In a flash, Fox’s mental lapse completely erased Wembanyama’s epic stop and gave the Knicks life again. Rather than Fox, a career 75% free-throw shooter, standing at the line for two free throws to potentially go up three points, the Knicks suddenly had the ball with 5.7 seconds left and a chance to win it.

If that’s not bad enough, Fox’s nightmare continued.

Out of the timeout, with 5.7 seconds left, the Spurs got the matchup they wanted: the Defensive Player of the Year on the ball, guarding Brunson 30 feet away from the basket. In all likelihood, Brunson would try to take Wembanyama off the dribble and attempt to find some semblance of daylight over the tallest player in the NBA for a buzzer-beater. 

Instead, Fox committed another catastrophic error: he left Anunoby alone on the perimeter. And that led to a magnificent clutch tip-in that sealed the greatest collapse in NBA Finals history.

After the unfathomable mistake to shoot rather than dribble it out, Fox unraveled again. Instead of staying on his man, Fox jumped to double Brunson which likely prompted Brunson to fire off a 3-pointer early, knowing he’d have two advantages on the chessboard. If he shot early, he’d have Wembanyama away from a potential game-winning rebound chance. And not only that, an early Brunson shot would allow Anunoby to crash unimpeded to the rim now that Fox wasn’t there to box him out. 

And that’s exactly what happened. 

Brunson missed. 

Anunoby crashed. 

He tapped it in. 

And there was Fox, the last guy back, boxing out thin air as bedlam fell all around him at Madison Square Garden.

Spurs head coach Mitch Johnson was asked about Anunoby’s tip in and whether it was simply a great play or a breakdown in boxing him out.

“Both,” Johnson said.

There was still time left on the clock. Notably, with 1.2 seconds remaining, Johnson went away from Fox with the potential game-clinching inbounds pass. The team entrusted a 20-year-old Dylan Harper to pass the ball in rather than give it to Fox, who had fallen apart.

Harper’s pass didn’t get to Wembanyama or to Stephon Castle, who was diving to the rim, and the Knicks ended it. 

There’s a notion that the Spurs’ inexperience was going to catch them at some point in this playoff run. But the irony of it all is that the veteran Fox was the one who looked completely overwhelmed by the moment, not the 20-year-old Harper or the 21-year-old Castle or the 22-year-old Wembanyama.

According to ESPN’s win probability metric, the Spurs had a 79.7% chance of winning when Fox recovered Brunson’s miss with 13.5 seconds left. Four out of five times, that’s the ballgame. But the computer model probably understated the Spurs’ odds there. It couldn’t possibly know what our eyes saw, that Fox had the ball in his own halfcourt, 90 feet away from the Knicks’ basket with the ability to shave more time off the clock by playing keep-away. 

So how did the Spurs blow a 29-point lead and what ESPN’s model envisioned as a 99.6% chance of winning? 

A lot of factors led to that historic collapse. Brunson and Anunoby were spectacular. Wembanyama struggled to make an impact inside. It didn’t help that the Spurs shot 3-of-17 from downtown in the second half.

But Fox was given a max extension this past summer for this very role — to lead them in the biggest moments. Instead, he failed them, multiple times.

Fox finished the game with 18 points on 6-of-16 shooting and committed four turnovers along with seven assists. It wasn’t the worst game of his career, but if there’s one reason why the Spurs are down 3-1 in the series, it’s because their only All-Star besides Wembanyama, the guy who is set to make over $220 million over the next four years, has come up woefully short at the worst time possible. 

For the series, Fox is scoring just 14.3 points per game, less than half as his Knicks counterpart Brunson, whose 36 points in Game 4 moved his scoring average to a series-high 29.5 points. Fox is shooting worse from the floor, worse from downtown. Fox’s passing may be superior to Brunson in the series, but he also has Wembanyama on his team and the Knicks do not.

Fox did hit a big triple to push the Spurs’ lead to seven with 4:10 remaining in the game, reminiscent of his clutch midrange shot in Game 3. But all that momentum came to a crashing halt when Fox turned the ball over at the 2:02 mark, fatefully leaving his feet to pass to Wemby and throwing the ball away to Josh Hart. 

If it weren’t for Hart’s baffling miss at point-blank range, Fox’s turnover would have been remembered as a crushing mistake. But due to his own later gaffes, it may be still be a footnote. It shouldn’t.

Yes, it’d be easy to chalk up Fox’s foibles to the ankle sprain that forced him to miss two games in the Western Conference finals. But tell that to the guy on the other side, Brunson, who is likely just as banged up, if not more. The Knicks point guard left Game 1 after Spurs forward Harrison Barnes fell into his knee and Brunson needed treatment in the locker room. He came back and willed the Knicks to victory with clutch shot after clutch shot. In Game 4, Brunson had nine points to Fox’s three in the fourth quarter.

Ahead of the playoffs, I predicted that the Spurs would win the 2026 NBA championship partly due to the fact that the 62-win Spurs had the young legs to prevail in an increasingly young man’s game; veteran experience was overrated, at least statistically in recent years. Until the NBA Finals, the Spurs’ youth had been their superpower, and they took advantage of the championship tax that OKC’s bodies paid this season to get here.

Now down 3-1, you’ll probably hear that the Spurs’ youth has bitten them in this series. But youth isn’t the issue. Wembanyama, Castle and Harper have all outplayed Fox in the NBA Finals. That’s the problem, one that’s about to be a $220 million problem.