The euphoria spilled on to the streets after fans lingered in the arena long after the final buzzer sounded.
Knicks forward OG Anunoby celebrates with center Karl-Anthony Towns after Anunoby’s tip-in game-winner in Game 4 vs. the Spurs. | Brad Penner-Imagn Images NEW YORK — Two grown men in Knicks gear, tattoo sleeves wrapping down both their arms, clutched each other and giggled hysterically as they staggered to the exits drunk with joy.eventually formed and were repeated over and over.
He passed a gleeful security guard and the two exchanged a booming high-five. An older fan grabbed his younger counterpart and yelled directly into his face: “YOU JUST SAW THAT LIVE! YOU WERE HERE! ” All the while, OG Anunoby chants echoed through the corridors as a delirious fan base spilled into the streets, ready to celebrateto beat the Spurs in Game 4 to take a 3–1 series lead.
New York gave up 76 points in the first half and only 30 in the second. Jalen Brunson proved himself Captain Clutch with 17 second-half points, each bigger than the last. Karl-Anthony Towns shook off a brutal seven-quarter stretch to make several big plays down the stretch of the fourth. A deficit that grew as large as 29 was slowly whittled and then chopped.
As that deficit grew slimmer, the crowd grew proportionately louder.start to believe until halfway through the third quarter. The Knicks came out of the locker room disorganized, a bit too eager to make up for the catastrophic first half they just suffered through in the biggest game of their lives.
But they forced a few stops and Anunoby finally got a shot to fall, a three from the corner that trimmed the Spurs’ lead to below 20 points for the first time since early in the second quarter.they dared to believe. You could hear it was a very nervous belief; Knicks fans know as well as anybody it’s the hope that kills you.
But they hoped anyway, cheering intently for every New York basket like it was the game-winner and booing every San Antonio possession like their lives depended on it. That audible belief grew louder after a flurry of Brunson points and another Anunoby three cut the lead to 15 entering the fourth quarter. Louder still when a Towns layup cut it to 10 with six minutes left.
By the time Anunoby hit his fourth shot from deep of the second half to get it within four and as many minutes to play, it was impossible to hear your own thoughts. The reverberating of the cheers shook everything in the Garden, from the floor seats to Clyde Frazier’s dangling jersey from the rafters. Knicks fans celebrate after Game 4, lingering long after the final horn.
| Vincent Carchietta-Imagn Images But in the end, it was the Knicks’ quietest player who played the hero. Down by one point and with mere seconds remaining on the clock, Brunson hoisted up a three so deep it had a mailing address in the Meatpacking District. It clanged off the front rim—and then Anunoby was there, soaring into the lane with one of his ridiculously long arms stretched to its breaking point.
He flew between multiple Spurs defenders jumping for the rebound of their life … and gently tipped it in.. Every one of the 19,812 fans in attendance let go of all inhibitions to unleash a wordless wall of noise that rattled the teeth and just about blew out this reporter’s eardrums. Even with 1.2 seconds remaining after Anunoby’s make, the noise didn’t subside and hit a new decibel once the final buzzer sounded.
“They stuck with us,” Towns said. “It was an ugly, ugly game. We didn’t bring it in the first half. But they stuck with us.
They stayed in them seats and they kept cheering for us and they kept finding ways to give us energy. This is a testament to them, the grit, the resiliency, the way of New York. ” MSG is always rocking after a Knicks win, and especially a big comeback. We saw evidence when New York pulled off an equally unlikely victory out of its hat in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference finals.
But Wednesday night’s crowd witnessed greatness the likes of which the storied arena hadn’t seen in decades—maybe ever. All thanks to the outstretched fingertips of Anunoby, who finished with 33 points as his generally tremendous playoff run continued.
“That has to be the most iconic shot in the history of New York basketball,” coach Mike Brown ruminated after the game as cheers continued to leak into the press room from the bowels of MSG . Moments prior Ben Stiller bounded in to high-five any reporter he could find, looking like a kid on Christmas.
“That was a huge offensive rebound. Huge offensive rebound. He took on the challenge, and he went and won the game for us doing exactly what I called him out for during shootaround today. ” “Right hand from God!
” Towns said of Anunoby’s game-winner, beaming with a wide smile sparkling brighter than his diamond earrings.
“That’s OG, though. That’s why every time we’re in the game with OG, third quarter, second quarter, he may not be feeling like he’s playing his best. Every time I talk to him, I say, I already know what OG Anunoby is going to do in the fourth quarter, and he did exactly what I thought he would do.
He gave us a chance to win, and that’s all you could ask for from the best two-way player in the NBA. ” “He’s been doing it this whole playoff run,” Jose Alvarado said as he shared the podium with KAT after his own clutch stretch of minutes.
“Shout-out to him for crashing the board and doing something special. ” But while his play is loud, and this particular moment was one of the loudest in NBA history , Anunoby is an understated individual and he kept to that vibe after the biggest bucket of his life.
The dramatic downplaying sparked laughter among the assembled reporters, which finally elicited a reluctant grin from the normally stolid Anunoby; the only acknowledgement anyone would get of the greatness he made happen by crashing the boards.
“I’m excited, too,” he repeated. “We’re all excited. We’re enjoying it right now. But we’re just focused on the next game now.
” It is a monumental task ahead of Anunoby and his teammates—to come down from the emotional high of such a win with Game 5 days away. The job, as he and every other Knick kept stating, is not done. As much as it maylike this win would rocket the Knicks to a title , there’s still another game to win for New York.
But nobody can tell that to the euphoric fans who bled from MSG in the early hours of Thursday morning. They don’t care. For most, if not all, in attendance, it was the greatest Knicks win of their lives, a win that will echo down generationsand Frazier do.
And this Game 4 perfectly embodied the spirit of these Knicks, a group of players who haven’t met a hole too deep to dig out of—even if they often dig those holes themselves.
“As anyone who lives in New York knows, if you want to make it in this city, you have to be O.K. getting it out the mud, and we did that tonight,” Towns said. LIAM MCKEONE Liam McKeone is a senior writer for the Breaking and Trending News team at Sports Illustrated.
He has been in the industry as a content creator since 2017, and prior to joining SI in May 2024, McKeone worked for NBC Sports Boston and The Big Lead. In addition to his work as a writer, he has hosted the Press Pass Podcast covering sports media and The Big Stream covering pop culture. A graduate of Fordham University, he is always up for a good debate and enjoys loudly arguing about sports, rap music, books and video games.
McKeone has been a member of the National Sports Media Association since 2020.
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