The 16 moments that defined the Knicks' historic Game 4 comeback, one of the best in sports history

The New York Knicks just completed the greatest comeback in the history of the NBA Finals. Perhaps in the history of the NBA. Let's not mince words: we might have just witnessed perhaps the most incredible comeback in the history of professional sports. They were down 29 points in the second half of an NBA Finals game! How on Earth did that happen?!?!?!?

There's no one answer. It was a slow drip, 20 or so minutes of miscues on one end and heroism on the other. Change the result of one out of more than a dozen plays or decisions and the San Antonio Spurs might be headed back to San Antonio with a tied series and home-court advantage the rest of the way. Instead, the Knicks, after a thrilling 107-106 win, are 48 minutes away from their first championship in 53 years. So to figure out how it happened, let's go through those 20 or so minutes and recount the moments that made it all possible.

The flagrant

No one will ever admit it, but the Knicks came into this game fixated on the officiating. Coach Mike Brown went on a tirade about it after Game 3. Victor Wembanyama's shove on Jalen Brunson in Game 3 was controversially not upgraded to a flagrant afterward, keeping him two flagrant points away from a suspension. And on Wednesday, Karl-Anthony Towns was removed from the game after 62 seconds because of two quick fouls, and the Knicks spiraled from there. 

They spent the first half going at Wembanyama, either out of frustration or in an attempt to goad him into doing something stupid. Mitchell Robinson was called for a flagrant. Jose Alvarado nearly was. San Antonio built the third-biggest halftime lead in Finals history.

On some level, the Knicks needed what came next. Early in the third quarter, Wembanyama elbowed Towns in the face. That gave him that third flagrant foul point the Knicks surely felt he deserved, and almost immediately, it felt like the Knicks clicked back into place. The refs no longer felt like a distraction. Everyone could focus on basketball. That's what the Knicks do best.

The triple

Two quick baskets cut the lead to 25. Fine. Cue the Chris Paul memes. But when Brunson hit a 3-pointer with around eight-and-a-half minutes remaining in the third quarter, you quirked an eyebrow. At least, Spurs coach Mitch Johnson did. That 7-0 run led to a timeout, an acknowledgment that the Knicks were starting to find something and that the Spurs should try to cut off their momentum. Suddenly, something was in the air.

The airball

Besides Wembanyama, you could argue no Spur has punished the Knicks quite as much as Dylan Harper has in the Finals. His one weakness has been 3-point shooting. Well, he made three triples in the first half. The Spurs made a Finals record 14. It just felt like one of those games. There's little you can do when your opponent makes over half of their 3s, and when someone as lethal attacking downhill as Harper is the one doing it, there's just no reasonable defense.

When he went up for this one late in the third quarter, he airballed. As with the Wembanyama flagrant, it felt as if something cosmic had shifted, as if the universe were realigning for the Knicks. Without that magical first-half shooting, would the Spurs have enough to win the game? It turned out, they didn't. San Antonio made only three of its 17 long-range attempts in the last two quarters. 

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The turnovers

They weren't huge plays on the scoreboard, but you started to feel the wheels come off for the Spurs right around the end of the third quarter, on two uncharacteristic De'Aaron Fox turnovers. The first was a pass out of bounds to Stephon Castle when he wasn't looking. A bad pass to Castle when he wasn't looking? Hmm. I wonder where I've seen that before. The second was simpler: Fox merely dribbled the ball off his own foot.

Fox is supposed to be the steady, veteran hand. Castle turned the ball over 20 times in San Antonio's first two Western Conference Finals games against Oklahoma City, and getting Fox back from his high-ankle sprain helped turn around that series. But these two mistakes were notable foreshadowing of what was to come. 

The bounce

When Landry Shamet made his crazy, triple-bounce 3-point at the end of Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals, it felt like karmic retribution for the Knicks after Tyrese Haliburton's improbable, game-tying bounce in Game 1 of that very same series a year earlier. Just one problem: it came on the other rim. That left the Haliburton rim haunted, but OG Anunoby addressed that with this lucky bounce off the front of the rim at the end of the third quarter to cut the lead to 15. 

The challenge

They call football a game of inches. The NBA, with the advent of instant replay, is very often the game of millimeters. When Robinson knocked away this inbound pass, common sense suggested he touched it last. But Knicks director of video services and player development Jordan Brink saw otherwise. He's been masterful overseeing New York's challenges this postseason, and this was one of his biggest wins yet. Even if the Knicks didn't score on their next possession, it could have kept points off the board in a game decided by just one.

The sub

Alvarado played three minutes and 23 seconds in the first half. He played two minutes and 35 seconds in the third quarter. These are appropriate numbers for a backup point guard in the NBA Finals. Alvarado has given the Knicks good minutes all series, but this is a team built around another small point guard in Brunson. Playing the two of them together would surely make the Knicks too small... right?

Wrong, at least according to Brown, New York's first-year coach. With 9:46 to play, he brought Alvarado back into the game with Brunson still out there. Alvarado would go on to play the rest of the game minus five seconds. A player who didn't even average 17 regular-season minutes closed the last 10 minutes of the greatest comeback in NBA Finals history, and it was perhaps the single most important decision of the game.

In the fourth quarter alone, Alvarado put up eight points, three assists and two rebounds. The Alvarado-Brunson pairing outscored the Spurs by 21 points for the game. As small as Alvarado is, he compensates defensively with sheer physicality. He may have committed five fouls in his first nine minutes on the floor, but he ultimately held up to the degree that the Knicks needed him to. More than anything, the Knicks needed a second ball handler. San Antonio's ball pressure in the backcourt would have exhausted Brunson had the Knicks not had someone else on the floor who could dribble reliably. 

Just as Shamet swung Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals, Alvarado was the hero reserve of Game 4 of the Finals. Just as heroic here? Brown. Remember, a year ago, one of the major criticisms of Tom Thibodeau was that he didn't use his bench enough. Now, the Knicks are riding their bench to one of the more magical playoff runs in NBA history.

The slump buster 

Another of the biggest stories of the Finals to this point: as dominant as Karl-Anthony Towns has been at points, he didn't score a single fourth-quarter point in the first three games. Well... what a way to put your first points on the board! This step-back 3, which resulted in Towns falling out of bounds, was probably the craziest basket of the comeback, and it was the one that fully brought Towns back into the game after foul trouble. Towns may have only taken two shots in the fourth quarter, but he made both of them count...

The return to single digits

And here's the other Towns shot. He's had success driving at Wembanyama in this series, but this one was particularly tough. Wembanyama could use the baseline as a second defender, and Towns had to walk a tightrope. He might have even gotten fouled. But he finished through contact. The lead was cut to single digits for the first time since the first quarter. 

The barrage

Every crazy comeback in the modern NBA includes a barrage of 3-pointers. Think back to Indiana's Game 1 comeback against the Knicks last season. We remember the Haliburton shot... but Aaron Nesmith made six fourth-quarter 3s. The Knicks made six fourth-quarter 3s as a team in Game 4, but if you're looking for that single stretch when the basket felt like it was the size of a hula hoop, it was here. Let's go through three of the biggest shots of the game.

• The Knicks get the Spurs into rotation, forcing Fox to split the difference between Alvarado and Josh Hart in the corner. Wembanyama rotates towards the rim, so Alvarado intentionally passes low to make sure he can't reach it. It gets to Anunoby in the corner. The lead is cut to four.
• The Spurs push the lead back up to seven on a Fox triple, but when Alvarado sets a ghost screen for Brunson, both Harper and Devin Vassell stick with the superstar. Wrong choice. Brunson passes it back out to Alvarado. Another 3. The lead is back down to four.
• The third shot is the superstar shot. Brunson draws the one-on-one matchup with Wembanyama on the perimeter with two-and-a-half minutes remaining, but the situation is hardly optimal. The strong side is empty, but he would have to drive around a 7-foot-4 defender to try to get a look at the rim. By the time he does so, another Spur could rotate over, and with the shot clock running out, he couldn't pass. So he heaves a 3-pointer over a defender who is, at least by listed heights, 14 inches taller than him. We now have a one-point game.

The miss

There's always a goat, and it very easily could've been Hart. After yet another horrible Fox turnover, Hart had a free lane to the basket, but Vassell was in hot pursuit. He couldn't quite decide if he wanted to dunk or lay it in, so he attempted to split the difference and wound up with the worst miss of his career. He even acknowledged it after the game. 

"I got a special shoutout for OG, man, because he saved me at least for this game a lifetime of regret," Hart said.

This wouldn't even be the only significant mistake Hart made down the stretch. When San Antonio took a 106-105 lead with less than a minute remaining, it happened because Hart got caught up watching the ball and didn't box out Castle on Fox's miss. Hart fouled him, and Castle sank two free throws. But Hart was saved from that lifetime of regret by everything that came next.

The misses

With 1:47 remaining, Wembanyama had a chance to push the lead back up to three when Anunoby fouled him on the drive that followed Hart's miss. Instead, he missed both free throws to keep the lead at one.

We've had consequential missed free throws in the Finals. Nick Anderson missing four straight possible game-winners in 1995 comes to mind. The Spurs have even had some brutal ones. Had Manu Ginobili or Kawhi Leonard made all of their freebies in Game 6 of the 2013 Finals, Ray Allen never would have had a chance to send that game to overtime (don't worry, Heat fans, this won't be our last mention of Allen tonight).

But think about the company Wembanyama is trying to keep. We're a long, long way away, but he's trying to climb GOAT mountain. Michael Jordan never missed back-to-back free throws of this enormity in the Finals, and despite some other notable shortcomings on this stage, LeBron James never did either. Wembanyama is only 22. He's going to be fine. But between these free throws and the turnover at the end of Game 2, he's looking at a whole lot of regret from this series. 

The Knicks' first lead

Oh, did I say the 3 over Wembanyama was the superstar shot? Well, I suppose this one qualifies, too. 

Castle has defended Brunson as well as any guard in his playoff career, but with around a minute and a half left, Brunson went at him, driving into traffic and nailing a lefty floater to give the Knicks their first lead of the game. The Knicks have now won three games in this series. All three of them have featured Brunson making a shot to give them the lead within the last two minutes. He's had one of the greatest clutch postseasons in NBA history, but considering the stakes of this game and the comeback it helped complete, this was probably his biggest late-game shot.

The mistake

We covered Hart's second mistake, the one that allowed Castle to take the lead back at the line. Well, the Knicks responded, as they often do, with Brunson. With just under 20 seconds remaining, he again drove for a floater, but the long arm of Wembanyama forced him to use the glass and he couldn't quite get the shot to fall. Both sides scrambled for the loose ball, and Fox deflected it forward and chased it down in the backcourt. 

At this point, 13 seconds remained. The shot clock is off. If Fox corrals the ball and holds on, the Knicks have to foul him. If he makes just one free throw, the lead is up to two, and even if Brunson works his mid-range magic on the other end, that only sends the game to overtime. If he makes both, the Knicks need a 3-pointer, and the Spurs can try to take that away with quick fouling. The game isn't quite over if Fox gets fouled... but the Spurs are at a decided advantage.

But Fox didn't play for the foul. He went for the layup and was blocked by Anunoby. "I just thought I'd be able to outrun him," Fox said after the game. "That's it." 

But even if he'd made the layup, he would have left the Knicks more than 11 seconds to work with in a one-score game. Had he tried to dribble, he could have run more time off and made life harder for New York. Virtually any outcome would have been better than what happened.

Instead, Alvarado came away with the ball. For a brief moment, it looked as if he might wind up being the game's goat. When he took the ball upcourt, it looked as though he committed a back-court violation right as Fox committed a foul (San Antonio had one to give). However, a back-court violation requires both feet and the ball to cross the half-court line. Alvarado's feet both had, but the ball had not. That allowed the Knicks to call a timeout.

Plenty of attention will be paid to Fox's first mistake, but you could argue he made a second one with that foul to give. Alvarado was in a very disadvantageous position with only around six seconds to play, and Brown didn't signal for a timeout until after the foul. It's not clear what would have happened had the Spurs merely played defense. 

Remember, though, at the end of Game 2, the Spurs committed their foul to give on Brunson, and that meant that when Wembanyama fouled him following his infamous turnover, Brunson got to go to the line to win the game. Committing the foul to give, at the very least, took fouling off the table for the final possession. A minor strategic note, but one that could potentially have been meaningful. 

The tip-in

The subsequent inbounds play began with Anunoby as the passer, with no defender on him. Brunson started just below the nail, but raced up to around the half-court line with the Spurs switching every screen. That left him alone with Wembanyama when Fox elected to leave Anunoby to race over to help on Brunson. With two defenders between him and Anunoby and no clear driving lane, Brunson fired the deep 3 with a bit more than four seconds on the clock and missed.

The clutch Brunson seems to rarely miss in these situations. Has New York's magic run out? It sure looked that way, until... IS THAT ANUNOBY OFF THE TOP ROPE? 

Again, watch Fox after the inbounds pass. He leaves Anunoby alone, which means nobody is boxing him out when Brunson gets his shot off. He has a completely free lane to the basket. He starts his sprint almost as soon as Brunson releases the ball. Castle is tied up with Bridges. Harper is responsible for Shamet, but he is too far away to box out, so he set up right around the restricted circle. There's a gap between those two Spurs at the basket, and Anunoby jumps first, uses his momentum, and finishes the second-biggest offensive rebound in Finals history.

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Why the second-biggest? I promised another Ray Allen mention, didn't I? Amazingly, this isn't even the most devastating offensive rebound in Spurs Finals history. In 2013, Allen's game-tying shot was set up by a Chris Bosh rebound that famously came after Gregg Popovich took Tim Duncan off the floor for the final defensive possession. That single sequence cost the Spurs the 2013 title. This one may ultimately cost San Antonio the 2026 crown.

This is technically Anunoby's second trip to the NBA Finals. His first came in 2019 as a member of the Toronto Raptors, but he didn't play a single minute in that playoff run because of an emergency appendectomy. He's more than made up for that absence in this series. He entered Game 4 averaging just under 21 points per game in the Finals. He is New York's best defender. He had 31 points in Game 4 before this play even happened.

But these were the two biggest points of his career. If the Knicks finish this series, his tip will forever be the defining image of the end of the 53-year championship drought. It was the single most significant play of the biggest comeback in Finals history. But it didn't end the game. After Anunoby's tip, 1.2 seconds remained on the clock.

The deflection

Even after all of that, the Knicks very nearly lost this game at the end. The Knicks, unlike the Spurs, were not switching everything on their final play. Doing so risked putting a smaller defender on Wembanyama for a game-winning lob. But the Spurs used Wembanyama as a decoy. Vassell slipped between Wembanyama and Castle, bringing Mikal Bridges with him, then Wembanyama screened Hart, giving Castle a free run to the basket. Robinson can't leave Wembanyama for fear of giving him an open game-winner, but Hart was a step behind Castle with nobody waiting at the rim. If Harper hits Castle with a perfect pass, the game is over and the Spurs win.

But that's not what happens. Towns, oft-maligned for his defense in his whole career, appeared to get a finger on the ball. That deflection didn't knock the pass away completely. Castle adjusted while the ball was in the air and got to the ball. But by that time, Hart and Robinson were both on him and he fumbled the ball away, allowing the clock to hit zero and give the Knicks a 3-1 Finals lead.

We've reminisced about prior Knicks playoff games in this story. We've reminisced about prior Finals games in this story. But now, we close, appropriately, by reminiscing about a prior Knicks Finals game. Think back to 1994. The Knicks had a 3-2 Finals lead over the Houston Rockets. John Starks has a chance to win New York the championship with a 3-pointer in the closing seconds and it fell just short. Hakeem Olajuwon got a nail on it, Houston tied the series and won in seven.

It feels appropriate, therefore, that Game 4 would end like this. When droughts end in sports, they tend to do so in the most dramatic possible ways. The Red Sox overcame the first-ever 3-0 deficit in baseball history to stun the Yankees in 2004. The Cubs overcame a 3-1 World Series deficit in 2016. We have, again, brought up all manner of prior Knicks mistakes and tragedies in this space. They've exorcised all of those demons in this playoff run, culminating with one of their biggest at the end of Game 4.