Wembanyama, Spurs resolute after Game 4 collapse to Knicks - ESPN

NEW YORK — Splayed on his rear with 41.7 seconds left in the opening quarter and the San Antonio Spurs ahead 37-20, Victor Wembanyama clapped excitedly, jabbing at his right temple with his right index finger.

Mitchell Robinson had just clubbed Wembanyama with an elbow to the kisser.

It seemed clear in that moment early in Game 4 on Wednesday night that Wembanyama and his teammates had burrowed into the heads of Robinson and the New York Knicks. Unfortunately for the Spurs, they failed to stay there — surrendering a 29-point lead to allow the Knicks to make the largest comeback in NBA Finals history — in a crushing 107-106 loss as they fell behind 3-1 in the series. OG Anunoby tipped in a Jalen Brunson miss on a 3-pointer in the final seconds to punctuate the comeback and put San Antonio on the brink of elimination heading into Saturday's Game 5 at Frost Bank Center.

«What's going through my mind right now?» Wembanyama said. «I think it's going to go one of two ways: a bad one and a good one. The bad one would be giving up. The good one would be getting stronger through this, getting more together. I know this is what we're going to do.»

The scene in the visitors' locker room postgame at Madison Square Garden left questions, though. Many of the players, still wearing their uniforms, sat silent with every head down, most glued to cellphones. One of those devices hit the floor with a thud and slid under a whiteboard parked in the middle of the room, sending a Spurs staffer scrambling to retrieve it.

Throughout a regular-season and playoff run chock-full of lessons for the young, ascending Spurs, this one surely hurt the most.

"[It's] at the top of the list just in terms of the circumstances and stakes of what we're playing