Sports

The Knicks Capped The Largest NBA Finals Comeback With This Tip‑In

By Curtis Jones · June 11, 2026

The Knicks were down 29 points in the second quarter. The game was over. San Antonio was rolling. Victor Wembanyama had 19 points in the first half. The crowd at Madison Square Garden had gone quiet in the way that only a New York crowd goes quiet — not defeated but furious.

Then the Knicks came back.

New York erased the largest deficit in NBA Finals history and beat the San Antonio Spurs 107-106 on OG Anunoby’s tip-in of a missed Karl-Anthony Towns shot with 1.2 seconds remaining. The Knicks lead the series 3-1. They are one win from their first NBA championship since 1973.

The comeback began in the third quarter. Jalen Brunson, who had been quiet in the first half, scored 18 of his 34 points after halftime. Towns had 28 points and 14 rebounds. Mikal Bridges held Wembanyama to 6 points in the second half after the Spurs center had been unstoppable in the first two quarters.

But the final sequence is the one that will be replayed for decades.

Down 106-105 with 8 seconds left, Brunson drove into the lane and kicked to Towns on the left block. Towns’s fadeaway hit the front rim. Anunoby — who had positioned himself on the weak side for exactly this possibility — tipped the ball in as it bounced off the iron. The clock showed 1.2 seconds. San Antonio’s inbound pass after the tip-in was deflected. The horn sounded.

Madison Square Garden shook in a way it hasn’t shaken since the Willis Reed game in 1970.

The 29-point deficit is the largest ever overcome in an NBA Finals game, surpassing the previous record of 25 set by the Cleveland Cavaliers in 2016. The comeback is also the largest in any Knicks playoff game in franchise history.

Wembanyama finished with 31 points, 15 rebounds, and 5 blocks — a performance that in any other game would be the story. He was magnificent. His team still lost. He is 22 years old and learning what it feels like when a building turns against you in the fourth quarter of a Finals game at the Garden.

Brunson was asked after the game what he was thinking when the Knicks were down 29.

“I was thinking we were going to win.”

Game 5 is Saturday in San Antonio. If the Knicks win, the 53-year drought ends. If the Spurs win, the series comes back to MSG for Game 6. New York has not been this close since Patrick Ewing walked off the court in 1999.