Brunson

SAN ANTONIO — Go crazy, New York. Or, perhaps more accurately, crazier.

The red-hot Knicks are going home, two wins away from an NBA championship that the capital of the world has been waiting to see for generations.

Jalen Brunson hit a go-ahead free throw with 9.5 seconds left after a turnover by Victor Wembanyama moments earlier, then Wembanyama missed a jumper at the end of New York’s 105-104 win over the San Antonio Spurs on Friday night for a 2-0 lead in the NBA Finals.

“What a ballgame,” Knicks coach Mike Brown marveled.

Karl-Anthony Towns had 21 points and 13 rebounds, while Brunson and Mikal Bridges each scored 20 for the Knicks. They have won 13 straight, the second-longest streak by any team in NBA playoff history.

“New York City showed up,” Towns said. “The fans showed up. The energy showed up. And we found a way to get it done.”

The Knicks are just the third team to win the first two games of a finals on the road, joining Michael Jordan and the 1993 Chicago Bulls, and Hakeem Olajuwon and the 1995 Houston Rockets.

Both of those teams won championships, the Bulls needing six games to oust the Phoenix Suns, the Rockets going home after winning those first two games in Orlando and sweeping the Magic. The Knicks, seeking their first championship since 1973, are in position to join them.

Wembanyama, after a very quiet first half, scored 29. De’Aaron Fox had 20 for San Antonio.

“We can’t change the past,” Wembanyama said, “We’re already thinking about Game 3.”

The series shifts to New York. Game 3 is at Madison Square Garden on Monday night.

New York Knicks guard Landry Shamet, left, celebrates with guard Mikal Bridges after making a three-pointer in the second half against the San Antonio Spurs in Game 2 of the NBA Finals on Friday.

(David J. Phillip / Associated Press)

President Donald Trump — a native New Yorker — plans on attending Monday. And ticket prices on the secondary market, for the worst seats at MSG, were approaching $9,000 apiece on Friday night, with Knicks fans evidently willing to pay tippy-top dollar just to be in the building as the team nears what would be its first championship in 53 years.

The Spurs were down 14 midway through the fourth and came all the way back — scoring the next 14 points to tie the game. Wembanyama’s three-point play with 57 seconds left gave the Spurs their first lead in nearly two full quarters, putting San Antonio up 104-102.

“We showed tremendous desperation, urgency and competitive response,” Spurs coach Mitch Johnson said. “Hopefully we can try to bottle that up … and try to play to that same level.”

But the Knicks got the last three, Brunson — the hero of Game 1 for the Knicks — getting them all.

Brunson scored on the next possession, just his seventh basket in 24 shots on the night, and the game was tied. Wembanyama missed a long jumper, OG Anunoby got the rebound for New York with 30 seconds left, the Knicks called time and the stage was set.

The Spurs got a stop, but Wembanyama threw the ball away. Brunson got fouled, the Knicks had the lead back and before long Spurs fans were filing out of the arena — possibly for the final time this season.

The Spurs called time with 7.5 seconds remaining. Fox took the inbound pass, then set up Wembanyama for a jumper that would have won it. The shot bounced off the rim, and it was over.

“We had to get a stop. We hadn’t gotten a stop all quarter,” Towns said.

They got their stop. Next stop: New York, where the hottest team in basketball knows an NBA title is just two wins away.

Reynolds writes for the Associated Press.

The New York Knicks’ winning streak lives on, and they struck first in the NBA Finals.

Jalen Brunson scored 30 points, Karl-Anthony Towns finished with 18 points and 12 rebounds, and the Knicks erased a 14-point second-half deficit to beat the San Antonio Spurs 105-95 in Game 1 on Wednesday night.

OG Anunoby had 17 points for New York — which has won 12 consecutive playoff games, the seventh team to have such a streak in NBA history.

And the Knicks, who finished on an 11-0 run, made a little more history. They became the first team to beat San Antonio in a Game 1 of the title series — the Spurs were 6-0 in those — and this is also the first time the Spurs have trailed a finals before the finish.

Victor Wembanyama had 26 points and 12 rebounds for the Spurs, but he shot six for 21 from the field in his finals debut. Stephon Castle scored 17, while Julian Champagnie and Dylan Harper each had 16 for the Spurs.

Game 2 is Friday in San Antonio.

Former San Antonio coach Gregg Popovich was at the game, as he’s been for every finals game in Spurs history, albeit watching from a suite and not stomping the San Antonio sideline. The Spurs legends — David Robinson, Tim Duncan, Manu Ginobili, Bruce Bowen and more — were there, too.

So were Knicks great Patrick Ewing and the world’s most recognizable New York fans: Spike Lee, Tracy Morgan, Ben Stiller, Fat Joe, Timothée Chalamet and more. Plenty of non-celeb Knicks fans made the trip as well; Tommy Sherlock, an auto sales manager from Brooklyn, said it cost less for two Game 1 tickets in San Antonio, with hotel and airfare, than Game 3 tickets in New York would have set him back.

“First-class air, too,” Sherlock said. “By a lot.”

Victor Wembanyama of the Spurs shoots over Og Anunoby in the second half of Game 1 of the NBA Finals.

(Eric Gay / AP)

The Knicks led 14-7 early, the Spurs answered with a 20-13 run to go up by 10, the Knicks rallied and the second quarter saw six lead changes before San Antonio took a 55-48 lead into the break.

San Antonio pushed the lead to 14 midway through the third quarter before the Knicks stormed back, finishing the period on a 22-9 run and sending the game into the fourth tied at 76.

New York’s lead was eight midway through the final period. Wembanyama made a pair of free throws with 2:16 left to put San Antonio up 95-94, but Brunson made a corner three on the next possession to put the Knicks on top for good.

San Antonio’s run of never trailing the finals had some close calls over the years. The Spurs were tied twice with New Jersey in 2003 finals, tied with Detroit twice in 2005, tied with Miami three times in 2013 — they lost that series in seven games, so they only trailed when it was over — and then were tied with the Heat once more in 2014.

Quinta Brunson is taking a bet on Betty Boop.

The two-time Emmy winner is developing a film about the animated icon and will star as the doe-eyed flapper, The Times confirmed on Wednesday. The “Abbott Elementary” star and creator’s production company Fifth Chance Productions will team with cartoonist Max Fleischer’s grandson Mark Fleischer and their Fleischer Studios for the film. Variety first reported the news.

Brunson, in a news release shared with The Times, praised Betty Boop as one of the nation’s “most beloved cartoon characters” and said she realized “there was a much deeper story to tell” after she and Fifth Chance head of creative affairs Erin Wehrenberg met with the younger Fleischer. According to the release, the movie will chronicle the cartoon character’s origin and evolution through Max Fleischer’s perspective and will examine the “relationship between the artist and his creation as he navigates the creative and commercial pressures of building one of the world’s first animated icons, particularly as that icon begins to take on a life of its own.”

Betty Boop, designed by late cartoonist Myron (Grim) Natwick, first appeared in Max and Dave Fleischer‘s 1930 cartoon “Dizzy Dishes” as part of Fleischer Studio’s “Talkartoons” series. The Fleischer brothers asked Natwick to draft up a woman character for the popular song by Helen Kane, “Boop-Boop-A-Doop.” Natwick initially designed Betty as a dog’s head on the curvaceous figure of a woman and modeled her flapper hairdo on Kane’s own coif. As Betty Boop became more popular, Natwick revised his design to swap the character’s floppy dog’s ears for bangle earrings and shrinking her nose. Her curvaceous figure, flapper ‘do and large eyes remained.

Mae Questel, who provided the loopy, child-like voice of cartoon characters Betty Boop and Olive Oyl, poses in 1978 with a poster of Betty Boop.

(Associated Press)

Kane unsuccessfully sued Fleischer Studios and Paramount in 1932, alleging Betty Boop ripped off her voice, likeness and scat-singing. The performing community challenged that notion, tracing the scat-singing and gesticulations to earlier artists including Black jazz performer Baby Esther Jones and cabaret entertainer Florence Mills. The judge who oversaw the legal battle ruled against Kane.

Betty Boop was primarily featured in theatrical cartoons from 1930 to 1939 — voiced by Mae Questel — but her sex symbol status and general fabulousness made her an intergenerational icon. Earlier this year, the preliminary design of Betty Boop featured in “Dizzy Dishes” entered public domain.

“Quinta so embodies Betty’s love of life, intelligence, humor, sassiness and compassion that the relationship between her as Betty and Max burst into life at its mere mention,” Mark Fleischer said in a news release.

Brunson, though best known for the ABC comedy “Abbott Elementary,” first gained popularity in the 2010s for her viral social media comedy clips and her work on Buzzfeed. She appeared on TV series “A Black Lady Sketch Show” and “iZombie” before “Abbott Elementary,” about a group of educators at an underfunded Philadelphia elementary school, became a breakout hit in 2021.

“Abbott Elementary” has collected four Emmy Awards and was renewed in March for its sixth season at ABC.