Fifty-three years is a long time to wait.
The last time the New York Knicks lifted an NBA championship, Richard Nixon was in the White House, Watergate was a word nobody had heard, and disco had not yet been invented. That was 1973. Tonight, at the Frost Bank Center in San Antonio, the Knicks have the chance to end five decades of waiting with one more win.
New York lead the 2026 NBA Finals 3-1. Game 5 tips off at 8:30pm ET. One more win closes the series.
How we got here
The series started exactly as the Spurs’ home crowd feared. The Knicks went to San Antonio for Games 1 and 2 and won both. By the time the series moved to Madison Square Garden, New York were 2-0 up and the pressure was entirely on the younger team, the one with Victor Wembanyama in their lineup and everything to prove.
The Spurs steadied in New York. Game 3 went their way, 115-111, with Wembanyama putting together one of the great Finals performances: 32 points, eight rebounds, six assists, three blocks, two steals. The Spurs played with the control and maturity of a team that knew one loss would not finish them, and they were right. Series: 2-1 Knicks.
Game 4 is where this Finals became something worth remembering.
The Spurs led by 29 points. Twenty-nine. In Madison Square Garden. In the NBA Finals. At some point in the third quarter, the mathematics of a Knicks comeback looked impossible. Jalen Brunson scored 36 points. OG Anunoby added 33. And with 1.2 seconds remaining, Anunoby tipped in a missed shot to give New York a 107-106 win.
The largest comeback in NBA Finals history. Game 4 to the Knicks. Series: 3-1.
The numbers
Wembanyama is averaging 27.8 points, 10.5 rebounds and 3.3 blocks through the Finals. He is the best player in basketball and has looked like it at moments in this series. The problem for San Antonio is that moments have not been enough.
Brunson has averaged 26.9 points and 6.6 assists through the entire playoffs. He plays his best in the biggest games, which is exactly the opposite of what you want to face in a must-win situation.
Anunoby has averaged 23.8 points in the Finals and is shooting 55.8% on his three-point attempts in the series. That number borders on absurd. For a team that needed him to be good rather than great, he has been great.
What the Spurs need
History says San Antonio must win tonight if they want to win this series. 37 of the 38 teams in NBA history to fall behind 3-1 in the Finals have lost. One team came back. One.
The Spurs are 5.5-point home favourites tonight, a reflection of the advantage that playing at Frost Bank Center typically provides. San Antonio played well there in the regular season and in the earlier rounds. The crowd will be loud, the atmosphere will be intense, and Wembanyama will be motivated.
His Game 3 performance in New York showed what he can do when the weight of the series is pressing hardest. He is the most talented player on the floor. The question is whether he can get enough help from the rest of the Spurs roster to overcome a New York team that has figured out how to manufacture leads, protect leads, and recover from deficits that would finish most teams.
The Finals MVP race
Brunson enters Game 5 as the favourite to win Finals MVP at -135. Anunoby, at +280, has made the award genuinely competitive with his Game 4 performance. If the Knicks win tonight, one of them will be holding the trophy. The tip-in will be replayed for decades. So will Brunson’s 36-point night. Both deserve the conversation.
The lean
Knicks by the numbers. Knicks by the narrative. Knicks by the weight of that comeback in Game 4.
But Wembanyama is capable of a performance that rewrites the script. If the Spurs can slow Brunson, find the mid-range shots that gave them the lead in Game 4, and get something from their role players early, this series goes back to New York for a Game 6.
One thing is certain: the Frost Bank Center tonight will be loud, desperate, and worth watching.
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