made a shot with 0.8 seconds remaining in Game 5 of that series, the Knicks were victorious and became the second team in NBA history after the 1993-94 Denver Nuggets to win a playoff series as the eighth seed. The Knicks faced the Atlanta Hawks next. Hawks center Dikembe Mutombo guaranteed a victory, but the Knicks prevailed in a four-game sweep to set up a matchup with the Indiana Pacers in the Eastern Conference Finals. Knicks center Patrick Ewing was lost for the series after the first two games against Indiana. In the third game, with 11.9 seconds left and the Knicks trailing 91–88, the Knicks' Larry Johnson made a three-point shot while being fouled and converted the subsequent free throw for a game-winning four-point play; the victory gave the Knicks a 2–1 lead in the series. The Knicks won Game 6 and prevailed in the series. Road to the Finals Regular season series The Knicks and Spurs did not play each other in the regular season. 1999 NBA Finals team rosters San Antonio Spurs New York Knicks Result The Spurs won the NBA Finals 4 games to 1. Spurs forward Tim Duncan was named the Most Valuable Player of the finals. On June 25 (two years to the day that Duncan was drafted by the Spurs), with 47 seconds to go in Game 5, Avery Johnson hit the game-winner. The Knicks scored 39 points in the second half, and Sprewell scored 25 of them, with fourteen of his points coming in the fourth quarter. However, he could not hit either of his couple of jump shots in the last half-minute of the game that could have affected the outcome. Tim Duncan scored 31 points and nine rebounds in the decisive Game 5 while averaging 27.4 points and fourteen rebounds with 2.4 assists and 2.2 blocks in the Finals. Series summary The Finals were played using a 2–3–2 site format, where the first two and last two games are held at the team with home court advantage. The NBA, after experimenting in the early years, restored this original format for the Finals between 1985 and 2013. In 2014, the Finals returned to a 2–2–1–1–1 site format. Game 1 Game 2 Game 3 Game 4 Game 5 Player statistics San Antonio Spurs |- | align="left" | || 4 || 0 || 6.0 || .800 || 1.000 || .000 || 0.5 ||