Jalen Brunson puts on a dominant scoring display as the New York Knicks come back in the fourth quarter to defeat the Spurs 94-90 in Game 5 of the NBA Finals to clinch the title.
Jalen Brunson finished with 45 points as the New York Knicks defeated the San Antonio Spurs 94-90 in Game 5 of the NBA Finals to earn their first title since 1973.
Brunson scored 13 consecutive points in the fourth quarter for the Knicks, who overcame double-digit deficits in all four of their victories against the Spurs. SAN ANTONIO — For the first time in 53 years, New York rules the NBA. Brunson scored 45 points, including 13 straight for New York in the fourth quarter, and the Knicks beat the San Antonio SpursThe Knicks won the series 4-1, rallying from double-digit deficits in all four of those victories.
The deficit was 16 on Saturday night. Brunson and the Knicks were never fazed.
“I have no words,” Brunson said during the on-court celebration. “It’s everything I ever dreamed of. ” New York Knicks center Karl-Anthony Towns, right, hugs forward Og Anunoby after defeating the San Antonio Spurs for the NBA title on Saturday. Brunson, fittingly, closed with a flourish.
He set a Knicks record for points in a finals game; it had been 38 by Willis Reed against thein Game 3 of the 1970 series. It now belongs to the left-handed point guard who changed the franchise’s fortunes when he arrived four years ago.
Mikal Bridges and Josh Hart — the other two parts of the “Nova Knicks” trio that also includes Brunson, three players who were NCAA champions at Villanova and teamed up in New York to try to do the same — combined to score 27 points. Bridges had 14, Hart 13.
“I don’t know what I’m feeling,” Brunson said. “I’m in awe. Whenever someone counted us out, we found a way to come back and do something about it. ”Advertisement The Knicks improved to 4-0 in closeout opportunities this season, winning them all on the road.
It didn’t feel like the road, though — not with thousands of New York faithful having made the trip to Texas to see a moment 53 years in the making. New York got to the brink of this title by rallying from 29 points down in Game 4 to win 107-106 on OG Anunoby’s tip-in with 1.2 seconds left on Wednesday night.
It was the largest comeback in NBA Finals history and the biggest comeback in any game this season, regular season or playoffs. The game followed the same script in the opening minutes as all the others in the series, with the Spurs taking a double-digit lead in the first quarter and then frittering most of it away in the second quarter.
The Spurs became the first team in the play-by-play era, which started in the 1996-97 season, to lead five finals games by 10 points or more in first quarters. The Knicks simply could not make a shot, missing on 16 of their first 18 tries and each of their first 11 two-point attempts. There even was a point in the second quarter when Wembanyama had more blocked shots than the Knicks had made shots .
San Antonio’s lead was as many as 10 in the first quarter, as many as 16 in the second. New York Knicks fans react in New York after the team’s title-clinching win over the Spurs on Saturday night. Of course, none of it mattered much. As always, the Knicks came back.
A 22-9 run in the second quarter got New York within three, before Devin Vassell scored just before the halftime buzzer to give San Antonio a 42-37 edge at the break. And that capped an opening 24 minutes of either offensive ineptitude or defensive prowess, depending on perspective.
The 79 combined points in the first half were the lowest in a finals game since Game 7 of Lakers-Celtics in 2010, and the combined 31.8% field goals shooting by the Knicks and Spurs was the lowest in the first half of a finals game in the play-by-play era. Brunson won NCAA crowns twice with Villanova — both in Texas, the 2016 one in Houston and the 2018 one in San Antonio, just a few miles away from the arena that the Spurs call home.
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