OG Anunoby stood on a pop-up basketball court in the middle of Times Square Tuesday, watching a group of Brooklyn streetballers try, and mostly fail, to recreate the shot that made him a New York sports legend. The Knicks forward smiled as players from Gersh Park Basketball leapt for tip-ins off his misses, echoing the exact sequence that won Game 4 of the 2026 NBA Finals with 1.2 seconds left on the clock.
The event, held at the Essentia Supercharged Court between 42nd and 43rd Streets along 7th Avenue, ran from 1 to 5 p.m. and featured an arena-style tunnel and interactive fan zones, according to PR Newswire. As Anunoby fired up shots for the streetballers to tip in, fans in the crowd broke into chants of “OG, we're going back-to-back,” according to the New York Post. Anunoby called the scene “really cool” and said he felt the same fan energy and excitement that surrounded the team after its championship win, per the same account.
A Brooklyn Crew Brings the Moment Full Circle
The streetball players tasked with recreating Anunoby's shot belong to Gersh Park Basketball, an East New York pro-am league founded in 2005 at Linden Boulevard and Vermont Street that has grown into one of the city's premier summer basketball showcases, according to BKMAG. Their presence tied the corporate pop-up to a deeper vein of New York City basketball culture, turning a marketing event into something with real neighborhood roots. The activation itself was staged under Essentia Water's Change the Equation platform, an initiative from the Nestlé-owned ionized alkaline water brand built around major sports figures.
The moment being recreated needs no introduction to Knicks fans. Anunoby scored 33 points and hit seven three-pointers in Game 4 of the Finals before tipping in a missed Jalen Brunson shot with 1.2 seconds remaining, completing what the New York Post's report and other accounts describe as the largest single-game comeback in NBA Finals history. That shot helped deliver New York its first NBA title in 53 years, ending a franchise drought dating back to 1973, when a Knicks team led by Willis Reed, Walt Frazier and Earl Monroe last hoisted the trophy, as Hoodline previously reported.
From a Ring He Couldn't Play For to a Title He Won on the Floor
Anunoby had already won an NBA championship ring once before, with the Toronto Raptors in 2019, but he never got to play in that postseason after an emergency appendectomy sidelined him during the run. This year's title marked the first championship Anunoby actually won on the court, a distinction that has amplified his standing among Knicks fans who watched him deliver the decisive shot themselves. He played for the Raptors less than three years before the Times Square event, a stretch of time that has taken him from a mid-season trade piece to a defining presence in New York sports.
The Knicks acquired Anunoby from Toronto in December 2023, sending RJ Barrett, Immanuel Quickley and a 2024 second-round pick to the Raptors while netting Precious Achiuwa and Malachi Flynn in the deal. New York later locked him up with a five-year, $212.5 million contract extension in July 2024. Anunoby's regular-season averages of 16.7 points and 5.2 rebounds per game rose to 20.3 points and 6.1 rebounds per game in the playoffs, numbers that underscore how his production climbed when the stakes got higher.
Awards, Appearances and an Eastern Conference in Flux
The recognition for that tip-in has followed Anunoby well beyond the court. His Game 4 play won Best Play at the ESPYs with his Knicks teammates in attendance, and he has since appeared on Good Morning America alongside other Knicks players and attended a World Cup match next to Mikal Bridges and Miles McBride. Anunoby has also played alongside Jalen Brunson and Karl-Anthony Towns as the trio has become closely associated with the team's championship run.
Looking ahead, the Knicks plan to begin their title defense in just over two months, opening the season against a Philadelphia 76ers team that has retooled its roster with LeBron James in free agency and Jaylen Brown acquired via trade from the Boston Celtics. Anunoby described the offseason turnover across the conference as fairly typical, noting shifts elsewhere too, including the Indiana Pacers welcoming back Tyrese Haliburton after he missed the entire 2025–26 season and the Miami Heat landing Giannis Antetokounmpo in a major offseason move. For now, though, the attention in Times Square stayed fixed on one shot, one city and one very loud chant for a repeat.
