Anunoby's Tip-In Caps Record NBA Finals Comeback
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- OG Anunoby scored 33 points with seven three-pointers in Game 4, capping a 29-point comeback — the largest in Finals history — with a tip-in off Jalen Brunson's miss with 1.2 seconds left to seal a 107-106 win at Madison Square Garden.
- The New York Knicks lead the NBA Finals 3-1 and can clinch the Larry O'Brien Trophy in Game 5 on Saturday in San Antonio, where they won Games 1 and 2 on the road to open the series.
- The San Antonio Spurs had a 99.7% win probability in Game 4 before the collapse, per the source's cited statisticians, and now face elimination despite holding double-digit leads in all four games of the series.
- New York's closeout dominance: The Knicks are 3-0 in closeout games this postseason, winning by an average of 39.3 points — including a 61-point blowout of Atlanta in Round 1, a 44-point win over Philadelphia in Round 2, and a 45-point rout of Cleveland in the Eastern Conference finals.
- A record four UK players — Anunoby, Tosan Evbuomwan, Jeremy Sochan, and Amari Williams — were on NBA opening-night rosters this season, as basketball became the UK's fastest-growing sport and the second-most popular team sport behind football.
- Anunoby called Game 4 "probably the top of British basketball history" and told Sky Sports that more youth courts, academies, and camps are key to growing the game in the UK.
- NBA Europe is "on schedule" to launch next year, per Anunoby, marking a concrete international expansion step on the heels of the series' record TV audiences since the Michael Jordan era.
Why it matters: Anunoby's last-second tip-in and the Knicks' 3-1 lead put New York one win from ending a long title drought, with thousands of Knicks fans already expected in San Antonio. A record four UK players on NBA rosters, basketball's status as the UK's fastest-growing sport, and NBA Europe's planned next-year launch all converge on the same moment — making this both a Knicks coronation and a structural milestone for British basketball's top-level reach.