of its first NBA title since 1973.

Here are a few trends to watch for Game 4.

• Can the Knicks get Karl-Anthony Towns rolling again? San Antonio switched up how it defended KAT in Game 3 — more guards/wings, less Wembanyama, who was on Josh Hart more — and it threw the Knicks off-balance. New York needs the KAT we saw in the first two games of the series, his quiet 11 points in Game 3 are not enough (and Towns remains scoreless in the fourth quarter for the Finals).

• Does Spurs offense keep rolling? With all the focus on the Knicks offense or the arguing about foul calls, everybody seemed to look past the key difference in Game 3: The Spurs offense was much better. They got to the rim (40 of their 84 shot attempts were within a few feet of the basket), and with that, their offensive rating jumped from 104.1 (points per 100 possessions) in Game 2 to 119.1 in Game 3. New York has to slow Wemby and the Spurs, which ties into our third thing...

• Knicks must limit turnovers. The Spurs scored 21 points off 13 Knicks turnovers in Game 4, winning the turnover point battle by 14. The Spurs are too good to give them that many easy transition buckets. Brunson overdribbled and had five of those turnovers, he has to be better.

With so much focus on the officiating in Game 3, where did the NBA turn for Game 4?

Zach Zarba is the crew chief — the most respected, No. 1 referee in the NBAPA’s annual survey about referees.

Both James Williams and Courtney Kirkland were voted as elite, Tier 1 officials in that same survey.

So there’s going to be no complaints about the officiating, right? Sure....

There is a long and storied history of players who played the villain to the Knicks in Madison Square Garden: Reggie Miller tops the list, but Michael Jordan, Trae Young and Alonzo Mourning have been on that list, and a year ago Tyrese Haliburton did his best to put himself on it.

Victor Wembanyama is the latest to go on the villain list, especially after he pushed around Knicks hero Jalen Brunson (and didn’t get a foul or fragrant for it, somehow). Wembanyama seemed to thrive in that role, which makes the rivalry all that much more fun.

Does Wemby see himself as the villain after Game 3?

“I guess. I’m nowhere near Trae Young level, though,” he said with a laugh.

He might be if the Spurs win Game 4 and even the series.

The Knicks were slim 1.5 point favorites entering Game 3 — a game the Spurs won — but now they are slightly larger favorites to have a bounce-back win in Game 4 and take a 3-1 series lead.

Here are the odds for Game 4, courtesy of our partners at DraftKings:

Game: Knicks -135, Spurs +114
Spread: Knicks -2.5
Total: 216.5

Series odds:
Knicks -190, Spurs +160

President Donald Trump will not attend Game 4 of the NBA Finals at Madison Square Garden, due to “scheduling conflicts and obligations,” according to a report.

That means shorter security lines at the building and a reduced security presence outside MSG, as was seen before Game 3 (when five blocks around the arena in Midtown Manhattan were blocked off to vehicular traffic and to pedestrians without a ticket to the game).

However, that does not mean there will be watch parties outside of Madison Square Garden, as had been announced.

Knicks owner James Dolan announced on WFAN radio in New York that the watch party was canceled just hours before tip-off. Dolan blamed — and went off on — NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch and New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, whom he called a fake fan of the team.

Sadly, this all feels very political. Dolan is very close to Trump — it was he who invited the president to Game 3 — and Mamdani, a self-described democratic socialist, is seen as a foil to Trump in the city where the president was born and lived for much of his life.