Victor Wembanyama, Stephon Castle and the San Antonio Spurs went into the belly of the beast, with their playoff lives on the line, and won Game 3 115-111 in front of a sold-out, raucous Madison Square Garden crowd.

Both Wemby and Castle got off to quick starts and helped San Antonio build up a double-digit first quarter lead. New York fought back in the second quarter with a contributions from Jalen Brunson, Karl-Anthony Towns, OG Anunoby, Jose Alvarado and Jordan Clarkson to rally and take a 64-57 halftime lead. Early in the third quarter Julian Champagnie hit a 3 and was fouled by Jalen Brunson. The play was reviewed and the foul was upgraded to a flagrant on Brunson. Champagnie hit 1/2 from the charity stripe, but this (excuse the pun) spurred the Spurs on to take a 92-91 lead into the fourth quarter. The Knicks started the fourth period cold giving San Antonio time to build up a slight advantage.

Funnily enough, both teams won a challenge in the mid-part of the quarter and they both involved Wemby. The first instance came when Wemby nailed a straight away 3 and was fouled by Mitchell Robinson, who didn’t give him enough of a landing space after the jump shot. After review, it was determined Robinson was pushed into Wemby’s path. The 3 was wiped off the board, with Jalen Brunson hitting a layup a moment later. A minute or two after that, a loose ball went off Wemby out of bounds. He looked over to Mitch Johnson and signaled for him to challenge. The coach trusted the player’s intuition and went ahead with the challenge. It was determined Karl-Anthony Towns fouled Wemby prior to the ball going out of play, thus Wemby was awarded two free throws and made them both.

Jalen Brunson has been the man for the Knicks late in games all postseason and throughout his time as on the team. Today, he wasn’t quite his usual heroic self. He still led the team in points with 32, but, like in Game 1 and Game 2, it took an immense amount of effort and shot attempts to rack up those numbers. Mike Brown needs to figure out how to get him some easy buckets because he’s being hounded by Stephon Castle, Devin Vassell and De’Aaron Fox as soon as he touches the ball. As a small guard it can’t be fun trying to bring the ball up against such physical, handsy defenders. There are times when Brunson can shake free for a bucket or two, but can’t seem to sustain any type of offensive consistency. Kudos to the Spurs for messing up his flow.

Karl-Anthony Towns, who has been possibly the best player through Games 1 and 2, was held in check, only scoring 11-points. He wasn’t able to get his jump shot going and had to rely on tip-in’s and getting to the free throw line in order to score. All the pump fake and driving lanes that had been open were closed today. San Antonio ran a couple of other defenders at KAT like Keldon Johnson, a smaller, more mobile defender. Basically someone who wasn’t trying to block every shot he saw. This allowed Wemby to roam the paint and help whenever he saw fit, instead of guard one guy and spend all his energy chasing him around.

With 25 second left in the fourth quarter, San Antonio had a 111-108 lead and the ball. De’Aaron Fox and Wemby worked a two-man game with Fox ending up with a shot from the free throw line, which he nailed. It wasn’t a typical Fox scoring game, but he hit an incredibly clutch jumper that prolonged the Spurs season. OG Anunoby followed that up with a clutch corner 3 of his own, cutting the lead down to 113-111 SAS with 10 second left. Stephon Castle ended up with the ball, was fouled and sent to the free throw line. He too was clutch and hit both free throws, icing the win for the Spurs.

Now that the Spurs have won a game it guarantees a return to Texas and, hopefully, the arena is decked out in the fiesta colors for Game 5. However, before that, Madison Square Garden will host a pivotal Game 4 on Wednesday night. Either San Antonio will have evened the series 2-2 or the Knicks will be one game away from their first NBA championship since 1973. Basketball immortality is at stake. Who is willing to push themselves the furthest and perform when the lights are brightest?