Jalen Brunson scored 45 points, including 13 straight for New York in the fourth quarter, as the Knicks beat the San Antonio Spurs 94-90 in Game 5 to win the NBA Finals 4-1—New York’s first championship since 1973.
SAN ANTONIO — The fourth quarter started with the Knicks trailing and the moment still slipping away. Then Jalen Brunson took it back, running off 13 straight points for New York and turning a 16-point deficit into a finish that belonged to the franchise again.
On Saturday night, Brunson scored 45 and the Comeback Knicks beat the San Antonio Spurs 94-90 in Game 5 of the NBA Finals. New York won the series 4-1, the first time in 53 years the city’s teams have been champions.
“I have no words,” Brunson, the NBA Finals MVP, said during the on-court celebration. “It’s everything I ever dreamed of.”
Brunson capped his night with a record that carried history in it. His points total set a Knicks record for a finals game; it had been 38 by Willis Reed against the Los Angeles Lakers in Game 3 of the 1970 series. Now, the left-handed point guard who changed the franchise’s fortunes when he arrived four years ago owned that number.
“It’s surreal,” Knicks coach Mike Brown said, who was hired a year ago and is now the franchise’s 24th coach since New York’s last championship in 1973. “I still can’t believe it’s happened.”
Brunson was not alone. Mikal Bridges and Josh Hart—two of the other pieces of the “Nova Knicks” trio, all former Villanova NCAA champions—combined for 27 points. Bridges scored 14 and Hart added 13.
“I don’t know what I’m feeling,” Brunson said. “I’m in awe. Whenever someone counted us out, we found a way to come back and do something about it.”
For the Spurs, Dylan Harper scored 25. Victor Wembanyama finished with 19 points, 14 rebounds and five blocked shots. After the loss, Wembanyama reflected on what the end of the run would mean.
“This is the biggest lesson of my life, the biggest learning moment,” Wembanyama said. “I can’t tell exactly what the lesson is, but we’re learning.”
The Knicks had gotten here the same way in each closing stretch—by refusing to fold. They improved to 4-0 in closeout opportunities this season, winning them all on the road. It might have looked like a away loss from the outside, but inside it felt like New York had brought its own arena with it.
Thousands of Knicks fans made the trip to Texas, and celebrations started to spill beyond the building. Back home in the Big Apple, fireworks lit up the sky. People honked horns on jam-packed streets. Firefighters, from their trucks, slapped high-fives with delirious fans.
“HISTORY,” New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani wrote on social media, and he added that the Knicks’ championship parade will be Thursday.
The series had already taught the lesson—New York kept climbing out of holes. The Knicks rallied from double-digit deficits in all four victories. including 29 points down in Game 4 when they won 107-106 on OG Anunoby’s tip-in with 1.2 seconds left on Wednesday night. That comeback was the largest in NBA Finals history and the biggest comeback in any game this season. regular season or playoffs.
By the time Game 5 arrived with New York down 16, it still did not feel like the Knicks were about to stop. And San Antonio had to listen to Knicks fans celebrate in their building as the Spurs started turning to what comes next.
“We weren’t ready to win an NBA championship,” Spurs coach Mitch Johnson said. “The better team won. We did a lot of good things, and we didn’t finish the job. That’s what it is.”
The game began the way the series often had: San Antonio took a double-digit lead in the first quarter and then allowed much of it to slip away in the second. The Spurs became the first team in the play-by-play era. which started in the 1996-97 season. to lead five finals games by 10 points or more in first quarters.
The Knicks, though, struggled to turn shots into points early. They missed on 16 of their first 18 tries and on each of their first 11 two-point attempts. One stretch in the second quarter even captured the frustration of it: Wembanyama had more blocked shots (five) than the Knicks had made shots (four). San Antonio’s lead reached as many as 10 in the first quarter and as many as 16 in the second.
And yet, the Knicks kept their comeback alive.
A 22-9 run in the second quarter brought New York within three. Devin Vassell scored just before the halftime buzzer to give San Antonio a 42-37 edge at the break.
The first half was rough on the scoreboard. The 79 combined points by both teams were the lowest in a finals game since Game 7 of Lakers-Celtics in 2010, and the combined 31.8% field goals shooting by the Knicks and Spurs was the lowest in a first half of a finals game in the play-by-play era.
Still, the Knicks had their way of turning whatever was happening into fuel. Brunson’s path to this moment runs through Texas in a way that feels almost scripted—he won NCAA crowns twice with Villanova. with the 2016 title in Houston and the 2018 title in San Antonio. only a few miles away from where the Spurs play.
“It’s why I came to New York,” Brunson said.
For a team that had spent so long chasing the last championship in 1973, the chase ended with a finals series win and a city that turned the night into a celebration—loud, immediate, and unmistakably real.
Knicks Jalen Brunson NBA Finals San Antonio Spurs Mike Brown Mikal Bridges Josh Hart Victor Wembanyama OG Anunoby Zohran Mamdani Willis Reed
45 points?? that’s insane. Knicks finally woke up I guess.
I didn’t even watch but I saw the headline and like… it’s crazy they won since 1973. Also 4-1 seems quick for a finals?
The “13 straight” in the fourth quarter is wild, but didn’t the Spurs like cheat or something earlier? I swear I heard that on Twitter. Either way congrats to Brunson though, 1973 return sounds fake until you remember New York can’t do anything without drama.
So they finally win and the coach is “the franchise’s 24th coach” like wow that’s a lot. I’m trying to remember what Willis Reed had to do with it, but whatever, finals MVP points records mean it was meant to happen. Spurs must’ve just fell apart in the 4th, like typical, once the crowd gets loud they lose.