Kristian Winfield: Why no lead is ever safe against these Knicks: 'It's something in the city'

SAN ANTONIO — Karl-Anthony Towns didn’t hesitate, his stare pierced through shades covering his eyes after the Knicks completed yet another miraculous comeback, their second consecutive Game 1 rally of the playoffs. Only weeks earlier, the Knicks found themselves in far-too familiar territory, down 22 points in the Eastern Conference finals opener against the Cleveland Cavaliers. The Knicks turned the game — and the series — in a massive 44-11 run that ushered in a four-game sweep of the Cavs and punched the franchise’s first NBA Finals appearance since 1999.

And now, they’ve done the same thing to the Spurs. Victor Wembanyama’s Spurs. The same Spurs who won 62 games, dethroned the reigning champion Oklahoma City Thunder and represented the toughest challenge these Knicks would face this entire playoff run. The Knicks were down 14 with 6:31 left in the third quarter of Game 1 of the NBA Finals at Frost Bank Center on Wednesday. They responded with a 25-11 run and defeated the Spurs, 105-95, to steal home-court advantage and take a 1-0 series lead, moving just three wins shy of the franchise’s first championship since 1973.

Yet this is what the Knicks expected — both the result and the fashion of victory. They are the NBA’s comeback kids, grave-digging basketball undertakers who never die, never lay down, never falter in the face of adversity.

Just like the borough stitched across the front of the jerseys. And now, both these players and this city — New York City — are three wins shy of being immortalized in basketball history.

“It’s something in the city. You feel that energy in the city; the grit, the grind, the hard work you’ve got to put in to make in the city,” Towns said. “I think we reflect all our fans and lifestyles and what it takes to make it in New York City when we step on the court with a Knicks jersey.”

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Of course the Knicks would rather not spot teams double-digit leads. It’s one of their longest-standing bad habits: slow starts via self-inflicted wounds resulting in holes most teams can’t overcome.

In last season’s Eastern Conference finals run, the Knicks spotted the Boston Celtics not one, but two 20-point leads in Games 1 and 2 of the second round. They came back to win both times to stun the Celtics and make it to the third round of the playoffs for the first time in a quarter century. They did it again in Game 1 of the conference finals at Madison Square Garden this season: The Cavs pounced on the Knicks — rusty with eight days of rest after sweeping the Philadelphia 76ers — leading Kenny Atkinson to famously believe “analytically” his team won two of the first three games of the series.

And analytically, the Spurs should have won Game 1 of the NBA Finals: Both teams shot poorly from 3-point range early. The Spurs jumped out to an early first-quarter lead then began pulling away once again in the third quarter. And Jalen Brunson turned his knee in the first quarter then grabbed his ankle after an awkward landing not too long after.

Once again, the Knicks found themselves with their backs against the wall.

“It’s a position we obviously don’t want to be in, but it’s always a next-play mentality. We have to control the things that we can control and our team is going to go on runs. Things are going to happen, and somehow we bounce back,” Brunson said. “We continue to find a way and just kind of keep chipping away. We knew one play was not going to bring us all the way back but we just kept chipping away.”

Yet these Knicks are proving they play their best basketball when the stakes are highest, when the chips are all-in at the center of the table. Teams in the NBA Finals were 4-87 when trailing by 14 or more points in the second half of a game since the league began tracking those stats in the 1996-97 season.

Make it 5-87, courtesy of a cast of characters who refuse to lay down, no matter how big of a deficit placed in front of them.

“These guys are resilient, man. They get better as the game goes along,” head coach Mike Brown said. “They really try to pay attention to the details that we are throwing at them. They try to bring energy and multiple efforts while being physical without sending them to the free throw line. And then, they know we’ve got to play fast. You’re playing against good teams now, and you can’t go against a set defense all the time.

“We’re down double digits tonight, and we were also down double digits Game 1 against Cleveland, and for our guys just to stay with it is huge because anything can happen in a 48-minute game as long as you stay the course.”

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Miles McBride chuckled at his locker. “Comfortable” isn’t the word he would use to describe how his team feels down 14, down 20, down 22 in games with massive implications. Locked-in, McBride said, is a more appropriate term.

“I’d say you start keying-in on details that got you put in that hole,” he told the New York Daily News. “And usually for us, it’s never been about an Xs and Os thing. It’s about getting to the loose balls, getting to an offensive rebound here or on the other end cutting with force and playing off the ball a little bit more and getting guys involved. So it’s things like that.”

The Knicks locked-in down 14 midway through the third quarter of Game 1 on Wednesday. First Mikal Bridges rattled in a pull-up jumper as Josh Hart drew a foul chasing an offensive rebound. Then Towns found Landry Shamet on a give-and-go before Towns took Luke Kornet off the dribble for a driving and-one. Towns then blocked Julian Champagnie’s driving layup attempt against Brunson, a defensive sequence leading to Brunson scoring on a euro-step floater in transition.

Timeout, Mitch Johnson: In the blink of an eye, the Spurs’ 14-point lead became six. Then Hart stole a bad pass from De’Aaron Fox, another transition opportunity resulting in a Shamet corner three. It all set up Brunson for an historic turnaround: He had 11 points on 5-of-15 shooting from the field in the first half but finished with 30 points after authoring yet another crunch-time masterpiece down the stretch.

“It was quick. I think we let that one go,” Wembanyama said at the podium after the game. “That’s on us. After that, that’s an experienced team, they know how to play with momentum. We had the momentum until late in that game. That’s why I said we let that one go.”

The Knicks are prone to slow starts, but who knows? Maybe, in some odd way, it’s worked in their favor. Maybe the Knicks need their feet held to the fire to show the world who they truly are.

They didn’t play their best basketball of the regular season until they were cornered midway through the year, spiraling into nine losses in 11 games as James Dolan mandated an NBA Finals appearance. They didn’t play their best basketball of the playoffs until they surrendered home-court advantage in the first round, losing two games by a combined two points to face a 1-2 series deficit against the Atlanta Hawks.

“You don’t want to play from behind, but I think it’s just when adversity hits, who are you going to be?” Bridges said. “I think when adversity hits, we’re a tough team mentally and physically. So just keep staying the course and just keep fighting no matter what.”

The Knicks are who they are. They are the comeback kids. They are NBA undertakers. They are capable of staring defeat in the face and coming out victorious no matter the circumstances.

And with three more wins, the never-die Knicks will be able to call themselves NBA champions.

“We’ve put ourselves in situations where we’ve got to fight back from a deficit, and we did that, and we chipped away,” Shamet said. “We started focusing on ourselves and doing the right things. And slowly but surely, that led to us cutting the deficit and ultimately getting the win.

“[The Spurs] played great through the majority of the game and put us in a tough spot, but you know, we found the resolve to figure it out late. So that’s encouraging but we’ve got to clean some stuff up.”