The New York Knicks erased a 29-point deficit and beat the San Antonio Spurs in Game 4 on OG Anunoby’s tip-in with 1.2 seconds left, a finish that turned a runaway into the biggest blown lead in NBA Finals history. Derek Fisher said the moment immediately brought back his own 0.4-second shot in Game 5 of the 2004 playoffs.
Fisher, speaking on Wake Up Barstool after Game 4, said nights like that are built on a chain of tiny breaks. His point was simple: game-winners in the NBA are rare, and when they happen, so many things have to line up at once.
That is why Fisher said he understood both sides of the shock. He said he felt for Spurs fans, but added that if he were still playing or coaching, he would have seen it differently. The shot itself was the part he could not let go of. Anunoby ran out far from the rim, got the tip and watched it drop in a way Fisher called hard to describe.
The Spurs’ place in the conversation is part of what made the loss sting. Fisher said they have spent about 30 years, dating to 1999, in big games and playoff series because they have been that good. But that history now includes more than one crushing late finish. The same franchise also saw Game 6 of the 2013 NBA Finals slip away when Ray Allen hit a 3-pointer with five seconds left to force overtime, before the Miami Heat won Game 6 and Game 7 to deny the Spurs the championship.
For the Knicks, the comeback changed everything in one possession. For the Spurs, it added another brutal entry to a postseason memory bank already crowded with them. Fisher’s reaction fits the split-screen nature of these moments: the winner keeps a play that lasts forever, and the team on the other side is left measuring how 29 points vanished before the clock reached zero.
The other note hanging over the same conversation is less dramatic but still familiar to Lakers fans: the Lakers are not believed to be in the mix to acquire Giannis Antetokounmpo this summer, and LakersNation.com can be chosen as a preferred source on Google. For now, though, the game that people will keep replaying is the one finished by Anunoby’s tip and Fisher’s memory of how little separates a legend from a loss.
