Four days ago the Knicks erased a 29-point halftime deficit to beat the Spurs 107-106 in Game 4 — the largest comeback in NBA Finals history. Here is where it sits among the great June resurrections, ranked.
1. Knicks vs Spurs, 2026 Game 4 — down 29 at the half
The new standard. New York trailed by 29 at halftime in San Antonio, then rode a defensive clamp and an avalanche of second-half three-point volume to a one-point win sealed by OG Anunoby’s near-buzzer-beater. Instead of a 2-2 series, the comeback made it 3-1 — a two-game swing in leverage terms, and the kind of collapse a young Spurs core will be asked about for years.
2. Cavaliers vs Warriors, 2016 — down 3-1 to a 73-win team
The benchmark series comeback. No team had ever recovered from 3-1 in the Finals, let alone against the winningest regular-season team in history. Cleveland took Games 5 and 6 behind back-to-back 41-point nights from LeBron James and Kyrie Irving’s Game 7 dagger — the efficiency swing across those three games remains a clutch-time case study.
3. Celtics vs Lakers, 2008 Game 4 — down 24
Until last week, the single-game record: Boston trailed Los Angeles by 24 in the second quarter, strangled the Lakers’ usage rate hubs with switching pressure, and won 97-91 on the road to go up 3-1. The title followed two games later.
4. Mavericks vs Heat, 2011 Game 2 — down 15 with seven minutes left
Smaller number, maximum leverage. Dallas closed on a 22-5 run capped by Dirk Nowitzki’s left-handed layup, flipped home-court advantage, and reframed the entire series against Miami’s new super-team. The Mavs’ true shooting in that closing stretch was the quiet engine.
5. Lakers vs Pistons, 2002-adjacent honorable mentions
The deeper retrospective list — Bill Russell’s Celtics in 1962 and 1969, the 1977 Trail Blazers recovering from 0-2, the 2006 Heat from 0-2 down against Dallas — shows the pattern: Finals comebacks are almost always defense-first. Offensive heroics finish them; possession-by-possession stops author them. Full box scores for every Finals game in history are archived at NBA.com’s playoff hub.
What comebacks have in common
Three threads run through all of them: a defensive scheme change at halftime, a usage-rate consolidation into one or two stars, and an opponent that kept playing the lead instead of the possession. The 2026 Knicks checked every box — and on Saturday they can convert history’s biggest single-game comeback into a championship.
