Mateo’s Hoop Diary: Knicks win NBA championship in San Antonio

The 53-year championship drought is over. It took five games in the Finals and the New York Knicks won their last three road games of the year. Their pressure suffocated the Spurs in the fourth quarter and had Victor Wembanyama unwilling to take the big shot in key moments.

The Knicks put Dylan Harper on the line when ahead by three points with 8.5 seconds left to deny a 3-point attempt. He missed and had to foul OG Anunoby, who made one-of-two but it was enough to put them over the top. One of the other momentous moments late was Josh Hart missing the second free throw with the Knicks up three about 17 seconds earlier, but Mitchell Robinson bailed them out by recovering one of the biggest offensive rebounds in history, and then Anunoby ended up at the line, going one-of-two.

It didn’t matter that Karl-Anthony fouled out. Jalen Brunson powered the New York Knicks to their third title and first since 1973, with 45 points on 51.9 percent shooting. He earned the Finals MVP, yet he got loads of help from Hart, Anunoby plus Towns combining for 29 rebounds, and the squad getting as close as it gets to going on the hunt on defense.

The Knicks’ defining characteristic was their resiliency as they recovered against the Atlanta Hawks after going down 2-1, they also had a 22-point fourth-quarter comeback in Game 1 versus the Cleveland Cavaliers in the Eastern Conference Finals, had the greatest NBA Finals comeback in history (29 points) in Game 4 and another double-digit fourth-quarter comeback in Game 5.

Observations:

• The Knicks’ defense held the Spurs to 101.1 points per 100 possessions, good enough for the 12th percentile, per Cleaning the Glass. They had the faster help and defended well without fouling. The Knicks made the game ugliest for the Spurs in the second and fourth quarters.

• Dylan Harper came out, blasting off the bench, scoring from short and long range on the catch and dribble. He was the team‘s best player because the offense flowed best with him in charge, and his pressure was mostly effective, even forcing an eight-second violation on Jose Alvarado, picking him up full-court. His biggest mistake was committing one of the three 3-point shooting fouls against Brunson in the second half. Stephon Castle and Devin Vassell had the other ones.

• De’Aaron Fox, the former Clutch Player of the Year, was nothing close to an All-Star and the moment was too big for him. Somehow, coach Mitch Johnson played him five more minutes than Harper. One of Fox’s worst mistakes included a turnover in transition trying to find Keldon Johnson and getting called for a flagrant one for shoving Hart in the back on the break, which ended up being a three-point play. Fox shot 20 percent for the game, mostly misfiring treys. The only one who shot worse than him was Castle (10 percent), who didn’t score until late in the game on a putback.

• Wembanyama did not play like a big-time player. He shot 36.8 percent and a missed a huge free two with under two minutes left. His only imposing sequence was sin the third quarter, scoring thrice in the lane.