Ron Swoboda. Stephane Matteau. Graeme Lloyd. David Tyree. OG Anunoby.
The pantheon of players who’ve come to New York and stamped themselves in playoff lore is short and sweet and celebrated. Anunoby’s Right Hand of God tip-follow with 1.2 seconds left completed a 30-point turnaround, the largest comeback in NBA Finals history, lifting the New York Knickerbockers to within one win of their first title since 1973. Diving catches in the World Series, a double-overtime series-winning goal, an improbable
stretch of dominance, a freak play you couldn’t repeat if you tried 100 times . . . and OG may have topped them all.
Without the bitter life wouldn’t taste so sweet in the good times, but for the first 40 minutes the Knicks played like their pregame meal was grapefruit rinds. San Antonio built the biggest halftime lead for any Finals road team — 27. With just over nine minutes left, the Spurs were up 20. In an irony worthy of O. Henry, it happened despite Mike Brown’s team, having raised the issue of the free throw disparity after Game 3, quadrupling the visitor’s attempts by the break (23-6).
It was the 3-point shooting, natch, creating the division between the sides. For half of the first half, I thought, “All right, they can’t keep making 60% of their 3s”; then for a while it was “They really gonna make 60% of their 3s?!” Understand: for far longer than is decent, the Spurs were on pace to score 180 points. On offense, they couldn’t miss. On defense, they made Jalen Brunson endure a triathlon just getting the ball past midcourt. Karl-Anthony Towns took two shots the whole first half, the victim of an absurd coach’s challenge in the game’s first minute. The Spur reserves outscored the Knicks’ 22-2. Pick your poison, it all pointed to the same end.
But Madison Square Garden belongs to the people, and we the people all, eventually, belong to the dead. There are ghosts at 33rd and 8th. Ghosts that don’t take kindly to 22-year-olds throwing cheap shots, reveling in their protected status at the league office and mouthing off about being in someone’s head when they’re down in the series and there’s most of the game left to contest. The Knicks needed to look within. They needed the crowd. But they also needed the ghosts.
When San Antonio’s lead was at its peak, 29, Victor Wembanyama — bet your bottom dollar the league overturns it — was whistled for a flagrant foul for swinging a ‘bow into KAT’s face. Obviously the ghost of J.R. Smith briefly possessed Wemby, making him go one step too far with the aggression while making amends for the 2013 elbow on Jason Terry, the one that sent a promising oasis of a season down the tubes? (Mixed metaphors, I know. I’m a goof) For the rest of the night, it was 55-25 Knicks.
The last time the Knicks came this close to a title, a small sparkplug guard who played harder than anybody, whose superpower was his effort, couldn’t hit a basket in Game 7. The ghost of John Starks was with Jose Alvarado last night. The Puerto Rican demigod played only three minutes in the first half but 12 in the second, giving the Knicks a critical second ball-handler to give Brunson a chance to be Brunson. 10 of those minutes were in the fourth, when he hit all three of his shots for eight points, including an essential bomb with three minutes left to make it a four-point game.
By his lofty standards, Patrick Ewing struggled in the one Finals he played in. The scoring touch just wasn’t there. So what did The Big Fella do? Just haul in a Finals-leading 12.4 rebounds while setting the record for blocks in a Finals. The ghost of Aloysius was with Towns last night. KAT had a team-high 10 rebounds and broke his fourth-quarter scoreless streak. Most importantly, KAT was there. Playing. Present. Even when he wasn’t looking to shoot, the threat Towns presents kept Wembanyama out guarding him away from the basket, opening up some precious real estate for the other Knicks to do their thing.
Early on, my nightmare scenario was coming true: with KAT in early foul trouble and Mitch Hack-a-Mitch’d, Mike Brown had to turn to Ariel Hukporti and Jeremy Sochan for first-half minutes at the 5. I like them both, but no. After only eight first-half minutes, Towns staying out of foul trouble the rest of the way let him play 18 in the second. He wasn’t much of a scorer, but he grabbed seven rebounds post-intermission and dished a couple of dimes. He did whatever they needed from him to win this game. All the players did.
And the coach, and while some people continue to debate the relative worth of Mike Brown, I say any coach who in the biggest spot looks more Red than Riley is worth his weight in gold. The ghost of Riley’s decision to play Starks ad nauseum when he couldn’t make a jumper, with Rolando Blackman on the bench, has haunted any Knick fan who lived through that Game 7 in Houston; Riley himself has said it’s his biggest coaching regret. When the 1970 Knicks lost Willis Reed early in Game 5 of the Finals, Cazzie Russell and Dave Stallworth stepped up as the entire Knick squad pulled in one direction, ultimately toppling Wilt Chamberlain.
Brown played 12 Knicks in the first half. Tom Thibodeau would have shrunk the rotation to four if he could’ve. But in order to best the Spurs’ modern-day Prometheus, it was going to take a true team effort, every last ounce every last one of them could muster. And they did. And they did it.
The Knicks winning the championship was never going to happen in a dull, forgettable fashion. It was always gonna take something like the greatest Finals comeback in league history. And you know? There was literally no point last night when I thought they were done. That is a quality unique to this Knick of any I’ve ever watched. I was frustrated and confused as they fell behind. I was sick of all the (understandable) gushing over San Antonio’s play the first two or three or three-plus quarters. I was never without hope. I was never even without certainty.
One of the oldest ghosts at Madison Square Garden has been the fake comeback, for years the symbol of everything we loved and lashed out at with this team. The fake comeback is the epitome of team-sponsored torture — they let you down, only to build you up, only to let you down, like you *knew* they always would. These Knicks never let you down. Can you believe it? We’ve waited 53 years to say that.
These Knicks never let you down. Quoth Mike Breen after OG’s tip-in: “It’s good! It’s good! It’s good!” It is. It really, truly is.
Last night wasn’t just a comeback for the ages. It was catharsis, the breaking of one identity and the premiere of a new one. Like the 2004 Red Sox. Or a hermit crab. Or Carrie, after the prom. The “LOL Knicks,” the “Knicks for clicks,” the “not a model of intelligent management” Knicks? They’re on life support. They could be, should be the new ghosts, and sooner than later. The old Knicks are dead.
All hail the new New York Knicks.
