Watch the NBA Finals between the Knicks and Spurs on ABC 7
NEW YORK (WABC) -- It ain't over till it's over. The New York Knicks are staging a fourth quarter come back after a nearly 30-point deficit to the San Antonio Spurs.
Spurs put the hurt on the New York Knicks early in Game 4 of the NBA Finals.
San Antonio shot 60% from the floor in the first half, in route to an historic 27-point first half lead over New York. The Spurs' 14 first-half three-pointers also set an NBA Finals record.
However, the Knicks have shown a penchant for coming back late, and if they can do it again Wednesday night, they will be on the doorstep of a championship.
The Knicks can take a 3-1 lead over the Spurs with a win tonight.
The Spurs won Game 3 on Monday powered by Wembanyama's 32 points, eight rebounds, six assists and three blocked shots. That was the third straight victory by the road team in the series, only the second time that has happened in the NBA Finals.
The other was the series between Chicago and Phoenix in 1993. Michael Jordan eventually put a stop to that by scoring 55 points in Game 4 to lead the eventual champion Bulls to the victory on their home floor.
Win or lose, Game 5 is Saturday in San Antonio, and if the road success continues Wednesday, the series would return to New York for Game 6 on Tuesday.
The Knicks, seeking their first championship since 1973, will be trying to bounce back after the Spurs snapped their 13-game winning streak on Monday.
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A famous Knicks fan is telling people to take mass transit to the upcoming NBA Finals.
Comedian Tracy Morgan says his message applies not just to ticket holders who will be showing up at the Garden, but to anyone who will be getting around the city for a Knicks watch party.
New York has a lot riding on the underdog Knicks.
At DraftKings Sportsbook in New York, the Knicks have attracted nearly half of all money wagered on the NBA Finals winner this season -- almost as much as every other team combined.
Now, Victor Wembanyama and the favored San Antonio Spurs are all that stand in the way. On Saturday night, the Spurs opened as high as -220 favorites to win the Finals, with the Knicks installed as approximately +180 underdogs. The price quickly gravitated toward the rested Knicks, and as of Sunday morning, the Spurs were down to -200 favorites.
New York swept its two previous series in the Eastern Conference playoffs and has won 11 straight games. The Knicks haven't played since Monday and will have had eight days off when they tip off against the Spurs on Wednesday in Game 1 of the Finals in San Antonio.
The Spurs, who survived an intense seven-game series against the Oklahoma City Thunder to reach the Finals, are 4.5-point favorites in Game 1.
This is the ninth Finals matchup between a team that swept its previous series and an opponent that was forced to go seven games. The team coming off the sweep went 5-3 in the previous Finals matchups, according to ESPN Research.
Both teams were supported heavily at sportsbooks this season. The Spurs entered the season at 65-1 to win the title at DraftKings Sportsbook and would become the biggest preseason underdogs to win the title in at least 40 seasons, according to archive SportsOddsHistory.com.
The Knicks began the season at 10-1 and saw their championship odds drift to as long as 19-1 during an up-and-down regular season. They reached 35-1 briefly in the postseason, as they struggled with the Atlanta Hawks in their first-round playoff series.
"Knicks are unsurprisingly very heavily bet on in New York, more so than any other state, both per game and in the futures." Caesars Sportsbook lead NBA trader David Lieberman told ESPN, adding that both the Knicks and Spurs are liabilities for the house in the book's futures market.
Wembanyama, who last month was named NBA Defensive Player of the Year, is a -185 favorite to be named Finals MVP at DraftKings Sportsbooks. Since the DPOY was first awarded in 1983, the only player to win that award and Finals MVP in the same season was Hakeem Olajuwon in 1994, according to ESPN Research.br/]
The New York Knicks are back in the NBA Finals for the first time since 1999, and they'll face the same opponent they did then, the San Antonio Spurs. You can watch the entire NBA Finals on ABC 7 and the ESPN app.
Game 1: June 3 at Spurs
Game 2: June 5 at Spurs
Game 3: June 8 at Knicks
Game 4: June 10 at Knicks
Game 5*: June 13 at Spurs
Game 6*: June 16 at Knicks
Game 7*: June 19 at Spurs
* if necessary
All games tip off at 8:30 p.m. ET
