The San Antonio Spurs made NBA Finals history on Wednesday night when they blew a 29-point lead to lose Game 4 against the New York Knicks. Victor Wembanyama struggled after the first quarter and those struggles continued into his postgame press conference, when he found it difficult to put into words what happened to end Game 4.
“I think it began before that, but I can't really explain it right now, I don't know,” Wembanyama said in his postgame presser. “I think it's just execution, greediness of some sort. We clearly weren't the most hungry in the second half.”
Wembanyama scored 13 points in the opening period as the Spurs led the Knicks, 41-22. That lead ballooned to 29 points midway through the second quarter and again early in the third quarter. But the Knicks battled back, chipping away at the lead slowly with a 10-2 run here and a 14-3 run there until it was a single digit deficit in the fourth quarter as Madison Square Garden was rocking.
The game ended with OG Anunoby recording both a game-saving block on De'Aaron Fox and a game-winning tip-in with 1.2 seconds remaining to give the Knicks the lead and the win.
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“What's going through my mind right now is that I think it's going to go one of two ways,” Wembanyama said when asked about the loss. “One of two ways. A bad one and a good one. The bad one would be giving up. The good one would be getting stronger through this, being more together, and I know this is what we're going to do.”
Wembanyama finished Game 4 with 23 points and 13 rebounds on 9-of-25 shooting from the field. Jalen Brunson recorded a game-high 36 points with seven assists for the Knicks while OG Anunoby scored a playoff career-high 33 points
“I don't know about the emotions, but it was painful of course. It feels like we worked too hard to give up our lead. It's just as simple as that. It just hurts.”
The Spurs will now return home to San Antonio for Game 5 on Saturday night, where the Knicks will have a chance to close out and win an NBA Championship.
The San Antonio Spurs made NBA Finals history on Wednesday night when they blew a 29-point lead to lose Game 4 against the New York Knicks. Victor Wembanyama struggled after the first quarter and those struggles continued into his postgame press conference, when he found it difficult to put into words what happened to end Game 4.