Over the past few weeks Latrell Sprewell and his teammates from the last New York Knicks team to make the NBA Finals have been asked just about every possible question that could be relevant to this matchup against the San Antonio Spurs.
He has been asked if it meant anything that the Knicks were playing the same team they did 27 years ago. He has been asked what he remembered about Knicks captain Jalen Brunson, who was 3 years old in 1999 and running around while his father, Rick, was a role player on that team. He has been asked if anything from that series could help this team finally break through and deliver the Knicks’ first title since 1973.
But as Sprewell stood at center court of Madison Square Garden late Wednesday night -- after the Knicks pulled off the greatest comeback in NBA Finals history to win 107-106 and take a 3-1 lead in this best-of-seven series -- Sprewell was asked the same question everyone who had witnessed or watched this game at home was trying to find words for.
The Knicks had trailed by 29 points with 9:40 left in the third quarter, by 15 at the end of the quarter and by 20 with 9:33 left in the fourth.
WHAT JUST HAPPENED?
“I can’t even put it into words,” Sprewell told ESPN. “We were just thinking, ‘Get it close. Get it to 25, get it to 20, get it to 15, get it to 10. Put the pressure on them.’”
After the game, Knicks players from the past five decades filled the court while friends, family and celebrities who’d come down out of the stands celebrated with them.
The normally tight security knew the reality: No one was leaving.
This game meant too much, to too many people, including the decades of Knicks players and coaches who’ve tried and failed to deliver a championship to a city and a fanbase that have been desperate for one for 53 years.
“I never thought they totally had it,” Sprewell conceded as Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’” played over the loudspeakers. “I mean, once we got even or we got within four, I said, OK, we have a real shot.’”
But all the way back from 29 points down? Even after Josh Hart blew the two-handed layup with 1:57 left? The OG Anunoby “Tip of God” with 1.2 seconds left?
No way.
The in-house music switched to Frank Sinatra’s version of “Theme From New York, New York,” and like so many others basking in the moment, Sprewell took out his cellphone camera to record it, hoping to capture one of the greatest nights in Knicks history into both his memory and his cloud.
“We still got one more though,” he said. “One more.”
Sprewell never made it back to the Finals after that 1999 team, as the Knicks won just one game against the Spurs. He was young enough, but Knicks captain Patrick Ewing -- who didn’t get to play in the ’99 Finals because of a torn Achilles -- wasn’t. There’s a harsh reality in the NBA: Sometimes you get only that one shot. Sometimes you don’t even get that.
Carmelo Anthony played seven seasons for the Knicks, scored 10,186 points -- seventh on the franchise’s all-time list -- and made six All-Star teams. But he never even made it to the conference finals.
“You deserve this!” Metta World Peace said to Anthony as they found each other on the court after the game. “You started this.”
Anthony smiled. He had spent the night yelling instructions and observations out to the current Knicks players from his seat, including just before the Knicks’ game winner.
“I was yelling at them the whole time: ‘The offensive rebound is there! The offensive rebound is there!’” Anthony told ESPN. “Coming out of that timeout, I made eye contact with them and was yelling ‘The offensive rebound is there! Somebody go!’
“I didn’t know who was going to go. But I just kept yelling, somebody go!”
That somebody ended up being Anunoby, who inbounded the ball to Brunson and then ran toward the rim as Brunson’s shot flew over Spurs 7-foot-4 center Victor Wembanyama.
Anunoby leapt past three Spurs defenders -- Dylan Harper, Stephon Castle and Devin Vassell -- who all neglected to box out, and he tipped the rebound with his right hand before falling to the ground as everyone in the building started to grasp the enormity of what they had just seen.
Hart was one of them. His missed boxout 30 seconds earlier had resulted in two made free throws from Castle to give San Antonio a one-point lead.
“Every game, every second, every practice of the season, it led us to this point,” Hart said. “Now we have to go into San Antonio on Saturday and get ready for another battle.
“Special shoutout for OG, man, because he saved me, at least for this game, a lifetime of regret.”
As Anunoby coolly ran toward the Knicks bench, Karl-Anthony Towns wrapped him in a hug, the jubilation pouring out of him.
“You could see my reaction, the emotion, it kind of spilled out of that moment,” said Towns, who had five crucial fourth-quarter points. “It was tears of joy ... all you can do is ask for a chance.
“And for me personally, I just wanted one break in life. And I got one. I got one at that last play with OG making the shot and us getting the stop.”
Towns grew up across the Hudson River in Edison, New Jersey. His father, Karl Sr., once tried out for the Knicks but broke his ankle on a freak play at a local park and never got another NBA shot.
“It wasn’t meant for me,” Towns Sr. told ESPN after the game. “It was meant for my son. It was meant for him to do it.”
The Knicks still need one more win, of course. One more win to clinch a title that has been the great, irresistible siren’s call to so many basketball luminaries over the decades: Anthony, Phil Jackson, Bernard King, Pat Riley and Ewing, who was one win away in 1994, before Hakeem Olajuwon and the Houston Rockets won Games 6 and 7.
If the Knicks win Saturday, it would close the longest gap between championships in NBA history.
Like every Knicks team since 1973, these Knicks carry all those dashed dreams with them. But this group is different.
“They make us all feel a part of it,” Ewing told ESPN. “Like we’re a part of them.”
