Updated ,first published
San Antonio: Jalen Brunson and the Comeback Knicks did it again. And now they’re the Champion Knicks.
For the first time in 53 years, New York rules the NBA. Brunson scored 45 points, including 13 straight for New York in the fourth quarter, and the Knicks beat the San Antonio Spurs 94-90 in game five of the NBA finals on Saturday night (Sunday AEST).
The Knicks won the series 4-1, rallying from double-digit deficits in all four of those victories. The deficit was 16 in the decisive match. Brunson and the Knicks were never fazed.
Brunson, fittingly, closed with a flourish. He set a Knicks record for points in a finals game; it had been 38 by Willis Reed against the Los Angeles Lakers in Game 3 of the 1970 series. It now belongs to the left-handed point guard who changed the franchise’s fortunes when he arrived four years ago.
Mikal Bridges and Josh Hart – the other two parts of the “Nova Knicks” trio that also includes Brunson, three players who were NCAA champions at Villanova and teamed up in New York to try to do the same – combined to score 27 points. Bridges had 14, Hart 13.
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.
Actor Sydney Sweeney and businessman Scooter Braun were among the high-profile fans in the crowd for the deciding match.
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 four to win 107-106 on OG Anunoby’s tip-in with 1.2 seconds left on Thursday (AEST). It was the largest comeback in NBA finals history and the biggest comeback in any game this season, regular season or play-offs.
By comparison, then, a 16-point rally in this one seemed easy.
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