Yes, if you were wondering. Yes.

Sometimes you know in real time that you have just witnessed history, and perhaps even enjoyed the greatest moment of your life.

“We were here!” a beet-colored-faced fan yelled in the face of his fellow Knicks faithful. “We’re going to tell our grandkids and they’re going to tell their grandkids: We were f**king here.”

Whatever they had paid for objectively terrible seats, practically touching the ceiling at Madison Square Garden, was worth it. Every penny.

The New York Knicks pulled off the greatest comeback in NBA Finals history on Wednesday to go up 3-1 in a series that now seems destined to deliver them the first championship in over half a century.

Everyone involved – from the amiable coach who gave the perfect pregame pep talk, to the understated player whose offensive rebound with seconds to go gave them a one-point lead and the only one that mattered, to the local boys turned hometown heroes who teared up at the buzzer, to the icy-veined MVP candidate who had something else on his mind to the biggest pop star in the world sitting courtside to the rabid fans whose faith never wavered while their cheers shook the building – will never forget that they were here.

A magical spring turned sour

With under a minute to go in the first quarter of Game 4, Victor Wembanyama sunk a short floater over Mitchell Robinson to give the Spurs a 17-point lead. As they ran back up the court, Wemby pointed to his temple. “I’m in your head,” he seemed to say to Robinson. If he wasn’t already, the taunt ensured that he was.

Robinson responded with a forearm to Wembanyama’s neck that either knocked him to the ground or gave sufficient cover for a flop. The New York fans seemed to take it as a form of vigilante justice for a play two nights prior when Wemby had shoved Knicks star Jalen Brunson in the first quarter of Game 3.

That physicality had been largely overlooked by the referees en route to the Knicks’ first loss in 46 days. It snapped not just a 13-game win streak but also the magic spell that made it seem like sports are only ever a source of community and camaraderie.

  

Forget that nonsense. The Knicks’ loss in Game 3 brought out the pedants, the conspiracy theorists, the fans who take it too far, and also an eminently credible concern that unequal officiating had benefited the Spurs as much as a Knicks’ offense derided by their own head coach for being “as stagnant as I’ve seen us all year.”

Oh yeah, and also President Donald Trump had been in attendance and was met with thunderous boos.

Something soured Monday night at Madison Square Garden and the stench of spoilt optimism wafted into Wednesday. All day, the spokespeople for the city and the arena sniped at each other in statements about the security around MSG and the fate of a watch party caught in the snares. The result was that the watch party was canceled and an official statement put out by the world’s most famous arena used the phrase “party pooper.” (Worth noting: It was Knicks owner James Dolan who ultimately pulled the plug on said party.)

All of which is to say: the air inside the Garden was already vibrating with tension when the game got off to an ugly start. And so the crowd applauded Robinson, even as he was awarded a flagrant foul, for his aggression. If they couldn’t see a clinching game, maybe they could at least see some catharsis in the form of physical altercation. And, besides, in the first half, there were scant other opportunities to cheer.

‘We’re fine’

The Knicks went to the locker room down 27, the Spurs staked to the largest lead by a road team in NBA Finals history. Where would a collapse in the Finals from coming home up 2-0 to ultimately squander the series rank in the pantheon of Knicks’ indignities? Somewhere, the more superstitious fans probably felt that this is precisely why they never let themselves expect good things.

To know the Knicks is to know better.

Coach Mike Brown didn’t show any film at halftime. He let his players sit with their disappointment. Before the game he had told OG Anunoby that he needed to get on the glass more. You’re a big, strong guy, his coach told Anunoby, time to use that size and athleticism to make an impact.

But at halftime, the coaches mostly let the players talk among themselves. Jose Alvarado, a reserve guard born in Brooklyn, said that even if they couldn’t close the gap completely, they had to play a whole lot harder in the second half, show everyone the first 24 minutes had been a fluke before the series returns to San Antonio.

“We’re fine. Stay with it, we’re fine,” Anunoby told his teammates.

Brown told them to play faster, move the ball more, keep the floor spaced out. He told them they needed to be a little lucky, and also to make their own luck.

The Knicks outscored the Spurs 58-30 in the second half. As the Spurs lead shrunk, the roar of the crowd inside MSG raged. Wembanyama missed 10 of his last 12 shots and three of his last four free throws. Maybe he was wearing down. Or maybe he was rattled.

“Man, shoutout to our fans, man. They stuck with us. It was an ugly, ugly game,” Karl-Anthony Towns said later. “They stayed in them seats and they kept cheering for us and they kept finding ways to give us energy. This is a testament to them, the grit, the resiliency, the way of New York.”

A Garden party of epic proportions

On the final scoring play of the game, with 1.2 seconds remaining, Brunson shot a long three-point attempt, which bounced off the rim before being tipped back into the basket by Anunoby. It gave the Knicks a 107-106 lead.

“That has to be the most iconic shot in the history of New York basketball,” Brown said of the feat.

And the amazing part was that everyone in the building seemed to know that instantly.

“It feels cool. I mean, everyone’s pretty excited. I’m excited, too,” Anunoby said before bursting into laughter at the obvious dissonance of describing something so momentous that nonchalantly.

“I think for me, you could see my reaction, the emotion, it kind of spilled out of that moment,” said Karl-Anthony Towns, who grew up outside the city in north Jersey. “It was tears of joy.”

“I was about to cry,” Alvarado agreed.

Towns called it a collective joy when the Spurs failed to score on the final possession.

“I think we all felt something, like that emotion, that was special,” Towns said. “It’s something that MSG hasn’t had that kind of moment in a long time, so shoutout to our fans for real.”

For a while, no one left. That was the defining feature of the immediate aftermath of one of the most iconic basketball wins ever.

Fans stayed and sang and cheered and filmed themselves and each other and the court where they just saw history happen. What did it feel like? The deeper resonance depends on each person’s particular context. But the shared part was the sheer presence.

  

We were all here for this.

Before he took questions, before he insisted there was nothing to celebrate yet and preached the 0-0 mindset that turned the focus to the next game, Brunson talked about Jonathan. He sat down at the podium for his post-game press conference, well over an hour after the game ended, and sent out his heart and thoughts and prayers to the family of Jonathan, whom he met over FaceTime recently as part of the Make-A-Wish Foundation and the Garden of Dreams Foundation.

Jonathan had a heart condition and today Brunson received some news about him.

“May God rest his soul,” the star of the New York Knicks said.

That’s the thing about being here, whenever here is, not everyone gets to be. And anything that makes us stop and appreciate that fact in the moment, like a game that goes down in history, is worth savoring.