Knicks fan reflects on viral Finals Game 4 win probability graph tattoo
With less than two seconds remaining in Game 4 of the 2026 NBA Finals, OG Anunoby jumped, rose above a crowd of four other players and tipped-in a game-winning bucket that put the New York Knicks within one win of a championship -- and gave Knicks fans around the world a memory that would last a lifetime.
It didn't take long for Joshua Johns to know how he wanted to memorialize that memory: with ink on his arm. He got the tattoo in Brooklyn on Thursday, just over two months since the Knicks clinched their first NBA championship in over 50 years.
Born in Ithaca, New York, Johns adopted Big Apple sports fandom from a young age even though his family eventually settled in Georgia. But he truly fell in love with the Knicks after moving back to New York postgrad and experiencing the hold their success can have over the city -- even if the results in that era didn't often produce much in the way of city-stopping momentum ("Shoutout Ron Baker," he quipped, with the Knicks having gone 68-125 across the cult hero guard's 2 seasons with the club).
Needless to say, Johns never had much confidence the Knicks would be a part of a personal tradition that he established -- when one of his team wins a title, he gets a tattoo. There's a Georgia Bulldog on his right leg, a reminder of the back-to-back national titles won by Kirby Smart & Co. in 2021 and 2022. He already has a "That's baseball, Suzyn" Yankees design in mind for whenever the Bronx Bombers add banner No. 28.
So when Anunoby capped the Knicks' historic Game 4 comeback, and a photo of ESPN's win probability graph showing the team's dramatic turnaround began circulating online, Johns quickly realized that he may have found inspiration for his next title tattoo -- even if he wouldn't allow himself to jinx things.
"I literally screenshotted [the graphic], like, 'Oh, this could be really cool one day if we do this.'" Johns told ESPN. "At that point in time, I still hadn't dared imagine that it's actually going to happen. I didn't let myself go there, but I was like, 'If this happens, I would love to celebrate with this' ... Obviously, it's very, like, if you know, you know, but to me, I will always know what that means to me, what the Knicks meant to me, what this championship meant to me, and of course, what OG in Game 4 meant to me."
Ironically, Johns' personal memory for Anunoby's tip-in is less chaotic than the watch parties and wild New York city scenes he experienced for other Knicks playoff games. He had a 6 a.m. flight the next morning, so he spent Game 4 anxiously pacing his apartment with his wife and packing, attempting to keep the nerves settled.
But once the Knicks completed their comeback -- and then hoisted the Larry O'Brien Trophy with a win in Game 5 -- Johns knew it was time to get tatted up. He credits his Knicks group chat for encouraging him to get it done, and his sister-and-law Meghan for suggesting a more prominent placement on his forearm.
The tattoo's heightened visibility may give him some trash talk leverage in the office. Johns works for the unabashedly Indiana-based collegiate apparel company Homefield, with coworkers providing Johns no shortage of grief over the past two years as the Indiana Pacers eliminated the Knicks from the 2024 and 2025 postseasons.
But now he has the perfect comeback. It's one that doesn't require a single word, just the rolling up of a sleeve. Johns does note that his colleagues have indeed been "quietly, maybe too quietly, supportive of [his] basketball fan success of late."
Johns doesn't think he'll be too boastful about showing off his ink though. The person to whom this tattoo means the most at the end of the day is still its owner.
"I don't know if I'll show it off," Johns said. "I just think it's special. It will always be a special summer to me. It will always be a very special game to me ... But it's a beautiful memory so I'm going to be glad I have this forever no matter what happens."br/]
