Knicks rally from 29 down, stun Spurs to take 3-1 lead

The Knicks turned a night that looked lost into a statement about pressure, identity and belief, erasing a 29-point deficit to beat the Spurs 107-106 and move to the brink of their first championship since 1973. OG Anunoby finished the rally with a tip-in of Jalen Brunson’s missed long 3-pointer with 1.2 seconds left, sending a sold-out Madison Square Garden into a celebration that felt bigger than one game.

New York now leads the NBA Finals 3-1, with Game 5 set for Saturday night in San Antonio and three chances to close out a title that has eluded the franchise for more than half a century. The comeback was the largest in NBA Finals history, breaking the previous mark of 24 points set by Boston against the Lakers in Game 4 of the 2008 Finals. It also stood as the biggest Finals rally since the league began detailed four-quarter play-by-play in 1997.

For most of the night, the Spurs controlled everything. They built a 27-point halftime lead and pushed the margin to 81-52 in the third quarter, leaving the Knicks staring at a blowout in a series that had already brought New York back to the Finals for the first time since 1999. But the second half belonged to Brunson and Anunoby, and the crowd’s energy at the Garden helped turn each stop, each basket and each loose possession into a louder statement that the game was slipping away from San Antonio.

Brunson finished with 36 points and Anunoby scored 33, numbers that mattered as much for timing as for volume. Brunson kept New York alive long enough for the building to sense a shift, then Anunoby delivered the final touch at the rim. The result did more than steal one game. It changed the temperature of the series, making the Spurs face the reality that a 29-point cushion was not enough and giving the Knicks a psychological edge that could carry into San Antonio.

The atmosphere matched the stakes. Madison Square Garden was packed with celebrities, including Taylor Swift, Michael J. Fox, Tracy Pollan, Ben Stiller, Tracy Morgan, Adam Sandler, Nas, Spike Lee, Mariska Hargitay, Jimmy Fallon and Fat Joe. Swift traveled from Los Angeles after performing at the world premiere of Toy Story 5 the night before, and her appearance followed another playoff stop with Travis Kelce in Cleveland on May 23. For one night, the Garden looked less like an arena and more like the center of the basketball world, with the Knicks delivering the kind of comeback that can define a series.