As a viewer, there are few things in sports better than a good comeback. Unless you’re a fan of the losing team, who doesn’t enjoy watching a team scratch and claw their way back into a game and take the lead in the closing seconds?

On Wednesday night, we were treated to one of the best games in NBA history. And that’s not recency bias. I don’t watch a ton of NBA, but I know a lot of people who do, and all of them were calling Wednesday night one of the craziest games they’ve ever watched.

The San Antonio Spurs took a 27-point lead into halftime of Game 4 of the NBA Finals, and it looked like the game was over. The Spurs were on fire, setting the NBA Finals record for most three pointers in a half with 14, while the Knicks looked dead in the water offensively.

Admittedly, I turned the game off. I thought there was no way in hell the Knicks were going to overcome a 27-point halftime deficit, but sure enough, when I checked my phone with about five minutes left, New York was trailing by just seven points. I immediately turned the game back on and watched them continue to chip away at the Spurs’ lead.

If you watched the game, you know how it ended. The Knicks cut the lead to one with mere seconds on the clock, and after Jalen Brunson’s three pointer came up short, OG Anunoby tipped it in to secure the win and give the Knicks a 3-1 lead in the Finals.

As I was watching, I got to thinking: was this the biggest choke job ever?

More on the Spurs’ Massive Meltdown

Before we start comparing this game to what many believe is the biggest choke job in the history of sport, let’s take a deeper dive into just how impressive this comeback was.

First of all, the Knicks’ 29-point comeback was the largest in NBA Finals history. There have been 79 NBA Finals, and as of Wednesday night, 416 Finals games played. Even if you have watched every single one of them, you have never witnessed something like what happened on Wednesday night.

On top of their historic comeback, the Knicks orchestrated one of the greatest halftime turnarounds we’ve ever seen. They were outscored 76 to 49 in the first half, but managed to turn the tables and hold the red-hot Spurs to just 30 second half points. That’s less than the Spurs scored in the first quarter (41) and the second quarter (35).

We already highlighted San Antonio’s scorching start from behind the arc. They set the NBA Finals record for most threes in a half after shooting 14-for-26 from behind the arc in the first 24 minutes, but they followed it up with a 3-for-17 performance in the second half. What a turnaround defensively for New York.

But they didn’t just crank up the head defensively. Offensively, the Knicks shot 4-for-12 (33 percent) from three in the first half, but went 11-for-20 (55 percent) from behind the arc in the second half. OG Anunoby was perfect from deep in the second half, going 5-for-5, while Jose Alvarado and Jalen Brunson also knocked down a pair.

But it wasn’t all on the Knicks being great. To fumble a 29-point lead, you have to make some boneheaded decisions as well.

The Spurs fluffed a lot of things up in the second half, but the biggest blunder came in the closing seconds of the game. After Jalen Brunson missed the go-ahead layup, De’Aaron Fox got out on a fast break with 16 seconds left. He could’ve turned around and drained the clock until the Knicks fouled him, but instead, he went up for a layup with Anunoby right behind him and got blocked.

I used to coach rec league basketball, and I think every single one of my 8th grade players would’ve turned around and dribbled the ball out until they were fouled. Fox has been playing professional basketball for nearly a decade and still made this mistake. It’s just unfathomable.

But it’s not all on Fox. Like I said, the Spurs made a ton of boneheaded mistakes, the first of which was when they decided to stop being aggressive. They settled for far too many jump shots late in the game and straight up refused to attack the rim. The players need to be aggressive, but that falls on the coach. As soon as you see them sit back and relax, you have to get on them and make sure they don’t get too comfortable, because that’s exactly what happened.

It’s hard to put into words just how bad of a choke job this was. You literally have to go back almost a decade to find one in any sport that was as bad as this.

28-3

When you think about the greatest choke jobs in sports history, the Atlanta Falcons’ meltdown in the Super Bowl has to be the first one that comes to mind. It’s hard to think of a time that any sports team gifted away a championship like the Falcons did back in February of 2017.

Let’s set the stage a bit. The Falcons were led by Matt Ryan, who took home the MVP after throwing for 4,944 yards and 38 touchdowns while leading Atlanta to an 11-5 record and the 2-seed in the NFC. After their first round bye, the Falcons whooped up on the Seattle Seahawks, 36-20, before dismantling the Aaron Rodgers-led Green Bay Packers in the NFC Championship. The Falcons looked unstoppable heading into the Super Bowl, but so did the New England Patriots, who were led by none other than Tom Brady.

Brady and the Patriots went 14-2 in the regular season and were coming off of two 18+ point victories in the playoffs. They were three-point favorites over Matt Ryan’s Falcons in the Super Bowl, but after one half, it looked like Atlanta was going to pull off the upset.

The Falcons got off to an incredibly fast start, scoring 21 unanswered points in the first half before the Patriots kicked a last-second field goal to make it 21-3 at the break. After back-to-back punts to start the half, Atlanta got on the board again with an eight-play, 85-yard touchdown drive, making it 28-3 with 8:31 left in the third quarter.

That should’ve been the game. With 23 minutes on the clock, there is absolutely no reason Atlanta should’ve lost that game. But that’s what makes sports so great. Even when a team looks dead in the water, they’re never out of it until the fat lady sings.

Three of the next four Patriots drives would end in a touchdown, and the lone one that didn’t end in six resulted in a field goal. Meanwhile, the Falcons punted three times and fumbled once, which allowed New England to claw their way back into it and tie the game with under a minute to go in the fourth quarter.

As I’m sure pretty much everyone knows, the Pats would go on to win the overtime coin toss and drive 75 yards down the field to score the game-winning touchdown and complete the biggest comeback in Super Bowl history.

Which One Was Worse?

The Spurs’ meltdown is one of the worst meltdowns in sports history. They were up 29 points in the second half and had the chance to tie the series up 2-2 before heading back to San Antonio for Game 5. They were unstoppable in the first half, but they kept tripping over their own feet and making boneheaded decisions in the second half, which cost them the game.

But, the Spurs were also playing a true road game in one of the most hostile environments in the NBA, and losing this game didn’t lose them the Finals. It’s going to be 10x harder to overcome a 3-1 deficit, but it’s been done before. So in my opinion, the biggest choke job has to go to the Falcons.

Atlanta entered this game with precisely zero Super Bowl titles to their name. They had only made on Super Bowl appearance in their history, and it was a blowout loss to the Denver Broncos in 1999. This was their chance to join their NFC South rivals, the New Orleans Saints and Tampa Bay Buccaneers, as Super Bowl champions. But they Falcon’d in the most Falcon way possible.

I get they lost to Tom Brady, but they were up 25 points with 23 minutes to go. That is nearly impossible to overcome in football. In basketball, you can score 10 points in a minute if you get hot, but in football, it takes time to put a drive together, and then you have to stop your opponent from draining the clock when they have the ball.

Don’t get me wrong, the Spurs’ blowup might be the second-biggest choke job in sports history, especially if the Spurs end up losing the Finals, but 28-3 still takes the cake, and I don’t know if it’ll ever be topped.