Steve Popper: Game 4 of NBA Finals was won for the ages, but Knicks need one more to become legends
Players and fans celebrate after the Knicks' victory over the San Antonio Spurs in Game 4 of the NBA Finals on June 10, 2026, at MSG. Credit: AP/Frank Franklin II
SAN ANTONIO — When the final buzzer sounded Wednesday night and the Knicks could exhale, when the 19,812 fans crowded into Madison Square Garden could exhale along with them, no one rushed for the exits trying to beat traffic or join the celebrations out on the streets of Manhattan.
The Knicks had completed the greatest comeback in NBA Finals history, erasing a 29-point third-quarter deficit, and they were taking it all in on their home court, which hadn’t seen an NBA Finals win in 27 years.
The fans weren’t leaving. The players milled around on the court, hugging family members and fans. Celebrities put off their postgame parties, maybe a little dazed by what they had just witnessed.
If they had looked up, they’d have seen the dusty banners hanging in the rafters, the retired numbers and championship banners, the ghosts and echoes of long-ago glory, and known how close they are to finding their place up there now.
It was a historic performance, a game for the ages, something that they’d never been a part of because, well, no one ever had been. The Knicks still have to finish the task, but win a title and this game will be spoken of for generations.
Ask a fan of a certain age about the 1970 and 1973 Knicks title teams and they still can recite the ends of the roster as readily as they can the names of the players whose jerseys hang in the rafters. This team can place itself in that same stratosphere.
“I felt for all of y’all who were at the game,” Karl-Anthony Towns said. “Obviously, you could feel the abundance of joy at one time from everyone at one time, the collective joy that came out of everybody for that one moment. To hear the buzzer going off and not to see the ball go in the basket, I think we all felt something, like that emotion that was special. It’s something that MSG hasn’t had that kind of moment in a long time, so shout-out to our fans for real.”
When they finally made their way to the locker room, the Knicks were quick to point out that the job is not done. With a three-games-to-one lead in the series, they will try to close it out Saturday night in Game 5 in San Antonio. Do that and the legends will welcome them to the rafters.
Some are ghosts now. Some were scattered around the court — Walt Frazier, Bill Bradley, Earl Monroe — celebrating as incredulously as the rest of the crowd.
There were moments that were a blur to the players and the fans even after they battled back to take their first lead of the game with 1:22 to play when Jalen Brunson slithered through a crowd of defenders and floated in a six-footer before Victor Wembanyama could rise to challenge the shot.
With the Spurs leading by a point, De’Aaron Fox chased down a loose ball. Rather than attempt to run down the clock, he headed to the rim and floated a layup — and OG Anunoby chased him down, blocking the shot with 11.1 seconds left and setting up a moment that will live on forever.
When the gravity of Brunson’s offensive genius drew not only the 7-4 Wembanyama, the unanimous Defensive Player of the Year, but a double-team, too, it opened a path for Anunoby to rush into the lane, rise high above the rim and tap in the missed three-pointer to set off what felt like an earthquake in the middle of New York City.
To win this game, however, took one more defensive stand. Towns leaped to get a fingertip on Dylan Harper’s inbounds pass, just enough of a deflection to have it drop into a crowd, where Josh Hart smothered Stephon Castle’s attempt to get a shot off.
“I’m not going to sugarcoat this: I was about to cry,” Jose Alvarado said. “Obviously, there is one more, but I’m at Madison Square Garden, end of the fourth quarter, playing with these guys, and we’re playing for something special.
“I was just — I was just excited. It’s really something I couldn’t put in words. And like I said, we could get excited and enjoy this, but we got one more to do.”
Said Brunson, “Just grateful to be on the winning side of that. But we have a lot to learn from and a lot to get better in order to do the things we said we want to do.”
The Garden floor finally cleared, Taylor Swift dancing into the bowels of the arena, Ben Stiller and Mariska Hargitay still looking stunned long after the final score had been set in stone, Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David looking as if even they couldn’t have thought of this script. And while fans were still screaming outside the building, the Knicks players stood in front of the cameras and microphones and spoke only of completing the mission.
On the wall leading into the locker room, a large print reads, “10 Weeks of sacrifice.” That time isn’t over yet, and neither is the series. To find their place in the rafters, to truly make this a win for the ages, the Knicks still need one more victory.
Steve Popper covers the Knicks for Newsday. He has spent nearly three decades covering the Knicks and the NBA, along with just about every sports team in the New York metropolitan area.
