The New York Knicks made history Wednesday night. As did the San Antonio Spurs, in ignominious fashion.
With a chance to tie the NBA Finals at 2-2, the Spurs held a 29-point second-half lead in the third quarter and appeared well on their way tying the series up with Game 5 at home on the horizon.
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But OG Anunoby and Jalen Brunson led New York to a historic rally at Madison Square Garden, completing the largest comeback in NBA Finals history to secure a 107-106 win and a 3-1 series lead.
One more win for the Knicks will cement the comeback near the top of the greatest in sports history. But it stands as enough on its own to find its place in the conversation.
Let’s take a look at some of the greatest comebacks in sports history. For the purposes of this list, stakes matter. A rally in Week 3 of the season doesn’t warrant consideration.
28-3
Those numbers are all that U.S. sports fans need to hear to immediately recall the greatest comeback in Super Bowl history.
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An Atlanta Falcons franchise known, frankly, for losing, held a 28-3 second-half lead over a New England Patriots team that was at the peak of its powers. Tom Brady had already led the franchise to four Super Bowl wins and secured his place in the NFL GOAT conversation.
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That reputation was about to be tarnished with a blowout loss to a Falcons team that had never won a Super Bowl. But then the unthinkable happened.
The Patriots and Falcons made 28-3 one of the most recognizable scores in sports.
(Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
The Patriots scored their first touchdown of the game with 2:06 remaining in the third quarter. From there, the Falcons went 3-and-out, fumbled and punted twice in their final four possessions. The Patriots scored a field goal and two more touchdowns on their final three possessions of regulation and marched to an opening-drive walk-off touchdown in overtime for a 34-28 win to etch “28-3” into sports history.
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The Comeback
The 1992 Buffalo Bills entered the playoffs in search of their third straight trip to the Super Bowl.
They finished in a four-way tie atop the AFC at 11-5, but were related to the No. 4 seed and the wild-card round due to tiebreakers. When they got there, they played without injured quarterback Jim Kelly, and Warren Moon and the Houston Oilers took a 35-3 third-quarter lead on a pick-6 thrown by backup Frank Reich. Buffalo’s hopes of an AFC three-peat looked dashed.
But the Bills reeled off a 28-point third quarter after the early miscue, and Reich found Andre Reed for a go-ahead touchdown in the final four minutes of regulation. The Oilers kicked a field goal to force overtime, but the Bills got a stop, then set up Steve Christie for the game-winning field goal in overtime to secure a 41-38 win and one of the greatest comebacks in sports history.
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Kelly eventually returned to the lineup, and the Bills advanced to the Super Bowl. But that trip ended like all of them for Buffalo — in a loss.
Miracle in Manhattan
Wednesday’s Knicks win immediately enters the pantheon.
New York was riding high after the Knicks won Games 1 and 2 in San Antonio, inspiring chants of “Knicks in four” across Manhattan. But Game 3 sharply turned the tide. The Knicks squandered a dominant second quarter and halftime lead with a listless second half, and the Spurs were back in the series with a 115-111 win.
By the third quarter Wednesday night, “Knicks in four” was starting to feel a lot more like “Spurs in six” as San Antonio, largely considered the better team coming into the series, asserted its dominance with an 81-52 third-quarter lead.
The Knicks celebrated the greatest comeback in NBA Finals history Wednesday night.
(AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)
But a Knicks team that had pulled off previous playoff miracles found arguably the biggest in NBA playoff history. The Knicks limited the Spurs to 30 second-half points, and Jalen Brunson and OG Anunoby sent Madison Square Garden and the streets of New York into a frenzy with a 107-106 win for the largest comeback in NBA Finals history.
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Considering the stakes and New York’s 53-year tile drought, they’re one win away from placing this win for consideration on the Mount Rushmore of sports comebacks.
Miracle of Istanbul
AC Milan jumped out to a 3-0 halftime lead over Liverpool in the 2005 Champions League final and appeared well on its way to its second title in three years.
Liverpool had overcome a shaky start to the season and a fifth-place Premier League finish under first-year manager Rafael Benítez. They were relegated to the qualifying round in Champions League competition, but advanced to the semifinals to defeat a Chelsea team that had beaten them three times previously during the season.
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When they faced AC Milan, though, their sensational run appeared to run out of steam in the for of a 3-0 hole. But Xabi Alonso, Vladimir Smicer and Steven Gerrard scored three second-half goals in the span of seven minutes, and the match went on to a penalty shootout that Liverpool won, 3-2 to secure the fifth of its six Champions League titles.
The game and Liverpool’s season were so packed with drama that they’re now the subject of a Netflix documentary.
Lakers stun Celtics to end title drought
Before Wednesday’s Knicks win, this was the greatest comeback in NBA Finals history. And it involved the two most storied franchises in the sport.
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Prior to 2008, the Boston Celtics hadn’t won an NBA title since the Larry Bird era with his third and final NBA championship in 1986. The proud franchise with 16 championships to its name had wallowed largely in mediocrity since the end of the Bird era, with just a single trip to the Eastern Conference finals since Bird’s last trip in 1988.
The loathed Los Angeles Lakers had won five NBA titles since Boston’s last, including a defeat of Bird’s Celtics in the 1987 Finals. And Kobe Bryant’s Lakers had opened up a 45-21 lead in Game 4 of the 2008 Finals, threatening to tie the series after Boston had built a 2-0 lead.
But these Celtics with Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen joining Paul Pierce as the core were built to win a title. And they rallied for a 97-91 win to overcome the 24-point deficit. The Lakers went on to win Game 5, but that only set the Celtics up to secure the championship at home with a Game 6 win in Boston.
Who’d we miss?
This list, limited to five, isn’t the definitive list of sports comebacks. Feel free to chime in with who missed the cut and shouldn’t have. But one thing is certain.
The Knicks have made their case to join the ranks of the greatest comeback stories of all time.
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