The New York Knicks erased a 29-point deficit to beat the San Antonio Spurs 107-106 in Game 4 on Tuesday night, completing the largest comeback in NBA Finals history and taking a commanding 3-1 series lead.
It was the kind of game that reminds you why live sports still matter more than anything else on television.
What Actually Happened in That Second Half
The Spurs looked untouchable through two quarters. San Antonio shot 60% from the floor in the first half, drilled 14 three-pointers (a new Finals record for a single half), and built a lead so wide that MSG started emptying out. Casual fans flipped channels. Talking heads on social media were already debating whether the series was heading back to San Antonio all square.
Then the third quarter started, and everything changed.
Jalen Brunson, who finished with 36 points, began attacking the rim instead of settling for contested pull-ups. He drew fouls, collapsed the defense, and found open shooters when San Antonio sent help. OG Anunoby caught fire from everywhere on the court, finishing with 33 points on a mix of catch-and-shoot threes, mid-range pullups, and transition finishes that had the Garden crowd screaming.
The Knicks defense, which had been a sieve in the first half, suddenly locked in with an aggressive switching scheme that suffocated San Antonio’s pick-and-roll actions. The Spurs went ice cold. New York chipped away, cutting the lead to single digits by the end of the third, then erasing it entirely in a furious fourth-quarter run. And the arena refilled, louder than it had been all postseason.
The Finish Was Almost Too Perfect
With 1.2 seconds remaining and the Knicks trailing by one, an inbound play went exactly where it needed to go. A missed shot off the front rim became a tip-in by Anunoby, the ball kissing off the glass and dropping through just before the buzzer. The ESPN game recap described it as “simply stunning,” which might be the understatement of the entire playoffs.
The previous record for the largest Finals comeback belonged to the 2008 Boston Celtics, who rallied from 24 points down against the Lakers. The Knicks shattered that by five points, and they did it in a game where a loss would have knotted the series at two apiece and shifted all the momentum to San Antonio.
Victor Wembanyama’s Fourth-Quarter Disappearing Act
The conversation nobody in San Antonio wants to have centers on their franchise cornerstone. Victor Wembanyama was brilliant in the first half, using his 7-foot-4 frame to score over and around New York’s defenders with apparent ease. But in the fourth quarter, as the Knicks ramped up the pressure and the crowd noise became deafening, Wembanyama went quiet. He managed just four points in the final period, missed two free throws, and committed a crucial turnover with under two minutes left.
It was a learning-experience game for a player who is still only in his third NBA season. Nobody doubts his ceiling. But closing out games in a hostile arena is a skill that usually takes years of playoff scars to develop, and the Knicks exposed that gap when it mattered most.
Why This Series Is Now Essentially Over
No team in NBA history has come back from a 3-1 deficit to win the Finals. The Spurs have to win three straight, two of them at Madison Square Garden, against a team that just proved it can come back from anything. History, momentum, and home court all favor New York.
Game 5 is Saturday at MSG, where the Knicks could clinch their first championship since 1973. For a franchise whose fans have endured decades of heartbreak, from the Ewing-era near-misses to the Isiah Thomas disaster to the James Dolan years, this feels like the catharsis that has been building for half a century.
CNN reported that the broadcast drew over 18 million viewers in the fourth quarter alone, making it the most-watched NBA game since 2019. If the Knicks close it out Saturday, expect those numbers to double.
The Bigger Picture for the NBA
The league needed this. After years of complaints about superteam predictability and load management killing the regular season, this Finals has delivered genuine drama between two well-constructed teams that took completely different paths to get here. The Spurs, rebuilt around a generational talent in Wembanyama, represent the patient-development model. The Knicks, assembled through aggressive trades and a willingness to bet on veteran talent, represent the win-now philosophy.
Both approaches work. Both are fun to watch. But right now, only one team is watching live sports history unfold in their favor.
Saturday night at the Garden could be the biggest moment in New York sports since the 1986 Mets. The Knicks are one win away. And after what they just pulled off in Game 4, nobody in that building is leaving early again.