SAN ANTONIO — Jalen Brunson and the never-say-die Knicks delivered one more comeback, and this time it sealed a championship.
For the first time in 53 years, New York sits atop the NBA. Brunson poured in 45 points, including 13 consecutive in the fourth quarter, as the Knicks defeated the San Antonio Spurs 94-90 in Game 5 of the NBA Finals on Saturday night.
New York captured the series 4-1, overcoming double-digit deficits in each of its four wins. On Saturday, the Knicks trailed by 16, but neither Brunson nor his teammates appeared rattled.
“I have no words,” Brunson said during the on-court celebration. “It’s everything I ever dreamed of.”
Brunson finished in fitting fashion, delivering a performance for the record books. His 45 points set a new Knicks mark for most points in an NBA Finals game, surpassing the previous record of 38 set by Willis Reed against the Los Angeles Lakers in Game 3 of the 1970 Finals. The record now belongs to the left-handed point guard who helped transform the franchise after arriving four years ago.
Mikal Bridges and Josh Hart, the other two members of New York’s “Nova Knicks” trio alongside Brunson, also played key roles. The three former Villanova national champions joined forces in New York with hopes of winning at the highest level again, and on Saturday that vision became reality. Bridges scored 14 points and Hart added 13.
“I don’t know what I’m feeling,” Brunson said. “I’m in awe. Whenever someone counted us out, we found a way to come back and do something about it.”
Dylan Harper scored 25 for the Spurs, who got 19 points, 14 rebounds and five blocked shots from Victor Wembanyama.
The Knicks improved to 4-0 in closeout opportunities this season, winning them all on the road. It didn’t feel like the road, though – not with thousands of New York faithful having made the trip to Texas to see a moment 53 years in the making.
New York got to the brink of this title by rallying from 29 points down in Game 4 to win 107-106 on OG Anunoby’s tip-in with 1.2 seconds left on Wednesday night. It was the largest comeback in NBA Finals history and the biggest comeback in any game this season, regular season or playoffs.
By comparison, then, a 16-point rally in this one seemed easy.
The game followed the same script in the opening minutes as all the others in the series, with the Spurs taking a double-digit lead in the first quarter and then frittering most of it away in the second quarter.
The Spurs became the first team in the play-by-play era, which started in the 1996-97 season, to lead five finals games by 10 points or more in first quarters.
The Knicks simply could not make a shot, missing on 16 of their first 18 tries and each of their first 11 two-point attempts. There even was a point in the second quarter when Wembanyama had more blocked shots (five) than the Knicks had made shots (four). San Antonio’s lead was as many as 10 in the first quarter, as many as 16 in the second.
Of course, none of it mattered much. As always, the Knicks came back.
A 22-9 run in the second quarter got New York within three, before Devin Vassell scored just before the halftime buzzer to give San Antonio a 42-37 edge at the break.
And that capped an opening 24 minutes of either offensive ineptitude or defensive prowess, depending on perspective. The 79 combined points in the first half were the lowest in a finals game since Game 7 of Lakers-Celtics in 2010, and the combined 31.8% field goals shooting by the Knicks and Spurs was the lowest in the first half of a finals game in the play-by-play era.
Brunson won NCAA crowns twice with Villanova – both in Texas, the 2016 one in Houston and the 2018 one in San Antonio, just a few miles away from the arena that the Spurs call home.
A Texas three-step of titles, and this one was surely the sweetest of all.
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