For nearly 47 minutes, the San Antonio Spurs looked poised to leave Madison Square Garden with the NBA finals level at two games apiece.
They’d led by 81-52 in the third quarter, brought a frenzied Madison Square Garden crowd to heel and put themselves on the verge of reclaiming home-court advantage after having dropped the first two games at home. Even after the Knicks mounted a furious second-half fightback and wiped out the entirety of San Antonio’s 29-point cushion, the Spurs still appeared to have one final lifeline.
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Then came a decision that could haunt San Antonio for years if the Knicks go on to end their 53-year championship drought.
The Spurs led 106-105 with less than 15 seconds remaining Wednesday night when Jalen Brunson’s floating bank shot ricocheted into the backcourt. The loose ball bounced toward De’Aaron Fox, who sprinted after it and found himself racing toward the basket with only a trailing OG Anunoby between him and what looked like a game-clinching score.
Instead of pulling the ball out and forcing New York to foul, Fox attacked the rim. But Anunoby chased him down and blocked the lay-up attempt.
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Seconds later, the Knicks had the ball back. Brunson missed a 31-footer off the front of the rim, but Anunoby soared in from the top of the key and tipped home the winner with 1.2 seconds remaining, completing an improbable 107-106 victory and the largest comeback in NBA finals history.
Fox did not shy away from explaining his thought process afterward.
“Haven’t scored. Try to get a lay-up, get up three. Force them to need a three,” Fox said. “OG made a good block.”
Asked why he went for the basket rather than dribbling out the clock and forcing a foul, the ninth-year point guard was to the point.
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“I just thought I’d be able to outrun them. That’s it.”
The explanation did little to quell the criticism.
On TNT’s post-game show, Charles Barkley delivered a verdict that quickly spread across social media and sports television.
“That was a dumbass play,” Barkley said. “He did not have to shoot that ball.”
The blunt assessment reflected the reaction around the basketball world. With the Spurs clinging to a one-point lead, Fox had safer options available. He could have retreated from pressure and waited to be fouled, shaving precious seconds off the clock. He could have used San Antonio’s final timeout. Instead, he chose the most aggressive path – a gamble Anunoby made him pay dearly for.
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Of course, reducing the collapse to a single possession would let the Spurs off too easily. The final mistake merely capped a spectacular unraveling that had begun long before Fox found himself alone in the open floor. San Antonio scored 76 points in the first half but just 30 after half-time. The crisp ball movement and long-distance sharpshooting that had carved apart New York’s defense evaporated as the Knicks chipped away at the deficit.
“Obviously let that get away, being up [29 points],” Fox said. “Got away from doing the things that got us up and put ourselves in that position.”
“I think we played a little slower,” he added. “The ball wasn’t moving the same way that it did in the second half like it did in the first half. We didn’t get a flow on the offensive end in the second half.”
Spurs coach Mitch Johnson saw the same thing.
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“We got away from what got us the 76 points in the first half,” Johnson said. “Then you saw at times the aggressiveness and just conviction that we played with early on dissipate a little bit. They made some shots. That’s where you felt the momentum a little bit. We just needed few more tough-minded plays to finish the job.”
He added: “To put as much good work into that first half as we did, get the lead that we had and not finish the job, is disappointing to say the least.”
Wembanyama said he was unable to see Fox’s fateful layup attempt after tumbling to the floor during the play, but he offered a curt appraisal of the Spurs’ second-half performance.
“We clearly weren’t the most hungry in the second half,” Wembanyama said. “Stopped moving the ball. Stopped executing.”
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That reality may ultimately be what stings most for San Antonio. Fox’s layup attempt did not create the collapse. The Spurs had already let a 29-point lead fritter away by then. What the play did was quash their last chance to survive it.
“Going down 3-1 is obviously very different,” Fox said. “But we feel like we have a team to be able to come back from this.”
Two minutes earlier, the Spurs were staring at a tied series with momentum to burn and a restored clear path to a championship. One miscue later, they were left to reckon with a reality that had seemed impossible minutes earlier.