San Antonio led the New York Knicks by 29 points in Game 4 of the NBA Finals and lost. The 107-106 defeat handed the Knicks a 3-1 series lead and the biggest comeback in Finals history, and by the time the Garden emptied the conversation had narrowed to two Spurs: De'Aaron Fox and Victor Wembanyama.
Fox's final possession drew the most scrutiny. With roughly 12 seconds left and no shot clock, he drove for a layup instead of holding the ball and forcing the Knicks to foul. OG Anunoby blocked it, then tipped in the game-winner at the other end. Asked afterward why he went for the score rather than drawing contact, Fox was blunt: "I just thought I would be able to outrun him." Walking through the sequence, he said he was trying "to get a layup, get up three" and force the Knicks "to need a three" — before conceding Anunoby "made a good block."
Wembanyama said he never saw the play that buried his team. "I fell on the floor. I couldn't really see. I don't know. I just saw the block," he said of Fox's drive. On the tip-in: "I was contesting the first shot, turned around and saw him up there. So that's all I can tell you."
The Spurs star refused to pin the loss on a single possession. "I think it began before that," he said. "It's just execution, greediness, some sort. We clearly weren't the most hungry in the second half." San Antonio had buried a record 14 first-half threes; in the fourth quarter the offence went cold and the Knicks clawed back one stop at a time. "It was painful, of course," Wembanyama said. "It feels like we're missing. We work too hard and give up our leads."
The national reaction was less forgiving. On TNT's Inside the NBA, Charles Barkley called it "some of the dumbest basketball I've ever seen in my entire 63 years," hammering the Spurs for settling for eight straight threes while sitting on a 25-point lead and never draining the clock. On the Fox layup he was just as direct: "He did not have to shoot that ball. They could have just gotten fouled."
ESPN's First Take split over where the blame belonged. One camp put the responsibility on Fox as the floor general, arguing the veteran point guard "has to be a game changer and not a game manager" with the ball in his hands and the game there to be closed. The other pushed back toward Wembanyama, contending the team's best player "folded" offensively in the fourth quarter and that great players have to be criticised in those moments, not only praised in good ones.
For all the finger-pointing, Wembanyama framed the next 48 hours as a choice. "I think it's going to go one of two ways. A bad one and a good one," he said. "The bad one would be giving up. The good one would be getting stronger through this, getting more together — and I know this is what we're going to do." Down 3-1, the Spurs host Game 5 on Saturday needing a win to keep their season alive.
