NBA Finals: A Wu-Tang prayer, OG Anunoby, Jose Alvarado and the greatest comeback in NBA history

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NEW YORK — It can't be too easy to try to hype up a crowd that just watched the hometown team get absolutely decimated in the first half of an NBA Finals game. But that's why you pay professionals like the Wu-Tang Clan, you know?

After the final song of their excellent set, as Wu-Tang exited the floor at Madison Square Garden, Method Man said, "Knicks in five, what y'all talking about?"

In the moment, that optimism seemed wildly misplaced. The New York Knicks had spent most of the first half on tilt, unmoored, bereft of composure and answers against a San Antonio Spurs team that was running them ragged.

After days of talk about free-throw discrepancies and flagrant fouls that weren't, the Garden came unglued after Karl-Anthony Towns picked up two fouls in the first 62 seconds of Game 4 — the second of which was initially ruled a foul on newly minted Manhattan nemesis Victor Wembanyama, only to be overturned into an offensive foul after a challenge by San Antonio head coach Mitch Johnson. The Knicks were coming apart at the seams, too, combusting in just about every way possible: meandering offensive possessions, unfocused defensive rotations, empty-gesture physicality that seemed to suggest that, yes, Wembanyama and the Spurs had indeed gotten into their heads.

After giving up a Finals-record 14 first-half 3-pointers, missing eight free throws and logging as many turnovers as assists (seven), the Knicks went into intermission down by 27 points — the largest halftime deficit of any home team in NBA Finals history (excluding the Finals played in the 2020 COVID bubble).

The lead, and the gravity pulling the Knicks down from the soaring heights of taking a 2-0 lead on the road toward a crushing 2-2 tie without home-court advantage, seemed insurmountable. But through Wu-Tang, all things are possible.

"Had to give 'em a little Wu-Tang prayer, nahmean?" Ghostface Killah told Yahoo Sports.

God must be pretty into Wu-Tang.

What we witnessed in New York on Wednesday night was nothing short of the greatest comeback in NBA history.

Oh, other teams have come back from larger deficits. The Utah Jazz hold the regular-season record, trailing by 36 before beating the Denver Nuggets in 1996. The L.A. Clippers have the playoff high-water mark, surging back from 31 down to knock off the Golden State Warriors in 2019. But this was Game 4 of the NBA Finals.

This was the Knicks, after spending the last several days in vibe-shift hell, playing their worst basketball in months, watching their best chance to win a championship in three decades slip away. This was the Spurs, a bad-ass young team led by a once-in-a-lifetime game-changer whose time had evidently come, announcing their primacy and dominance by making its veteran opponent melt down and puke all over its shoes. This was history; when a De'Aaron Fox pull-up jumper pushed the lead to 29 a couple of minutes into the third quarter, it seemed like all that was left to decide was the final margin and just how early Mike Brown would decide to pull his starters.

And against most teams, things probably would've played out that way. That's the thing about the Knicks, though: They actually had done this before.

Not from 29 down, granted. But finding a way to make the seemingly impossible happen? This team's pretty familiar with that … and they discussed as much in the locker room at halftime.

"I brought up experience," Towns said. "I said last year, we were in this situation two games in a row in Boston, and we found a way to get it done."

Did it against Cleveland in the Eastern Conference finals, too, coming back from 22 down — and that was in the fourth quarter.

"We knew there was a lot of time," Knicks head coach Mike Brown said.

"When you do it once, you know you can do it again," Knicks forward OG Anunoby said.

The Knicks had their work cut out for them. They needed to do a better job of limiting dribble penetration, keeping both the Spurs' three-headed monster of guards and their 7-foot-4 MVP candidate center out of the paint. They needed to find answers against San Antonio's ball pressure, cross-matching and pre-switching by pushing the pace in transition and cranking up their tempo in the half-court, prioritizing snappier ball and player movement. They had to space the floor, trust each other, shoot with confidence and — after going 15-for-37 from the field and 4-for-12 from 3-point range in the first half — actually make some shots.

And even if they did all that, given the size of their deficit and the run of play, they'd probably still need a little help.

"The reality of it is — not just in basketball, not just in sports, but in life, too; I think you can all attest to this — you have to have a little luck in life," Brown added. "You've got to have a little luck in sports.

"But you can also make your luck, too."

The Knicks got the opening they were searching for when the Spurs' red-hot shooting finally started to cool off — and, actually, careened all the way to frozen. San Antonio shot just 20% from the floor in the third quarter, with more turnovers (five) than made baskets (four) in the frame:

That set the stage for an absolutely disastrous second half for the Spurs, who followed their scorching 76-point first half by scoring just 30 points on 8-for-39 shooting after intermission — one of the most devastating collapses in NBA postseason history.

"Probably just our contests were better — just, like, 1% better," Anunoby said. "Just a little bit better. Getting out faster and making sure every shot is contested, and then finishing possessions with rebounds. And then, running out, moving the ball, taking good shots, shooting open shots — not hesitating."

Neither Anunoby nor Jalen Brunson hesitated much in that third quarter, scoring or assisting on 22 of the Knicks' 26 points to help shave a dozen points off the halftime deficit:

That got New York within 15, 90-75, heading into the fourth quarter. After the 20-point turnarounds in Boston, after the fourth-quarter-and-OT barrage against Cleveland, and after coming back to win when trailing by 14 in Game 1 and 12 in Game 2 in San Antonio, that felt … manageable?

"The last thing that we said to them [at halftime] was, 'Let's cut it to around 15 to 17 going into the fourth, and if we do, we'll give ourselves a chance,'" Brown said.

"We know, at the end of the day, the game is not over at halftime, you know?" said Knicks forward Josh Hart. "You just want to continue to chip. You don't look at it when you're down 29 [as], 'We've got to win this game.' You look at it when you're down 29 [as], 'OK, let's get it to 20.' There's three minutes left in the third quarter, we're down 18, you're thinking, 'Let's get it to 10.'

"And in the fourth quarter, you're like, 'This is winning time. Anything can happen.'"

Like, for example, Jose Alvarado can become a stone-cold friggin' legend.

"I know a lot of you guys can't, because you're in the media, and you've got to be neutral," Brown said in his postgame press conference. "But I'm going to f*****g clap for Jose. Sorry, Mom."

Seeking an infusion of energy, speed and complementary ball-handling to allow Brunson to get off the ball, Brown turned to Alvarado, pairing his point guards in a look he'd gone to for all of 114 minutes this season. After playing 33 total minutes through the first three games of the Finals, Alvarado played 10 minutes in the fourth quarter of Game 4 alone, rewarding Brown's faith by doing absolutely everything.

"Jose was unbelievable tonight," Brown said. "He changed the game."

He brought the ball up the floor and sprinted into sacrificial cuts. He swung the ball, set screens to spring Brunson loose and dragged Wembanyama out of the paint to open up the floor for New York to attack. He punched above his weight class on defense, came up with loose balls and knocked down huge shots, including one 3-pointer to get things started with just over nine minutes to go and another from the left slot to get the Knicks within four with just over three minutes remaining.

"I'm not going to sugarcoat this: I was about to cry [after the game], not because — obviously, there is one more [win to go], but I'm at Madison Square Garden, end of the fourth quarter, playing with these guys, and we're playing for something special," Alvarado said. "I was just — I was just excited. It's really something I couldn't put into words. [...] It's crazy, 2026 Finals behind me. Just to be part of the journey is amazing. I appreciate, you know, Coach and everybody giving me my flowers, but this is what I worked hard for, to be in moments like this and shine with it.

"So I'm glad it went our way today, and I'll definitely remember this for the rest of my life."

Hart nearly had the kind of memories he'd give anything to forget.

The Knicks' ever-present energizer had two opportunities to help finish off the Spurs and came up empty on them both. First, after picking off an errant Fox pass near half-court, he had a runout for a layup or dunk that could've given the Knicks the lead … and just lost control, clanging it off the back rim. Then, after Brunson did put New York on top, the Knicks needed another stop to put the game away. They got it, with Fox missing a midrange pull-up. But Hart fell asleep on his box-out, allowing Stephon Castle to slide in along the baseline for an offensive rebound. Hart fouled him, sending him to the line to drain a pair of clutch free throws that put San Antonio back up by one with 30.3 seconds to go.

"I missed that block-out at the end, Castle got the two free throws," Hart said. "And [the shot] went up, and I wasn't in on that last play, so I'm sitting there just hoping my guys make a play. [...] I've got a special shout-out for OG, man. Because he saved me — at least for this game — a lifetime of regret."

And, in the process, drew the Knicks within one win of redeeming decades full of regrets. From the fans who've lived and died with this team since 1973, who'd never been this close to glory. From the "once a Knick, always a Knick" alumni who flock to these games, home or road, to live vicariously through this miraculous dream. From everyone in that locker room who'd fallen short, time and again; from everyone who'd loved this franchise that has so often seemed like it would never love them back.

"OG f*****g Anunoby," a beatific Ben Stiller said in the postgame media room.

"Right hand of God," Towns beamed.

"That has to be the most iconic shot in the history of New York basketball," Brown said.

"It feels cool," Anunoby said. "I mean, everyone's pretty excited. I'm excited, too."

Yeah, OG. Everyone is pretty excited. The game of your life just delivered the most unexpected win in franchise history and put the New York Knicks — for decades, a laughingstock; for decades, an also-ran; for decades, "not a model of intelligent management" — 48 minutes away from the promised land.

When the final buzzer sounded, after Towns appeared to tip the inbounds pass that led to the Spurs not getting up a potential game-winning shot, nobody in the stands at Madison Square Garden started moving toward the exit. They just stood — and leaped, and screamed, and hugged, and high-fived, and cried — utterly enraptured. Of course they didn't leave. Who the hell would want to leave a moment like this?

"You could feel the abundance of joy at one time, from everyone at one time — the collective joy that came out of everybody for that one moment," Towns said. "To hear the buzzer going off and not to see the ball go in the basket, I think we all felt something — like, that emotion that was special. It's something that … MSG hasn't had that kind of moment in a long time."

And now, the Knicks head to San Antonio, in pursuit of another moment Knicks fans haven't had in a long time. If they're looking for something to listen to as they hit the road … maybe pull up "Enter the 36 Chambers." You know, just for good luck.

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