00:00Jared Schwartz, the New York Post, here with our Knicks beat writer, Steph Bondi.
00:04Finally catching our breath after the Knicks' miraculous
00:07107-106 Game 4 win here at Madison Square Garden.
00:10Steph, this building has had so many special moments across the years.
00:15This one is right up there at the top.
00:17OG Ananobi wins the game with a put-back tip-in in the final seconds.
00:23We were talking, we were saying there's David Tauri's helmet cash,
00:26there's Derek Jeter's flip play,
00:28maybe even Billy Buckner going through his legs in 86.
00:31Where's this rank for you?
00:33Put this moment in context for us.
00:35Well, I've covered the NBA for 16 years.
00:37I covered the 2016 Game 7 final between the Cleveland Cavaliers and the Golden State Warriors.
00:43That was the best game I've ever witnessed.
00:45That was the best shot, single shot.
00:48And it wasn't a shot, it was a tip-in that I've ever witnessed.
00:51If the Knicks win the championship, and they should
00:53because they pulled this victory out of thin air.
00:55I can imagine the Spurs are deflated.
00:57They now have to go back home with a 3-1 deficit.
01:00The Knicks win the title.
01:01That is the biggest shot in Knicks history.
01:04I don't think there's much of a question.
01:06You have Willis Reed's two shots that everybody talks about when he walked through the tunnel.
01:10You have Allen Houston's off the backboard against the Miami Heat.
01:13You've got Larry Johnson's four-point play.
01:15John Starks' dunk.
01:16That one is number one.
01:18This place absolutely exploded.
01:21The Knicks came back from 29 points.
01:24Let's talk about 29 points down in the third quarter.
01:28That was the best game I've ever covered.
01:31Let's break down how that comeback happened.
01:33It was 19 after the first quarter.
01:34It was 27 at halftime.
01:36It was 29, like you said, in the third quarter.
01:38That's the biggest comeback in finals history.
01:41For a lot of that first half, it looked like they were unraveling.
01:45Their composure for a team that's supposed to be so experienced, such a veteran group, was all off.
01:50They were trying to fight Victor Wembenyama.
01:52They were trying to fight the referees.
01:54They couldn't hit shots.
01:55The Spurs were making everything.
01:56It looked like the attention here was almost already on Game 5.
02:01It looked like they were a team that was collapsing.
02:04Halftime happened and just a miraculous second half.
02:08The Spurs had 76 points in the first half.
02:11Only 30 in the second half.
02:13I believe that difference, 46 points from the first half to the second half, is the biggest difference in playoff
02:19history.
02:20Just so many unprecedented milestones about this comeback.
02:25What changed?
02:26It wasn't just hitting more shots.
02:28Victor Wembenyama kind of went missing.
02:30The Spurs made a couple of ill-advised plays down the stretch.
02:33With De'Aaron Fox taking a layup when he didn't have to.
02:37What changed?
02:38How did they pull this off?
02:39Think about what the storylines were in the beginning of this game coming in.
02:43It wasn't a foul.
02:46Nobody actually ever called it a foul.
02:47But Wembenyama basically palming Jalen Brunson's hands and pushing him down to the court.
02:52Something like that.
02:52And basically you saw the Knicks came in, we gotta rough this guy up.
02:58The very first skit play of the game.
03:01Wembeny goes in for a rebound.
03:02Josh Hart's giving him a little elbow in the gut.
03:05Mitchell Robinson hit him with an elbow in the face.
03:08Alvarado had a one-leg takedown.
03:10Just grabbed him.
03:11And it wasn't working.
03:13Wembeny had the advantage.
03:15In fact, after Mitchell Robinson got that flagrant foul, he pointed his brain like, hey, I got you guys.
03:20And he was really done.
03:21At that point he did.
03:22He did.
03:23The Knicks were losing the physical and mental game in the first half.
03:28But, you know, this team we've been taking, they are the more experienced team.
03:31They, the Spurs kind of showed their experience down there.
03:35What you said, some of the shots that they were taking.
03:38And the Knicks have always been the resilient team that they showed here.
03:42This was just to another level.
03:45And they, they were calm.
03:46They were relaxed.
03:47The Spurs started panicking.
03:49I said it.
03:50The Knicks, the way they're composed when they have Jalen Brunson at point guard, they're only just a three-point
03:55away.
03:55Or a big turnover away from flipping the switch.
03:58And everything changes.
03:59And we saw that in the third quarter.
04:01How about the bench?
04:02Jose Alvarado, you know, besides his little takedown earlier in the game, played some really big minutes.
04:07Yeah.
04:07In the fourth quarter especially.
04:09You know, what do you make of him and some of the bench contributions that they got today?
04:13Well, they, he was their bench contribution.
04:15Like, everybody else wasn't good.
04:16Miles McBride had a bad game.
04:18Landry Shaman had a bad game.
04:19Mitchell Robinson, I thought, had a bad game.
04:21But in doing my report card for this game, I gave the bench an A.
04:25Simply because of one man, Jose Alvarado.
04:27This was his big Knicks moment.
04:30And he got the, he got the minutes.
04:31He got the, he played the final ten minutes.
04:33And the Knicks obviously dominated those minutes.
04:36And he was, he was great.
04:37This is, this made that trade at mid-season worth it.
04:41And you can thank Gershon Yabaselli for, for getting rid of the team option on his contract.
04:47Because without that, this trade would have never happened.
04:49And Jose Alvarado wouldn't be out there winning game, forced in a spectacular fashion for the Knicks.
04:54Let's talk about Josh Hart.
04:55Now he's somebody that, you know, if this went the other way, it would have been the potential goat.
04:59You know, he made, he had the breakaway layup that he just flat out missed.
05:03You know, he looked like he was going for a dunk, kind of changed his mind midway and missed it.
05:07And then Castle, when he got the two free throws to give the Spurs the lead again, he kind of
05:11was ball watching.
05:12And, and, and, you know, allowed that off, you know, allowed up to Sky and then, you know, allowed him
05:16to get in position to be fouled.
05:18And I think you said something like, O.G. Ananobi saved me, you know, a lifetime of regret.
05:22Yeah, that's a, that's a hell of a quote.
05:24And a couple of them talked about, you know, sometimes in sports, you need to be lucky.
05:27And I think today they did have a little bit of, and also Victor Wambanyama misses two free throws a
05:32couple of plays before that.
05:33I do think they had a little bit of luck on their side.
05:35Yeah. And listen, I actually, I saw Josh Hart.
05:38I don't, probably not many people remember this, but during the Cleveland series, he had a straight up breakaway.
05:43And he tried to jump for a dunk and he couldn't elevate.
05:47And I asked him, I said, what the heck was that about?
05:49He said, man, my ankle's really been bothering me.
05:52I just don't have the elevation.
05:54I don't have the burst that I usually have.
05:56I mean, think about this guy.
05:57This guy has played through ankle sprains.
06:00He played through knee problems.
06:02He's always playing through pain.
06:04And so that almost caught up with him in this game because he, he went for the dunk.
06:09He realized he couldn't get it and then tried to like push it in and hit the back.
06:13That play would have loomed very large if the Knicks had lost this game.
06:16And like you said, Josh Hart would have had a long time of regret because, you know, he nearly blew
06:22it.
06:23So he can thank OG.
06:24Now, now Mike Brown, you know, what, what does this mean for him?
06:28You know, that they were a team that looked dead at halftime.
06:30And, you know, he said they didn't really show them film.
06:33They just talked in there and they just talked about, they can be better.
06:36They've been in this situation.
06:37They haven't been down 20, you know, 27 points at halftime too many times before, but they've made comebacks before.
06:43And, you know, just what does it say about Mike Brown that his group doesn't quit?
06:48That they're seemingly a group that always has this in their back pocket.
06:51That no matter what it is, they can, they can come out and make these great comebacks.
06:56Well, I mean, when they hired Mike Brown, a big bonus of him was that he was experienced, that he's
07:04seen it all.
07:05He won championships with the Warriors as an assistant.
07:07He won championships with the Spurs as an assistant.
07:10He coached Kobe.
07:12He coached Kevin Durant.
07:13He coached Steph Curry.
07:14He coached LeBron James.
07:16So he's seen it all.
07:17And so what they need in a situation like that is a coach who's not going to panic.
07:22And the Knicks certainly did not panic.
07:24They're obviously an extension of their coach or extension of their captain as well.
07:27And he never panics.
07:28And so that was, that's really helpful.
07:30I mean, when you hire a coach who has experience, you do it for situations like this and it worked
07:34out.
07:34All right, they're starting to kick us out here.
07:36So we'll wrap it up.
07:37That's Steph Bondi.
07:39I'm Jared Schwartz.
07:40We'll have plenty of coverage between now and game five in San Antonio.
07:44A night for the ages.
07:46This is our post game report.
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