‘The Dumbest Team in History’: U.S. Media Rips the Spurs After Stunning Collapse

The United States is still trying to digest one of the wildest games in NBA Finals history. The New York Knicks erased a 29-point deficit, the largest ever wiped out in a Finals game, beat the San Antonio Spurs 107-106 and took a 3-1 lead in the series. One more win, and the championship returns to Madison Square Garden for the first time since 1973.

OG Anunoby was the night’s biggest hero. The forward finished with 33 points, but he will be remembered mainly for two huge plays in the closing seconds. First, he chased down De’Aaron Fox, blocked him from behind and prevented a Spurs basket that might have ended the game. Then, on the final play, he was in the right place to clean up a miss by Jalen Brunson and put New York ahead 107-106 with 1.2 seconds left. Brunson himself finished with 36 points and led the run that brought the Knicks back from the brink.

But alongside the praise for New York, most of the anger in the U.S. was directed at the Spurs, who simply lost their composure. San Antonio led 81-52 early in the third quarter and 92-75 at the start of the fourth, after a first half in which it scored 76 points. But in the second half it scored only 30, stalled on offense, took bad shots and lost control of a game that was already in its hands.

Charles Barkley did not even try to soften his criticism. “We just saw the dumbest basketball team in the history of humanity,” the ESPN analyst said. “They had a 29-point lead, and they took eight straight three-pointers. That was horribly managed basketball, some of the stupidest stuff I’ve ever seen. When you blow a lead like that, the other team has to get help from you. The Spurs helped the Knicks win with some of the dumbest plays I’ve ever seen on a basketball court.”

Barkley returned again and again to the Spurs’ shot selection in the fourth quarter. “When they had a 29-point lead, they kept shooting threes in short possessions. You sit there and say to yourself, this game is not over yet. The Knicks got a Christmas gift in June,” he said.

Shaquille O’Neal agreed with the criticism, but also gave credit to the winners. “Congratulations to the Knicks on the comeback, but Chuck is right,” he said. “The Spurs played terrible basketball. They got complacent, got too comfortable with the lead, like they were already talking about the flight back to San Antonio. They just didn’t play smart. And you never really know what a champion is until he becomes a champion, but tonight the Knicks fought like champions.”

Draymond Green added that the signs of collapse were visible even before the fourth quarter. “We were sitting there in the third quarter, and Shaq said, ‘They have to put them away now,’” he said. “Already in the second quarter he said they were starting to let the Knicks run. New York just kept fighting. They were down 26, cut it to 19, and once they brought it to 12, the game was over.”

For Victor Wembanyama, it was a particularly painful night. The French star finished with 24 points, but also missed two crucial free throws and watched his team unravel around him. “I can’t explain what happened there,” he admitted afterward. “There are two ways to deal with it, the bad way is to give up, and the good way is to give everything we have and grow from it. It hurts. We felt like we gave up our game.”

Wembanyama also got into trouble personally after drawing an unsportsmanlike foul in the third quarter, following an elbow to the face of Karl-Anthony Towns. It was his second technical foul of the playoffs, and now he is one technical away from an automatic suspension. “Obviously I’ll have to be a little more careful,” he said, “but I don’t think it will change much.”

The Spurs now return home trailing 3-1, with one of the hardest losses a team can suffer in the Finals. The Knicks, meanwhile, feel history is closer than ever. The next game will be played in San Antonio on the night between Saturday and Sunday, where New York can close it out and complete a run to its first championship in 53 years.