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SAN ANTONIO, Texas – The Knicks completed one of the most memorable seasons in franchise history Saturday night inside the Frost Bank Center, beating the San Antonio Spurs 94-90 in Game 5 of the NBA Finals to capture their first championship since 1973.
The only downside was that they didn’t win the deciding game in front of home fans at Madison Square Garden, but there were enough Knicks fans in San Antonio that it felt like a New York City crowd at times.
New York entered the night with a 3-1 series lead and a chance to end 53 years of frustration. The Knicks completed a historic comeback in Game 4 to put themselves on the brink of basketball greatness and finished the job Saturday night. While they would have loved to do it at home, the Knicks clearly weren’t going to pass up the opportunity to clinch an NBA championship.
Game 5 started like any other game in the series, with San Antonio quickly taking the lead. The Spurs won the first quarter for the fifth straight time, and once again the Knicks found themselves facing a double-digit deficit.
New York scored just 13 points on 4-of-22 shooting in the first quarter, tied for the second-fewest in an NBA Finals first quarter in the shot clock era, according to ESPN. Only the 2016 Golden State Warriors, who scored 11 points in the first quarter of Game 6 against the Cleveland Cavaliers, had fewer.
But the Knicks did what they have done in every series.
After trailing by as many as 16 points in the first half, New York cut the deficit to five points at halftime. A late flagrant foul against Spurs guard De’Aaron Fox helped New York turn one possession into five points with just over a minute left in the second quarter. The Knicks cut the lead to three, but Devin Vassell beat the first-half buzzer with a mid-range jumper.
Jalen Brunson scored 16 of New York’s 37 points in the first half, while Victor Wembanyama nearly had a double-double in the first 24 minutes with nine points and nine rebounds.
However, the Knicks had a major problem almost immediately after halftime. Karl-Anthony Towns, the team’s most impactful big man, picked up his fourth foul just 15 seconds into the third quarter.
The impact was felt almost immediately when his replacement, Mitchell Robinson, committed a flagrant foul that allowed San Antonio to return the favor with a six-point sequence, extending the lead to double digits.
Then came another turning point: Brunson appeared to twist his ankle with 5:18 left in the third quarter. After hitting a three-pointer, Brunson landed on Wembanyama’s foot. Both Brunson and Knicks coach Mike Brown yelled at the referees for not calling a foul on Wembanyama, which could have been considered a blatant call. If the referees had called a flagrant, it would have triggered an automatic suspension for a potential Game 6, as it would have been his fourth flagrant point in the playoffs.
Instead, play continued and Vassell responded with a three-pointer on the other end. Brunson immediately returned to the game after a timeout for New York, but the momentum seemed to shift toward San Antonio as the Spurs later extended the lead to 15 points. Dylan Harper scored 10 of his 25 points in the third quarter.
But Brunson didn’t let that moment affect his game. The star guard once again put the team on his back with Towns stuck on the bench in foul trouble, scoring 14 points in the third quarter to cut the lead to seven heading into the fourth.
And Brunson wasn’t even close to finishing.
He made a layup with 4:48 left that tied the game at 83 and gave him 40 points. After the Spurs responded, Brunson fouled a 3-point attempt with 3:40 left and made all three free throws, giving the Knicks their first lead since early in the first quarter. They took it to three, their biggest lead of the game, with 2:07 left on a goaltending violation.
The final minutes became chaotic from there. Towns fouled out, Wembanyama split two free throws, Harper tied the game and Brunson answered with another basket to put the Knicks back in front.
New York survived the fight by controlling the glass and doing just enough at the free throw line. Castle’s dunk cut the deficit to two with 16 seconds left, but Mikal Bridges split a pair at the other end to give the Spurs the ball with eight seconds left, trailing by three.
The Knicks elected to foul rather than allow San Antonio to try to tie it at three, and the strategy worked exactly as expected. Harper missed both free throws, the Knicks grabbed the rebound and that was all he wrote.
Brunson scored 45 points, tied for the third-most points in an NBA Finals deciding game.
There will be time to find out what this means for San Antonio and Victor Wembanyama. Spurs are going nowhere with a squad built around young stars Wembanyama, Harper and Castle.
But Saturday night belonged to the Knicks.
For more than five decades, Knicks fans waited for a team to win another championship. They waited through bad teams, failed rebuilds, 22 different head coaches, missed opportunities and endless jokes.
The wait is over.
