Who deserves the most credit for the New York Knicks historic NBA Finals Game 4 victory over the San Antonio Spurs?
Or what?
If you ask Karl-Anthony Towns, he credits divine intervention, or as he called it, a “right hand from God’, with aiding his teammate, OG Anunoby’s game-winning tip-in with 1.2 seconds to play in Wednesday’s pivotal championship matchup.
“Every time I talk to him, I say, ‘I already know what OG Anunoby’s gonna do in the fourth quarter,'” said Towns during his postgame press availability. “He did exactly what I thought he would do. Gave us a chance to win.”
Not only did Anunoby do the unthinkable, tipping in the game-winning bucket of a finals game with under two seconds to play, the numbers behind the Knicks comeback seem too good to be true.
New York trailed by as many as 29 points, which is the largest deficit absorbed by an any team en route to an NBA Finals victory. Additionally, the Knicks halftime deficit of 27 points was the most significant of any winning team in the history of the league’s championship round.
Anunoby joined teammate Jalen Brunson as the first Knicks duo to score 30 points each in the same game in the NBA Finals, according to ESPN. Brunson finished with a team-high 36, while Anunoby poured in 33 during the Game 4 win, which was the first time the Knicks had been victorious in an NBA Finals home game in 9,853 days, as pointed out by Keerthika Uthayakumar on X.
It did appear as if it took something supernatural for Anunoby and Brunson to help their team storm back from the brink of a series split to instead seize a commanding 3-1 advantage heading into Game 5. For years, the Knicks have had nothing but bad luck, karma, fortune, whatever you want to call it. Perhaps that is starting to turn around for the boys in orange and blue.