There aren’t enough words in the English language to describe the impossibility of the Knicks’ 29-point comeback to win Game 4 of the NBA Finals. Or the euphoria that spread like wildfire from Madison Square Garden across the city and the surrounding areas, into the hearts of every Knicks fan on the planet.
It’s still something that, 36 hours later, doesn’t feel real. Even as this team has repeatedly shown that nothing is impossible, they continue to find a way to up the ante over and over again.
Just drilling into Wednesday night’s miracle. A 29-point comeback has only happened 17 times in the history of the sport, regardless of time of year. Of those 17, only nine saw the lead overcome in just one half of basketball. To cherry-pick, it’s the seventh-largest comeback of any kind in the final 21:30 of a game.
Only one of those games, a 2019 thriller between the Clippers and Warriors, happened in the playoffs. These larger comebacks, while more impressive in size, come nowhere close in terms of the leverage of the NBA Finals. It’s pound-for-pound the greatest comeback in NBA history, and likely, basketball history.
There will be time for historical, multi-sport comparisons, but the point of this article is to talk about the team that made said comeback. One-off comebacks happen all the time. Sometimes, a team pulls a rabbit out of the hat twice, or even three times.
This team has somehow done it a half dozen times over the last two postseasons. Since 2024, five of the eight 20-point comebacks in the playoffs belong to the Knicks. There aren’t enough stats I can easily find that encapsulates how ridiculous this is.
Here’s one. Two of the top-five largest comebacks in Finals history belong to the Knicks… this year.
This isn’t their only time this postseason with such an outlier comeback that makes no sense. Remember the 22-point comeback against Cleveland? Well, there’s only one other game in history where a team came back from that deficit with under eight minutes, and it happened 50 years ago, which is honestly extremely impressive given the lack of a three-point line.
Well, in Game 4, the Knicks trailed by 20 with 9:20 to go. They were eerily close to what they did against Cleveland in terms of a dead sprint, while additionally upping the raw numbers.
But unlikely comebacks have been engrained in this team’s DNA ever since Jalen Brunson became the head of the snake in New York.
The ridiculous narrative of continuous Knicks doubters as this series has progressed is that the Spurs have had firm control of this series, losing three games merely because of failed execution late. It was them blowing it, not the Knicks rallying back!
But these first-half 12-14 point leads are nothing in the modern NBA, and they’re child’s play to the Brunson-era Knicks. Observe.
2024 Game 1 against the Sixers. Philly led 32-19 in the first quarter and 78-72 in the third quarter after rallying back from a valiant Knicks charge. Guess who out-executed whom in the end?
2024 Game 2 against the Sixers. This time, they effectively maintained a 9-10 point lead for the first 22 minutes of the game, and ultimately seemed to be evening up the series with a 101-96 lead with 30 seconds left. We all know what happened next.
2024 Game 4 against the Sixers. Again, a 10-point lead in both the first and third quarters. Again, they blew it. Is this sounding familiar?
2024 Game 6 against the Sixers. The Knicks blew a 22-point lead in an eyeblink, and soon trailed 71-61 in the third quarter. About 12 minutes later, the Sixers lost their final lead of the season and endured a slow death after a fourth consecutive blown double-digit lead.
2024 Game 2 against Indiana. The Pacers led 75-63 in the first minute of the second half. While the series, as we know, didn’t go our way, it was another sign of resiliency.
2025 Game 1 against Detroit. The first 15 minutes of the second half were all Pistons, to the point where they led 98-90 with 9:10 to go. How’s a 21-0 run sound to you? Shoutout Turbo.
2025 Game 4 against Detroit. The Knicks were down 11 in the third, 10 in the fourth, and four with just 90 seconds to go. Karl-Anthony Towns to the rescue.
2025 Game 6 against Detroit. After going up 11 early in the fourth in a closeout game, the Pistons went on a 20-2 run to go up seven with under 2:30 to go. Somehow, the Knicks found a way… again.
Now it’s time for the good stuff.
2025 Game 1 against Boston. The Celtics led 75-55 midway through the third quarter. The Knicks won in overtime.
2025 Game 2 against Boston. The Celtics led 73-53 with 2:20 left in the third quarter. The Knicks won in regulation.
2025 Game 4 against Boston. At the World’s Most Famous Arena, the Knicks responded to a dominant first half by the Celtics and found themselves down 14 with 9 minutes left in the third. They won again.
2025 Game 3 against Indiana. In the only bright spot of a miserable return to the Eastern Conference Finals, the Knicks somehow found their way back down 20 from late in the first half and as many as 15 with 2:15 to go in the third.
2026 Game 3 against Philly. The desperate Sixers sprinted out to a 20-8 lead in the first six minutes. The Knicks took the lead for good just nine minutes later.
2026 Game 1 against Cleveland. The Knicks are down 22 with under eight minutes to go. Cue Harden-flavored BBQ chicken.
Game 3 of the NBA Finals. The Knicks are down 29 early in the third. They’re down 20 with 9:20 to go. They win… again.
In the last three playoff runs, the Knicks have made five 20-point comebacks, 13 double-digit comebacks, and three additional unlikely comebacks given big momentum shifts.
The defining trait of the Brunson era has been to never give up. To never let go of the rope. Sure, they’ve still been blown out a few times over the years, but there’s a reason the team somehow has a winning record when they trail by 20 the last two years.
They don’t point fingers. They don’t sulk. They don’t look at a deficit and say, “We’ll get ‘em next time.” No lead is impossible to overcome for them.
This is what has the Knicks one game from the ultimate dream. A ridiculous level of buy-in and belief in one another that breaks the scale of what should be possible in the NBA.
No matter how discouraged, no matter how depressive, no matter how bad the intrusive thoughts get, they never give up.
They stared down the barrel of being forced into a Game 7 against Philly in 2024 and Detroit in 2025. They stared down a 3-0 deficit against Indiana in 2025. They risked completely bottling the 2-0 road leads against Boston in 2025 and the Spurs this year. They risked losing home-court advantage against Indiana in 2024 and Cleveland this year.
All the times the vibes have been utterly rancid, they refuse to let the noise impact them. When adversity hits, they pick each other up.
Their mentality is as tough as a diamond. It’s unfathomable, but it starts at the top with their captain.
So as the Knicks embark on the quest to win the toughest closeout game ever, as they wake up on Saturday to be the first to wear the orange and blue with a chance to win a championship with one more win in 32 years, here’s one more note to leave you with.
The Knicks have never lost three consecutive playoff games in the Brunson era. They’ve played 60 of them. The last three-game playoff skid was in 2021, when not a single player on this roster played (Mitch was hurt!).
The only way this season ends without the euphoria of a championship is a historic aberration. A team that has shown time and time again that their will is unbreakable and that they will never spiral into the despair that has plagued multiple teams this postseason alone will have to be driven to that point by the youngest NBA Finals team in history, who’ve consistently failed to execute late in games, have a star running on fumes, and won’t have a real home-court advantage.
Good luck.
Victor Wembanyama
Karl-Anthony Towns
