The San Antonio Spurs had Game 4 of the NBA Finals wrapped up. De’Aaron Fox decided otherwise.
With 11.1 seconds left and the Spurs leading by one point, Fox came up with a loose ball off a Knicks miss. The shot clock was off. Madison Square Garden was holding its breath. Every kid who has ever watched a basketball game knows what comes next. You dribble. You let the clock bleed. You force the other team to foul you. You make them beat you from the line.
Fox went up for a contested layup.
OG Anunoby met him at the rim and swatted it back. The Knicks scooped the ball, raced it up the floor, and Jalen Brunson rose into a deep three with the clock dying. The shot missed. Anunoby weaved through the lane, tipped the rebound in with 1.2 seconds on the clock, and a place that was buried six feet deep in the second quarter erupted. Final score: Knicks 107, Spurs 106.
This is now the wildest comeback in Finals history. The Spurs led by 29 points in the second quarter and watched it all evaporate because their starting point guard forgot the most basic clock-management rule in basketball.
Fox finished the game 6-of-16 from the floor with 18 points. That stat line is bad but salvageable in a winning effort. In a loss, after the play that flipped the series, it is a tombstone.
What makes it worse is that Fox is not a kid. He is a former All-Star who has played in 600 NBA games. He spent years running point in Sacramento before getting traded to San Antonio to be the veteran hand alongside Victor Wembanyama. The whole reason that trade happened was so Wembanyama would not have to make these decisions himself. That bet has not paid off in this series.
Wembanyama did his job in Game 4. He finished with 24 points and 13 rebounds and kept the Spurs in shouting distance even when their lead crumbled. Brunson erupted for 36 points and seven assists for the Knicks. Anunoby went for 33. The Knicks shot the lights out in the second half. Some of that comeback is just New York playing championship basketball.
But the game ended with the ball in the Spurs’ hands and a one-point lead. There is only one way to lose that situation. Fox found it.
The Spurs are now down 3-1 in the series. Only four teams in NBA history have ever come back from 3-1 in the Finals, and three of them lost. The math says this series is essentially over.
Gregg Popovich has spent decades drilling fundamentals into his point guards. Tony Parker did not lose games like this. Patty Mills did not lose games like this. Even Dejounte Murray, who got run out of San Antonio for being too erratic with the ball, would have dribbled that thing into the corner and waited to get hugged.
Fox will hear about this play for the rest of his career. If the Spurs lose Game 5 in San Antonio on Saturday night, this will be the moment that defined the series. A franchise built around generational talent at the five just got jobbed by a senior moment from its starting point guard.
Brunson and the Knicks now get to close it out at home with a championship on the line for the first time since 1973. They needed every inch of that gift to get back into Game 4. They got it.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
