{"id":30722,"date":"2026-06-11T09:47:11","date_gmt":"2026-06-11T09:47:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/nba-finals-2026-new-york-knicks-beat-san-antonio-spurs-in-record-comeback\/"},"modified":"2026-06-11T09:47:11","modified_gmt":"2026-06-11T09:47:11","slug":"nba-finals-2026-new-york-knicks-beat-san-antonio-spurs-in-record-comeback","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/nba-finals-2026-new-york-knicks-beat-san-antonio-spurs-in-record-comeback\/","title":{"rendered":"NBA Finals 2026: New York Knicks beat San Antonio Spurs in record comeback"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\"><b class=\"ssrcss-1xjjfut-BoldText e5tfeyi3\">NBA legend Charles Barkley branded the San Antonio Spurs &#8220;the dumbest basketball team in the history of civilisation&#8221; after the New York Knicks pulled off the biggest comeback in NBA Finals history.<\/b><\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The Spurs led by 29 points as they aimed to level the best-of-seven series in New York before hosting game five, but the Knicks fought back to win 107-106.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">London-born OG Anunoby claimed a tip-in basket with 1.2 seconds left to clinch victory, much to the delight of a star-studded crowd at Madison Square Garden, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/articles\/cr47lyzr4q9o\" class=\"ssrcss-18834jl-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\">which included Taylor Swift and Timothee Chalamet.<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">It gave the Knicks a 3-1 lead in the series and put them within one win of their first championship since 1973.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The previous biggest comeback in the NBA Finals was 24 points, by the Boston Celtics against the Los Angeles Lakers in 2008.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">San Antonio went 29 points up in the second quarter and their 27-point lead at half-time (76-49) was the largest for a road team in Finals history, but they then scored just 30 points in the second half.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;That was some of the most mismanaged, stupid basketball,&#8221; said ESPN analyst and former NBA most valuable player Barkley.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;When you blow a 29-point lead, the other team has to help, and the San Antonio Spurs helped the New York Knicks win this game.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Victor Wembanyama scored a team-high 24 points for San Antonio and claimed 13 rebounds.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;I can&#8217;t really explain it right now,&#8221; said the NBA&#8217;s defensive player of the year.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;I don&#8217;t know. I think it&#8217;s just execution, greediness of some sort. We clearly weren&#8217;t the most hungry in the second half.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The Knicks still trailed 90-75 heading into the fourth quarter but Jalen Brunson put them in front for the first time at 105-104 with 82 seconds remaining.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Anunoby then made a block with 11.1 seconds left, to stop the Spurs leading 108-105, before tipping in the game-clinching score after Brunson&#8217;s three-point attempt struck the rim.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;One word that caps that all is just &#8216;belief&#8217;,&#8221; Brunson told ESPN. &#8220;It was chipping away, one possession at a time. It wasn&#8217;t going to be one play to get us back.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Game five is in San Antonio on Saturday (01:30 BST, Sunday).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sport\/basketball\/articles\/c04ylwkg67po?at_medium=RSS&#038;at_campaign=rss\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>NBA legend Charles Barkley branded the San Antonio Spurs &#8220;the dumbest basketball team in the history of civilisation&#8221; after the New York Knicks pulled off the biggest comeback in NBA Finals history. The Spurs led by 29 points as they aimed to level the best-of-seven series in New York before hosting game five, but the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":30723,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30722","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-basketball"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30722","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30722"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30722\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30724,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30722\/revisions\/30724"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30723"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30722"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30722"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30722"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}