De’Aaron Fox had the ball with 13 seconds left with the Spurs up one, ready to send the Finals back to Texas and you’ll never guess what happened next
The Spurs built a 29-point lead in the first half of Game 4 at Madison Square Garden on Wednesday night with a chance to tie the series at 2-2 and bring it back to San Antonio with all the momentum in the world. The Knicks looked dead, the crowd was silent, and the series appeared to be heading back to Texas all square.
Then the Spurs blew it.
All 29 points of that lead, gone in the second half, as the Knicks completed the greatest comeback in NBA Finals history while De’Aaron Fox, the Spurs’ highest-paid player and supposed veteran leader, committed one of the most inexplicable blunders in the history of professional basketball.
The Knicks won 107-106 and lead the series 3-1.
I hate the New York Knicks with every fiber of my being. The team, the fanbase, the city, all of it. They are disgusting rat people who play in a building that smells like a wet basement and celebrate like they invented basketball every time they win a regular season game in November.
They swept the Sixers in the second round and have been insufferable all postseason. The idea of the Knicks winning a championship makes me physically ill. Instead of sending this series back to San Antonio tied 2-2, De’Aaron Fox gift-wrapped the game and potentially the entire championship for the one fanbase in America that deserves it the least.
What Fox Did Is Indefensible
With about 13 seconds left and the Spurs up one, Wembanyama got the defensive stop the Spurs desperately needed on Brunson and the ball squirted loose past half court where Fox chased it down. He had the ball in his own half of the court, 90 feet from the Knicks’ basket, with the clock running and the Spurs ahead. The game was essentially over.
De’Aaron Fox… What are you doing bro?
De’Aaron Fox. I mean seriously, the options were simple. Dribble the ball out and wait for the Knicks to foul, then go to the free throw line as a career 75 percent shooter, hit both, and put the Spurs up three with single-digit seconds remaining.
Game over, series tied, San Antonio has all the momentum heading home. Every person watching on television knew this. Every coach in the NBA knew this. Every player who has ever been in a close game in their life knew this.
De’Aaron Fox tried to lay it up over OG Anunoby.
He tried to score on a two-time All-Defensive team wing instead of dribbling out the clock and going to the line because he thought he could outrun him.
That’s what he said afterward. “I just thought I’d be able to outrun him.” He thought he was faster than one of the best defenders in basketball with 12 seconds left in a one-point NBA Finals game where the only thing he had to do was not shoot the basketball.
Anunoby blocked it, the Knicks recovered, and the nightmare that followed was entirely Fox’s creation.
Charles Barkley said it perfectly on the postgame show. “That was a dumbass play. He did not have to shoot that ball.” There’s nothing to add to that. It was a dumbass play and he did not have to shoot the ball. That’s the whole analysis.
Then De’Aaron Fox Left Anunoby Alone on the Tip-In
As if the blocked layup wasn’t enough, Fox compounded the disaster on the very next possession. Out of the timeout with 5.7 seconds left, the Spurs had Wembanyama guarding Brunson 30 feet from the basket, which was exactly the matchup they wanted with the best defensive player in basketball on the Knicks’ best offensive player.
De’Aaron Fox had one job. He was to stay on Anunoby, guard his man, and box out if a shot goes up. Basic basketball principles that nine-year veterans with $220 million contracts are supposed to execute in their sleep.
Instead De’Aaron Fox jumped off Anunoby to double Brunson, leaving a two-time All-Defensive wing completely alone on the weak side. Brunson saw it, fired an early three-pointer knowing that Wembanyama would be out of rebounding position, and Anunoby crashed to the rim with nobody between him and the basket because Fox had abandoned him.
Brunson missed the three and Anunoby tipped it in with 1.2 seconds left. The building exploded. Madison Square Garden turned into the loudest place on earth while Fox stood near the three-point line boxing out nobody as Anunoby tapped in the game-winning bucket completely uncontested.
Both mistakes on the same possession sequence. The blocked layup that gave the Knicks the ball followed by the abandoned assignment that gave Anunoby the tip-in. Two catastrophic errors from the one player on the Spurs roster who was supposed to prevent exactly this kind of collapse.
The Spurs Had a 99.6% Win Probability at Halftime
According to ESPN, the Spurs had a 99.6 percent chance of winning at halftime and a 79.7 percent chance when Fox recovered the loose ball with 13 seconds left, though that number almost certainly understated the actual odds because the model didn’t account for Fox being 90 feet from the basket with the ability to dribble out the clock.
Four out of five times minimum that sequence ends the game, and De’Aaron Fox turned it into the one out of five by doing the one thing he wasn’t supposed to do.
The Spurs shot 3-for-17 from three in the second half while Wembanyama struggled to make an impact inside during the collapse and Brunson was spectacular with 36 points including nine in the fourth quarter compared to Fox’s three.
There were multiple factors in the 29-point blown lead but Fox was given a max extension this past summer specifically for moments like Wednesday night and he failed at every critical juncture down the stretch. One for five with a turnover in the final five minutes of a game his team was winning by 29 at halftime, which is the kind of stat line that should haunt a player for the rest of his career.
For the series, Fox is averaging just 14.3 points per game, less than half of Brunson’s 29.5, while shooting worse from the field and worse from three. He’s the Spurs’ only All-Star besides Wembanyama, making over $220 million over the next four years, and he has been the worst player on the court in the final five minutes of the most important game of the series.
The Irony of the “Inexperience” Narrative
Everyone said the Spurs’ youth would catch up to them eventually, that a team full of 20, 21, and 22-year-olds would crack under the pressure of the NBA Finals because the moment would be too big and the stage would overwhelm them.
The 22-year-old Wembanyama got the biggest defensive stop of the game on Brunson with 15 seconds left. The 21-year-old Castle played with poise all night. The 20-year-old Harper was trusted with the final inbounds pass over De’Aaron Fox because the coaching staff didn’t trust Fox to handle it.
The kids were fine. The veteran was the one who fell apart. The nine-year pro with the max contract and the Clutch Player of the Year award on his resume was the one who forgot the score, forgot the clock, tried an unnecessary layup, and then left his man alone for the game-winning tip-in.
The Spurs didn’t lose because they were young. They lost because their oldest and most experienced ball-handler played the worst 15 seconds of basketball in NBA Finals history.
3-1 Knicks and This Is Probably Over
No team in NBA Finals history has come back from 3-1 and the Spurs have to win three straight to take the title. With Wembanyama anything is theoretically possible but the psychological damage from Wednesday night’s collapse is going to be incredibly difficult to overcome because blowing a 29-point lead in the Finals due to your veteran point guard forgetting how basketball works isn’t something a young team just shakes off between games.
The Knicks are going to win a championship and I’m going to have to live with it. The Sixers lost to this team in the second round and the Knicks have beaten everyone in the Eastern Conference on their way to being one win from their first title since 1973. Madison Square Garden is going to be unbearable for the rest of the summer and every Knicks fan in the tri-state area is going to become the most insufferable human being on the planet.
De’Aaron Fox handed them the game, the series, and probably the championship. Instead of Spurs heading home with the series tied 2-2, it’s Knicks in five with Madison Square Garden ready to host a coronation because one guy couldn’t dribble out the clock with 13 seconds left.
I’ve never been more disgusted by a basketball play in my life. Dribble the ball out, go to the line, and win the game. That’s all he had to do. Instead the Knicks are one win away from a title and I need to go lie down.
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