For half a heartbeat it felt like this was going to be one more Band-Aid for a broken heart, one more time when the Knicks would play Lucy, snatch the football back just before you kicked it. They had been down 29 points. They had looked dead, because they were dead, because they looked helpless against the Spurs.

How bad was it?

At one point Victor Wembenyama poked his head with his right index finger, a message not only to the Knicks but also the 19,812 who’d made it their mission to get under his skin but instead had been given a whole different message.

“I’m in your head,” Wembanyama was saying.