New York Knicks beat San Antonio Spurs 105-104 on the road on Friday, June 5, after falling far behind. The Knicks were down 9 at one quarter break and still finished 1 ahead.
The turnaround
The Knicks trailed by 9 after the first quarter. From there they outscored the Spurs 80-70, a 10-point swing over the rest of the game.
The turning point was the second quarter, which the Knicks won 31-18.
What flipped it
The Knicks recovered 21.3% of their own misses against 12.8% for the Spurs and the Knicks gave the ball away on 12% of their possessions while the Spurs did so 15.9% of the time. Extra possessions add up quickly over 48 minutes.
The Spurs did win one battle, the free-throw line: FT rate of 24.4 against 18. The Knicks made up for it elsewhere.
The game played at about 101 possessions per team. The Knicks scored 104.4 points per 100 possessions and the Spurs scored 103.4, a difference of 1.
Who carried the comeback
Victor Wembanyama (SAS) posted the best line of the night by Game Score (22.8): 29 pts, 9 reb, 2 ast, 4 blk on 11-21 shooting. The team was +6 in the minutes Victor played.
For the Knicks, Karl-Anthony Towns was the best of the rest at 21.4: 21 pts, 13 reb, 4 ast on 8-12 shooting.
Karl-Anthony Towns (21 pts, 13 reb, 4 ast) recorded a double-double.
Game Score is a single number that weighs points, rebounds, assists, steals, blocks, shooting efficiency, fouls and turnovers. It is not an official stat, just a quick way to rank lines.
What it means
The pre-game Win Meter had it close to a coin flip, at about 40% for the Knicks.
Across the last 6 meetings in our records, New York Knicks lead 4-2.
Written automatically by Tip Off Live software from box score data. Ratings and probabilities are our own model estimates.