‘Right Hand From God’: OG Anunoby Sends Madison Square Garden Into Pandemonium As Knicks’ Game 4 Hero

NEW YORK — Two grown men in Knicks gear, tattoo sleeves wrapping down both their arms, clutched each other and giggled hysterically as they staggered to the exits drunk with joy.

Another sprinted toward the Madison Square Garden escalators, NBA Finals hat both backwards and askew, screaming incoherently; the words, “Let’s go Knicks,” eventually formed and were repeated over and over. He passed a gleeful security guard and the two exchanged a booming high-five.

An older fan grabbed his younger counterpart and yelled directly into his face: “YOU JUST SAW THAT LIVE! YOU WERE HERE!”

All the while, OG Anunoby chants echoed through the corridors as a delirious fan base spilled into the streets, ready to celebrate the greatest win in franchise history.

OG! OG! OG! OG! 🗣️ pic.twitter.com/l6PY2RzLsw
— Sports Illustrated (@SInow) June 11, 2026

These are but samples of the scene that consumed New York City after the Knicks made NBA Finals history and came back from 29 points down to beat the Spurs in Game 4 to take a 3–1 series lead. New York gave up 76 points in the first half and only 30 in the second. Jalen Brunson proved himself Captain Clutch with 17 second-half points, each bigger than the last. Karl-Anthony Towns shook off a brutal seven-quarter stretch to make several big plays down the stretch of the fourth. A deficit that grew as large as 29 was slowly whittled and then chopped. As that deficit grew slimmer, the crowd grew proportionately louder.

But that crowd didn’t really start to believe until halfway through the third quarter. The Knicks came out of the locker room disorganized, a bit too eager to make up for the catastrophic first half they just suffered through in the biggest game of their lives. But they forced a few stops and Anunoby finally got a shot to fall, a three from the corner that trimmed the Spurs’ lead to below 20 points for the first time since early in the second quarter.

Then they dared to believe. You could hear it was a very nervous belief; Knicks fans know as well as anybody it’s the hope that kills you. But they hoped anyway, cheering intently for every New York basket like it was the game-winner and booing every San Antonio possession like their lives depended on it.

That audible belief grew louder after a flurry of Brunson points and another Anunoby three cut the lead to 15 entering the fourth quarter. Louder still when a Towns layup cut it to 10 with six minutes left. By the time Anunoby hit his fourth shot from deep of the second half to get it within four and as many minutes to play, it was impossible to hear your own thoughts. The reverberating of the cheers shook everything in the Garden, from the floor seats to Clyde Frazier’s dangling jersey from the rafters.

Knicks fans celebrate after Game 4, lingering long after the final horn. | Vincent Carchietta-Imagn Images

But in the end, it was the Knicks’ quietest player who played the hero. Down by one point and with mere seconds remaining on the clock, Brunson hoisted up a three so deep it had a mailing address in the Meatpacking District. It clanged off the front rim—and then Anunoby was there, soaring into the lane with one of his ridiculously long arms stretched to its breaking point. He flew between multiple Spurs defenders jumping for the rebound of their life … and gently tipped it in. Knicks 107, Spurs 106.

The volcanic eruption of noise that followed was not a cheer, or a roar. It was a sonic boom. Every one of the 19,812 fans in attendance let go of all inhibitions to unleash a wordless wall of noise that rattled the teeth and just about blew out this reporter’s eardrums. Even with 1.2 seconds remaining after Anunoby’s make, the noise didn’t subside and hit a new decibel once the final buzzer sounded.

“They stuck with us,” Towns said. “It was an ugly, ugly game. We didn’t bring it in the first half. But they stuck with us. They stayed in them seats and they kept cheering for us and they kept finding ways to give us energy. This is a testament to them, the grit, the resiliency, the way of New York.”

MSG is always rocking after a Knicks win, and especially a big comeback. We saw evidence when New York pulled off an equally unlikely victory out of its hat in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference finals. But Wednesday night’s crowd witnessed greatness the likes of which the storied arena hadn’t seen in decades—maybe ever. All thanks to the outstretched fingertips of Anunoby, who finished with 33 points as his generally tremendous playoff run continued.

IT'S A PARTY IN THE STREETS OF NEW YORK CITY 🔥 pic.twitter.com/5tObUfMhaG
— Sports Illustrated (@SInow) June 11, 2026

“That has to be the most iconic shot in the history of New York basketball,” coach Mike Brown ruminated after the game as cheers continued to leak into the press room from the bowels of MSG (from Taylor Swift, it turns out). Moments prior Ben Stiller bounded in to high-five any reporter he could find, looking like a kid on Christmas. “That was a huge offensive rebound. Huge offensive rebound. He took on the challenge, and he went and won the game for us doing exactly what I called him out for during shootaround today.”

“Right hand from God!” Towns said of Anunoby’s game-winner, beaming with a wide smile sparkling brighter than his diamond earrings. “That’s OG, though. That’s why every time we’re in the game with OG, third quarter, second quarter, he may not be feeling like he’s playing his best. Every time I talk to him, I say, I already know what OG Anunoby is going to do in the fourth quarter, and he did exactly what I thought he would do. He gave us a chance to win, and that’s all you could ask for from the best two-way player in the NBA.”

“He’s been doing it this whole playoff run,” Jose Alvarado said as he shared the podium with KAT after his own clutch stretch of minutes. “Shout-out to him for crashing the board and doing something special.”

But while his play is loud, and this particular moment was one of the loudest in NBA history (both figuratively and literally), Anunoby is an understated individual and he kept to that vibe after the biggest bucket of his life.

“It feels cool,” Anunoby said simply. “I mean, everyone’s pretty excited. I’m excited, too.”

The dramatic downplaying sparked laughter among the assembled reporters, which finally elicited a reluctant grin from the normally stolid Anunoby; the only acknowledgement anyone would get of the greatness he made happen by crashing the boards.

"Everyone's pretty excited. I'm excited too."

OG said that so nonchalantly😂 pic.twitter.com/yHU12CxwXs
— Sports Illustrated (@SInow) June 11, 2026

“I’m excited, too,” he repeated. “We’re all excited. We’re enjoying it right now. But we’re just focused on the next game now.”

It is a monumental task ahead of Anunoby and his teammates—to come down from the emotional high of such a win with Game 5 days away. The job, as he and every other Knick kept stating, is not done. As much as it may feel like this win would rocket the Knicks to a title (and this failure would suck the life out of the Spurs), there’s still another game to win for New York.

But nobody can tell that to the euphoric fans who bled from MSG in the early hours of Thursday morning. They don’t care. For most, if not all, in attendance, it was the greatest Knicks win of their lives, a win that will echo down generations the same way legends of Willis Reed and Frazier do. And this Game 4 perfectly embodied the spirit of these Knicks, a group of players who haven’t met a hole too deep to dig out of—even if they often dig those holes themselves.

“As anyone who lives in New York knows, if you want to make it in this city, you have to be O.K. getting it out the mud, and we did that tonight,” Towns said.

Wednesday night’s crowd was more than O.K. with it. One need only listen to know that for a fact.

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