Hands Up If You’re Also Still Talking about the NBA Finals’ GM4 Comeback/Collapse

The San Antonio Spurs were torching the Knicks at Madison Square Garden on Wednesday night, hot enough to put Rich, by his own admission, almost into a fetal position. Then New York stormed back in a Finals comeback Rich could not stop thinking about, and days later he is still talking about it with anyone who will listen.

What made it stick was how clean the Spurs' math looked before it fell apart. San Antonio was shooting 65 percent earlier in the night and 80 percent from three, then finished at 42 percent from the floor. That gap tells the whole story of how cold they went down the stretch and how the door cracked open for the Knicks.

A whistle that ran in the Knicks' favor became part of the unraveling. An early ticky-tack foul on Karl-Anthony Towns on a drive where Victor Wembanyama's arm could have been dislodged, then a late overturn that put another foul on Towns. The replay crew reversed a call that looked like it should have stood, and Rich kept circling back to the absurdity of the NBA's two-minute report, the one where officials go back and CSI the final moments. By his read, the Knicks got the friendlier whistle, and the Spurs kept shooting quickly enough to make it a slow-motion car crash anyway.

The bigger question is why San Antonio never fed Wembanyama, who Rich called unstoppable for as long as he wants to keep playing. He sat for less than a minute the entire second half and still never got the ball down low, with Towns in foul trouble, Stephon Castle feeling it, and Mitchell Robinson and nobody else able to stop him. Rich wondered aloud whether Mitch Johnson, the young coach, got a tarmac dressing-down from Gregg Popovich after a rough performance.

Then there is Josh Hart, who back-rimmed a bunny on the same rim where Patrick Ewing once missed a finger roll against the Indiana Pacers. Hart said OG Anunoby saved him a lifetime of regret, and Rich figured Hart had better be paying for Anunoby's meals. Anunoby, the one player on the roster with a ring, sits in the catbird seat for Finals MVP even with Jalen Brunson pouring in clutch points in the fourth quarter of his playoff life.

Karl-Anthony Towns deserves a thank-you too. His tip on the final inbound mattered, because had Castle corralled it cleanly for a game-winner, the clock should have started the instant Towns touched it, and the 1.2 seconds would have run out on review. A game that insane nearly ended on a replay. No wonder Rich is still buzzing.