SAN ANTONIO — Jalen Brunson scored 45 points and led the New York Knicks to a 94-90 victory over the San Antonio Spurs in Game 5 of the NBA Finals on Saturday night, securing the franchise’s first NBA championship in 53 years and a 4-1 series win.
Brunson scored 13 consecutive points for New York in the fourth quarter and helped the Knicks overcome a 16-point deficit to close out the series.
The championship marked New York’s first NBA title since 1973. The Knicks erased double-digit deficits in all four of their victories in the series.
Brunson set a franchise record for points in an NBA Finals game, surpassing the previous mark of 38 points set by Willis Reed against the Los Angeles Lakers in Game 3 of the 1970 NBA Finals.
Mikal Bridges scored 14 points and Josh Hart added 13 for New York.
“I have no words,” Brunson said during the postgame celebration. “It’s everything I ever dreamed of.”
Brunson, Bridges and Hart were teammates at Villanova, where they won NCAA championships before reuniting with the Knicks.
Dylan Harper led San Antonio with 25 points, while Victor Wembanyama recorded 19 points, 14 rebounds and five blocks.
The Knicks improved to 4-0 in series-clinching games during the postseason, winning all four on the road.
New York entered Game 5 after rallying from a 29-point deficit to win Game 4, 107-106, on OG Anunoby’s tip-in with 1.2 seconds remaining. The comeback was the largest in NBA Finals history.
San Antonio built another early lead in Game 5, taking a double-digit advantage in the first quarter and extending it to 16 points in the second.
The Spurs became the first team in the play-by-play era, which began in the 1996-97 season, to lead by at least 10 points in the first quarter of all five games of an NBA Finals series.
New York struggled offensively early, missing 16 of its first 18 field-goal attempts and all of its first 11 two-point shots.
The Knicks responded with a 22-9 run in the second quarter to cut the deficit to three points. Devin Vassell scored before halftime to give San Antonio a 42-37 lead at the break.
The teams combined for 79 points in the first half, the fewest in an NBA Finals game since Game 7 of the 2010 Finals between the Los Angeles Lakers and Boston Celtics. They also combined to shoot 31.8 percent from the field, the lowest first-half percentage in an NBA Finals game during the play-by-play era.
New York completed another comeback in the second half and took control in the fourth quarter behind Brunson’s scoring surge.
“I don’t know what I’m feeling,” Brunson said. “I’m in awe. Whenever someone counted us out, we found a way to come back and do something about it.”
